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Relying on their analytical skills, a team of GSB students took first place in the final round of the 10th annual A.T. Kearney Global Prize January 12, beating other business school teams from the United States and Europe. The global prize earned them $10,000.
Their global win followed their November 18 victory in the second round when they competed against teams from North America. Dubbed GSB Angel, the student team offered solutions backed up with statistics. “The judges were impressed that we could prove it all with the data,” said team member James Huyghe, a first-year student.
In the November competition, teams from six top business schools were assigned to help one of A.T. Kearney’s clients whose market share was not increasing as fast as it used to. Acting as management consultants, students were charged with developing a five-year plan and showing in detail how it could be implemented. GSB Angel used an approach “very much in line with scholars,” said first-year student Serrano Bezerra, another team member. “We tried to make a case based not on what we think but on what the numbers show,” Bezerra said. “The judges highlighted that.”
A.T. Kearney’s real-life consultants acted as the client in simulations, provided feedback on the teams’ efforts, and shared insights on the consulting process. GSB Angel defeated teams from MIT, Wharton, Kellogg, Michigan, Columbia, and Carnegie Mellon.
The November contest, which took place at A.T. Kearney’s Chicago office, represented the second round of this competition. During the first round on November 10, GSB Angel beat 20 teams from Chicago GSB, winning $2,000. GSB Angel was one of seven that advanced to the finals, representing Chicago GSB in a competition that included six other top business schools. “We received new data and had to incorporate it into our presentations,” Huyghe said. Taking the top spot in the second round earned the team $8,000.
Other members of GSB Angel are first-year students Diana Zou and David He of China. Bezerra is a native of Brazil and Huyghe of Belgium. Even though none of the team members knew each other beforehand, they worked together very efficiently, Huyghe said. “We had good team interaction,” Bezerra said. “Being from different regions, it was very interesting how we interacted and how we set up to do the best we could and leverage our perspectives.”
Huyghe said he took part in the competition to get a feel for management consulting. “I’ve previously worked in consulting, but not really management consulting,” he said. “I wanted to get a taste of what it really is. For many of our team members, that was important.”
In the competition team members were able to utilize what they learned in course work during their first quarter at the GSB, Bezerra said. “We applied some of the concepts we were learning in microfinance,” he said. “Dave also had marketing class and brought in some of the concepts he was learning there, and that helped as well. I was really impressed at how quickly we were able to apply concepts learned in the first quarter.”
—Phil Rockrohr