Last week, UCD Smurfit EMBA YR2 students Jim Gannon, Steve Kelly, Peter Lee and Shaun O’Keeffe were in Montreal, Canada participating in the 33rd annual John Molson MBA international case competition. This competition, hosted by Concordia University, is the oldest and largest business case competition in the world. This year there were 36 schools participating from 13 countries and the UCD team competed directly against teams from Canada, Singapore, Sweden and the United States. Over 250 senior executives act as judges for the participating teams.
The team performed well in the competition, narrowly missing out on a place in the semi-finals by a single win, and were awarded the competitions’ distinguished Richard Outcault Award. Established in 1999 by Northeastern University, this award is given to the school that best reflects the integrity, collegiality and competitive spirit of the competition. It is voted on by the coaches of all participating colleges which included business academics from Yale; Notre Dame; Purdue, and Concordia inter alia.
Along with Coach, Professor Pat Gibbons, UCD overcame the challenges of geography and severe weather conditions to make it to the competition. In addition to support from UCD Smurfit, the team gratefully received significant sponsorship from both Molson Coors Ireland and Aer Lingus. The team took the opportunity to forge links with both Canadian and International business leaders and are already exploring a business opportunity with one of the lead sponsors of the competition.
