Rotman Team Wins Regional A.T. Kearney Global Prize Competition

For the past 19 years, A.T. Kearney has hosted an annual prestigious strategy case competition for the world’s top business schools. The competition asks teams to tackle a simulated engagement of a real client challenge and come up with an actionable strategic solution that provides real value. For the second time in three years, the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management team of Full-Time MBA students won the North American leg of the competition.

The team, “Recession Proof” won a $10,000 prize along with a trip to Chicago to compete in the North American and Global finals. Made up of first year Rotman MBA students— Carl Saldanha, Mehdy Shaikhali, Alfonso Torres, and Ankita Wasan—the team beat out many other leading business schools including the Booth School of Business and Kellogg School of Management.

The goal of the competition is to provide students with the taste of the life of a real life consultant and to test students’ interview skills to see how well they can apply the lessons learned at business school. In a recent press release from Rotman, the winning team admitted that the competition was an enjoyable experience.

“Through multiple submissions, many ‘aha!’ moments and a version history large enough to need its own hard drive, the four of us have had an amazing experience working on the Global Prize Case Competition. The competition was a great platform to experience a real life consulting case, which helped us grow individually, and as a group. While working together, we were able to bring out each other’s strengths and learn from each other in a fun, transparent and collaborative team environment. All in all, we had a fantastic time and built lasting relationships—with each other, with schools in North America, and with A. T. Kearney as a firm,” said the team members.

At Rotman, each year a maximum of 12 teams, of four members each, are invited to develop a business strategy for a key client. The top teams are then selected, based on their responses, to participate in the A.T. Kearney challenge. In the Global Finals, the winning team finished second to the London Business School.

The Rotman School of Management is one of the world’s top 20 research universities with an MBA program ranked as the #1 MBA in Canada by the Financial Times.

regions: Toronto

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