Notre Dame Mendoza Team Takes Top Prize in Annual International Case Competition
A team of Notre Dame Mendoza School of Business MBA students won first place and a cash prize of $5,000 in the 22nd Annual International Case Competition (ICC). The competition was held earlier this month at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and was organized by Tepper’s Operations Management Club.
The competition provides student teams experience in organizing and prioritizing issues, applying decision-making skills, working in teams, and developing innovative solutions—all under the pressure of competition, according to the Operations Management Club. The competition unfolds over two rounds—a 20-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute Q&A session in the first round, and a 30-minute presentation to the judges in the finals.
The Mendoza team was made up of Christopher Kunnen (’18), Austin Gilbertson (’19), and Zachary Kozak (’18). They beat out 10 teams from top universities across the country, including MIT Sloan School of Management and Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business.
“Overall, case competitions are a great experiential component to the MBA experience,” Kozak said. “The competitions combine both real-world problem solving and simulating the time-constraint project management challenges that we as professionals will experience in the future.”
Mendoza’s MBA winners, from left to right: Zachary Kozak, Christopher Kunnen, and Austin Gilbertson/Photo courtesy of the Mendoza College of Business
The Notre Dame MBA team won thanks to their ability to identify the key issues in the case and its development of data-driven insights and recommendations that went beyond expectations.
“We employed a key take-away from one of our favorite professors, Dan Connors, who teaches the course Lessons from Turnaround Situations in the fall term,” Kozak said. “Dan, a former Bain consultant, conveyed to us early on to follow the strategy of ‘Listen, Deliver and then Add’ for any business problem. We replicated this approach when analyzing the problem and then building our presentation.”
ICC also connects leading operations talent with multinational sponsor companies for networking and recruiting opportunities, including Eaton, Amazon, and Emerson.
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Max Pulcini
Max Pulcini is a Philadelphia-based writer and reporter. He has an affinity for Philly sports teams, Super Smash Bros. and cured meats and cheeses. Max has written for Philadelphia-based publications such as Spirit News, Philadelphia City Paper, and Billy Penn, as well as national news outlets like The Daily Beast.
