For the second straight year, a team of four Business students from the University of Guelph-Humber has won the top spot at Dalhousie University’s Ethics in Action Case Competition.
With students from across the country involved in the competition – at both the undergraduate and graduate level – UofGH’s team of Conor Kelly, Cristina Morrone, Emma Lal and Pankush Jhamat finished first overall among undergraduate students.
“The competition was a lot more challenging than the previous year,” said Business Assistant Program Head Justin Medak, who devotes hours of time to helping UofGH students prepare for case competitions. “Coaches from other universities watched our winning strategy last year and attempted to replicate our approach.
“It speaks to the perseverance of our team to deliver a second consecutive first place victory.”
The Ethics in Action competition tasked students with preparing two separate presentations for judges. For the first presentation, the students were given 10 days to prepare a deep-case analysis and presentation. On the second day, however, students had only three hours and no resources available to them to craft a solution to a business problem that included an ethical dilemma.
It’s only the beginning of the Case Competition season for UofGH, which has thrived in case competitions in recent years.
“This win gives UofGH 55 top 3 case competition finishes in the past two years, including a third place finish at Harvard,” said Assistant Vice-Provost and Business Program Head Dr. George Bragues. “In a very short period of time, our students have had incredible results in case competitions despite competing with some of the best of the best.”
Last year alone, UofGH managed a university-record 17 first-place finishes in case competitions.
This year, competitors will have a new opportunity thanks to UofGH recently being admitted into the Network of International Business Schools (NIBS). NIBS holds one of the longest-running case competitions in the world, and with the first round opening in November, Medak is confident UofGH can put together an admirable showing.
Of course, Medak notes that UofGH students work extremely hard – often in their free time – to prepare for success at case competitions.
“Our team put in over 50 hours of reading, studying and training prior to the prepared case and 100 hours total,” Medak said. “The dedication to success was unwavering while the team juggled training, midterms, attending classes and working part-time jobs.”
