Smeal Wins Big Ten MBA Case Competition
Smeal Wins Big Ten MBA Case Competition
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (April 21, 2005)—A team of four first-year MBA students from Penn State’s Smeal College of Business recently won the annual Big Ten MBA Case Competition, with two Smeal students also earning individual accolades.
Held at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business April 14 - 16, the competition called on MBA teams from each of the 11 Big Ten institutions to propose venture capital funding strategies to support the expansion of BabyCare Ltd. into China. Teams were given 24 hours for analysis and preparation, with judges acting as venture capitalists and teams functioning as company executives.
Smeal’s team of Erin Bauer, Steve Bisbee, Arun Gopalakrishnan, and Ben O’Neil finished ahead of Ohio State in second place and Wisconsin in third. Individually, O’Neil was named best speaker in the first and second rounds, with Bauer winning the question-and-answer category in the first round.
Judges for the competition included representatives from Citigroup, Ford, Nationwide Mutual Capital, The Scott’s Company, Wendy’s International, and several other companies.
The victory is the latest in a string of case competition successes this spring for the college.
* Smeal MBAs took the winning prize at the International Graduate Logistics Case Competition in Chicago.
* Smeal undergraduates finished as the top U.S. team at the University of Toronto's Rotman International Trading Competition.
* Smeal undergraduates finished third at the Marshall International Case Competition, hosted by the University of Southern California.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
