Stetson University students were named winners of the Capitol Hill Bracket of the 17th annual McDonough Business Strategy Challenge at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The international competition brings together top business-school students from around the world with consulting professionals to provide a nonprofit organization with innovative solutions to real-world challenges.
This year, the other bracket winners included the University of Toronto, Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, and Singapore Management University.
Stetson’s team members included Bec Hett (team captain), a senior human resource management and religious studies major; Amandine Louis-Charles, a junior international studies and accounting major; Matthew Clements, a senior finance major; and Mark Manglardi, a senior management major.
Faculty advisers for the Business Ethics Case Competition (BECC) Team are Dr. Jim Beasley, Dr. John Tichenor and Dr. Areti Vogel, with Tichenor serving as the lead coach for this competition.
“Participation in the Georgetown Competition was an experience that will benefit me for the rest of my professional career,” Louis-Charles, who is from Bradenton, said in a news release.
The Stetson team competed against four other teams in the Capitol Hill Bracket, including Babeș-Bolyai University of Romania, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Calgary, and ESADE Business School. Each of these schools has award-winning business case competition programs, and Stetson was truly up against the best in the world.
“This intellectual challenge moved me to a new level in the development of skills that will undergird my continuing professional development,” said Manglardi, from Winter Park.
Matthew Clements, who is also a punter on Stetson’s football team and who hails from Melbourne, Australia, said, “I had a fantastic time working on the case, and it was an honor to collaborate with my teammates.”
Stetson was the smallest university to field a team in the international competition and the only U.S.-based school to make the finals. Other U.S. schools in the competition included Emory University, Florida State University, Georgetown University, Oakland University, and The George Washington University.
Teams were given a real-life business case and 28 hours to develop a solution. The teams developed their plans based on a thorough analysis of the financial, market and managerial aspects of the organization and then delivered a 20-minute presentation on their plan and recommendations and answered intense questions from business professionals in the D.C. area.
“The outstanding performance of Amandine, Bec, Mark and Matt on this international stage is both illustrative of the capability of our students and illustrative of the core values of the university,” said Tichenor, associate professor of management and the Eugene M. Lynn Chair of Business. “Our students continue to embrace and apply the values of integrity, responsibility and fairness in their analysis of real-world business issues. This is one of the many ways we give our students opportunities for experiential learning beyond the classroom walls.”