Only a few months into Ivey’s HBA Program, HBA1 students were thrust into a whirlwind of a week. Their assignment for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Case Competition was to analyze three different cases and present their findings and recommendations to a panel of judges – and with just four hours to prepare each one.
Now in its 21st year, the BCG Case Competition is one part of the mandatory Learning Through Action course and four days of intense competition. Students are divided into 80 teams and each competes within their sections. Eight finalists – one team from each section – are chosen to present in the final round to BCG executives.
Team 65 from Section 7 took home the first place prize. The winning HBA students were Will Biderman, Michael Chen, Elliott Foley, Kate Hall, Alif Karmali, Irma Natale, Richard Wang, and Jackie Zhang.
Hello from the other side
What makes the experience truly unique is the judges have been here before. Almost all of the BCG judges are Ivey grads themselves, and have competed in this same case competition when they were HBA students.
Kyle Ruttan, HBA ’10, and Matt Page, HBA ’13, along with their colleague Lawrence Kuo, were this year’s final round judges. Ruttan and Page shared memories from their HBA1 year as well as tips on what they look for in the presentations.
“I remember it being overwhelming,” Ruttan said. “Coming into Ivey, there’s so much going on, and then this case comp hits. It was a lot of fun getting to know other people in my section. It’s definitely stressful, but also a great learning opportunity.”
“It’s a pressure cooker situation,” Page said. “You get the case and the first thing you say is ‘We need to get to action right away.’ I’d encourage students to pause, take 10 minutes to get input from everyone on the team, and ask the very basic questions like what gives us the right to win and why are we here? It can fundamentally change the trajectory of your team.”
So what makes a winning team? Ruttan and Page say they look for students who can see the bigger picture.
“You can spot a good team when the students think of the holistic picture, not just ‘what’s the obvious answer?’,” Page said. “That’s what we do every day at BCG and what gets our clients to change.”
“The winning teams are the ones who are able to tell a story,” Ruttan said. “It wasn’t just rapid fire through every piece of analysis they did. They bring you along – from the highlights of what they looked at and considered, to why they went in that direction, to their recommendation, and finally why they think it makes sense.”
Eight other BCG representatives judged the third round of student presentations:
- James Boudreau, HBA '15
- Erik Garbin, HBA '13
- Zach Hamel, HBA '16
- Vithushan Jeyakumaran
- Ariel Koschitzky, MBA '16
- Ally Maringola, HBA '14
- Alyssa Moledina, HBA '15
- Kyle Trahair, HBA '15
“We’re always excited to come back and happy to be part of this,” Ruttan said. “We’re looking forward to Number 22 and beyond.”
And the winners are…
First Place from Section 7 (Team 65) – Will Biderman, Michael Chen, Elliott Foley, Kate Hall, Alif Karmali, Irma Natale, Richard Wang, Jackie Zhang
Second Place from Section 6 (Team 55) – Julianna Coleman, Jonathan Mui, Simran Parmar, Connor Stanton, Paige Strong, Nick Vukelic, Frank Wang, Alex Zhang
Third Place from Section 4 (Team 37) – Calvin Caracciolo, Andrei Enache, Maria FitzPatrick, Andrew Greco, Aimee He, Jeremy Korb, Renee Richardson
