Pepperdine Team Earns First Place at Competition!

What a week, what a week! Baylor University hosted an Ethics Case Competition with students from MBA programs at Babson College (Boston), Baylor, Clemson, Pepperdine, Texas A & M, University of Arizona, University of Florida, Notre Dame and University of Washington.








So Liz, Nick, Alina and I took the baton on Wednesday and headed down to Waco, Texas...

I'm learning to love the great state of Texas--everything really is BIGGER there. No, for real. The antler chandeliers are bigger, the salt and pepper shakers in the shape of boots, the fonts on street signs are bigger, and even the armadillo eggs and gator fingers I ate at Buzzard Billy's restaurant--easily the biggest I have ever had before...really...yeah.

Thursday, November 1st we drew numbers and they sent us off to the topmost tower of the beautiful science center, (BIG pillars, huh) to crunch an ethical business dilemma and get our solutions ready to present in front of a panel of judges.

We beat the case up (and got beat up by it a little too) from 9 am to 9 pm in the tower--talking value chains, conflicts of interest in equity stakes, and whether to divest the venture capital group was in the best interest of all stakeholders. Sounds fun right?

After some more BBQ, it was back to the hotel to build and wordsmith the Power Point presentation, and figure out how in the heck to say and communicate all the ideas we decided on. There is a possibility we might have been up at 2:30, and we might have had an iTunes dance party or two for sanity purposes.

But come the morning, we were ready to present. Nick, Alina, me, Liz and Prof Seaman were all so great. What a team! Everybody came through and performed when it really mattered. We made it through the first round of 9 teams to 3, then presented again to a full room for the finals and...

The winner is

Pepperdine University.

A little blurb on the Baylor website, "Pepperdine University Earns First Place"

http://www.baylor.edu/business/index.php?id=51026



So we take home the memories, the trophy and the $2500 prize money with happy hearts. What an experience. To my teammates who were amazing, and to everybody who ever taught me how to work hard, take a breather when it gets tough, and not give up till you get there--THANKS!

I think I'll go sleep for 3 days...