A team of Columbia Business School students won the first-place award of $20,000 in the annual Walter V. Shipley Business Leadership Case Competition, hosted by JPMorgan Chase. The five-person Columbia team — Sara Batterton '07, Laurent Jabre '06, Kirsten Muetzel '06, Eric Nadzo '06 and Andrea Turner '07 — competed against students from Kellogg, Darden and Stern at the April 19 finals in New York City. The student teams analyzed an unpublished case study written by professors and presented their analysis to a panel of industry leaders and business scholars. This year’s case involved a midsize defense and intelligence contractor that went public and received a buyout offer. The team had to decide whether to accept the offer and, if so, how to preserve the company’s values.
The Columbia students had backgrounds in engineering, banking, microfinance and nonprofit management. "For me the best part of this experience was working with such a diverse team and really collaborating to develop a cohesive strategy," says Muetzel, the team captain.
The panel of judges consisted of Walter V. Shipley, former chairman of the Chase Manhattan Corporation; Kimberly Davis, president of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation; David H. Langstaff, former CEO of Veridian Corporation (and the protagonist of the case); Rakesh Khurana, a professor at Harvard Business School; and Joel M. Podolny, dean of the Yale School of Management.