On May 31st 2014, Beedie School of Business held its inaugural case competition – the SFU Beedie Net Impact Sustainability Challenge Case Competition, or in short the SFU Challenge.
This competition was born out of the desire to bring together neighboring MBA schools as well as provide students that have a passion for sustainability and an appetite for challenge and providing the opportunity to put their skills, knowledge and nerves to the test. Driven by the energetic spirit of the SFU Beedie Net Impact chapter executives, guided by the schools fantastic and supportive faculty and staff, and sponsored by generous funding received from the Dean’s Circle, CMA Centre for Innovation, GSS and SFU Beedie Net Impact, this competition was successfully delivered.
With over $3,000 in prizes, the competition brought together four Western Canadian MBA schools under the roof of the Segal Building. The eight teams came from University of Alberta School of Business, Sauder School of Business, Gustavson School of Business and, of course our one and only, Beedie School of Business. The competition was also honored to have a knowledgeable panel of judges that included Stephanie Bertels, Christie Stephenson, Lindsay McIvor, Steve Carley, Mark McCoy, Colin Stansfield and Donovan Woollard. They all brought forward various areas of expertise and asked challenging and thought-provoking questions.
The teams went head to head and put forth high quality, well thought out and professional presentations. Out of these teams, four advanced to the finals, two University of Alberta teams (Team Leonidas and Special Delivery) and two SFU teams (Team Maja and Team Snowflake). After they all delivered very diverse, yet outstanding solutions to the case, the judges delivered the ranking of the teams. Team Maja, composed of Erin Lane, Jovan Ceklaj, Adrian Mitescu and Andrew Simard, was awarded the bronze metal. Team Snowflake, comprising of Lisa Leong, Ryan Cross, Shaun McPhee and Joshua Viner, brought home the silver medal. The judges’ favorite team, which had an outstanding delivery and flow, was Special Delivery, composed of Matthew Mowbrey, Luca Petryshyn, Asif Sumnani and Alykhan Sumar.
Thanks to the high caliber of judges and teams, this competition was a success. As strong interest in the case competition was brought forward by other MBA schools, as well as participating ones, this event is deemed to grow bigger and better through the years. It was with great excitement that I lived through the planning, organizing and running of this event, and I can only hope it will only improve and become part of our class’s legacy.
To see videos of the Finals, please visit: http://media.bus.sfu.ca/netimpact/
Anca is a full-time SFU Beedie MBA Student. After finishing an undergraduate degree in Pharmacy and finishing an accredited residency program, she passionately worked as a clinical pharmacist within Fraser Health. She is VP Academic Development for Net Impact – SFU, and is an proud ambassador for the MBA program. Reach her via email @ ancajb@gmail.com, and visit her LinkedIn.