Smeal MBAs Place Second at Sustainability Comp.

A team of MBA students from the Penn State Smeal College of Business placed second in the inaugural Smeal MBA Sustainability Case Competition. The college hosted the event in its Business Building on the Penn State University Park campus. Smeal was awarded $5,000 for second place.

Purdue won the $10,000 prize for first place and Indiana took home $2,500 for third place. Teams from Dartmouth and Ohio State were the other finalists invited to campus from an initial field of 29 teams. The Smeal team included MBA students Darius Yuwono, Miguel Iturralde, Farm Chanduayvit and Shan Nie.

Participating teams were required to analyze a case about SKF, a Swedish-owned company that makes and sells sophisticated integrated bearings systems to wind turbine generator manufacturers worldwide. Smeal faculty reviewed their analyses, which were coded to assure anonymity.

This is the first year that the Smeal College of Business has hosted a sustainability competition. This is the second and final round of the competition. The first round consisted of electronic submissions of case analyses. Submissions included a PowerPoint summary of the case analysis and an Executive Summary. The winning teams from the submissions went on to compete in the final round of competition.

The five finalist teams presented their case analyses to a panel of four judges: three vice presidents from SKF and a vice president from PepsiCo. Each team’s delivery was judged on a comprehensive understanding of SKF, its industry and regulatory and legislative environment; direct and thorough answers to all questions; effective use of case material to develop credible and implementable solutions; taking full advantage of its members’ resources; and, the quality of materials used to accompany the presentation.

regions: Philadelphia

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