This team representing the Farmer School MBA program will meet their counterparts from other Cincinnati-area universities in a new case competition.
Four Farmer School MBA students are spending February in serious training, although their conditioning will all be mental. Eric Doan, Andrew Martin, Alex Wowro, and Marnie Banting will represent Miami in the inaugural ACG Cincinnati Cup MBA case competition March 5. They will face off against MBA teams from Northern Kentucky University, University of Cincinnati, and Xavier University.
The foursome emerged as the Miami team by besting three other Farmer MBA teams in an intramural competition Feb. 6, which concerned a mergers-and-acquisitions case in the aerospace industry. In mid-February, they received their Cincinnati Cup case, which also involves a mergers-and-acquisitions scenario. At the intervarsity competition March 5, to be held at Kenwood Country Club, Team Miami will present its plan to a “board of directors” (actually, a team of judges from competition sponsor companies). The winning team will take home $4000.
“This kind of real-life experience is extremely valuable to our students, and we believe it plays to the strengths of our interdisciplinary curriculum,” said Brad Bays, director of the Farmer School MBA program. “In addition, the team members hone their communication skills, another ‘must-have’ for future careers.”
All four Miami teams were critiqued by the judges at the in-house competition. Feedback ranged from the content of each presentation to the poise of the presenters and the quality of their power-point slide show. The six judges, all Miami alumni, were Todd Fister, of MeadWestvaco; Jack Lucas, of Procter & Gamble; Richard Palmer, of Cascades Advisory Group; Jerry Zobrist, of CapTEc Corp.; Krissi Barr, of Barr Corporate Success; and Mary Svitkovich, of Fidelity Investments.
The ACG Cincinnati Cup is organized by the Cincinnati chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), a professional organization for individuals and companies involved in corporate growth, development, and mergers and acquisitions. The Cincinnati Cup’s top sponsor is GE Commercial Finance.
ACG Cincinnati president Crystal Faulkner said that the competition is a way to promote the region to MBA students looking for promising careers, and an opportunity for the students to display their acumen to Cincinnati’s business professionals.
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