There was more than a New Year to celebrate last week at the Thompson Rivers University School of Business and Economics. The MBA Case team made it through to the semi-final round at the John Molson MBA International Case Competition Jan. 4 – 9 in Montreal.

Known as the “Olympics” of MBA Case Competitions, the competition encompasses 36 universities from around the world including Finland, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, USA, Singapore as well as top Canadian business schools. TRU went four wins and one loss in the round robin round, competing with other leading schools such as Queen’s University, University of Indiana (USA), BEM Bordeaux (France), Lund (Sweden) and HEC Montréal, placing third in the semi-finals with the University of Calgary who went on to win the competition.

TRU's MBA case team

Sara Cummings, Rhonda Dever, Talib Hussain, Guqian Zhao and Amogh Prabhu were TRU’s MBA team coached by SOBE faculty Tony Bell and Andrew Fergus.

“members left the competition not only with a sense of pride for a job well done, but increased confidence, industry knowledge, and stress management skills” – Tony Bell, MBA team coach and TRU faculty member

“The competition was a great learning experience for all involved, and members left the competition not only with a sense of pride for a job well done, but increased confidence, industry knowledge, and stress management skills,” said Bell who accompanied the students to Montreal.

Cases were presented by the industry leaders including John Molson (owner of Molson-Coors and the Montréal Canadiens) and Ray Lalonde (Vice President of Marketing for the Montréal Canadiens). Afterwards student teams were locked in a room for three hours without coaches or computers to prepare a 25 minute presentation for a panel of top business executives. Presentations were followed by an intense question period, with each team member using their individual strengths to contribute uniquely to each case.

“The School of Business and Economics and the Thompson Rivers university community is immensely proud of the team and wishes to not only thank the team for representing the university so well but to thank all of the faculty Andrew Fergus, Tony Bell, Honorio Todino, David De Medeiros, Roger Collins, Dan Thompson, Bernie Warren and Sean Finucane for the time and effort in helping to prepare the team,” said Christopher Seguin, TRU Vice-President Advancement.