Beedie MBAs advance to compete at World Economic Forum

A team of MBA students from the Beedie School of Business has progressed to the final round of the prestigious Business for a Better World Case Competition, where they will take the stage at the 2015 World Economic Forum.

The Business for a Better World Case Competition is an international MBA competition delivered in partnership by York University’s Schulich School of Business and media organization Corporate Knights.

The competition is based on Corporate Knights’ focus on promoting an economic system where prices fully incorporate social, economic and ecological costs and benefits. Participating students were tasked with evaluating a real-world major international pharmaceutical company, in order to suggest ways that it could change its operations to improve its ranking on the Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations annual report.

The Beedie School of Business team, comprised of full-time MBA students Kate Dearness, Lisa Leong, Shaun McPhee and Adrian Mitescu, was one of the top three teams to progress through the opening two rounds.

They will now present their business plan in the final, to be held on January 23, 2015 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in front of a panel of distinguished judges.

Competing teams were asked in round one to highlight the most important sustainability key performance indicators that would make a significant impact on the environmental, social and governance metrics. The top five teams progressed to round two, where they submitted a detailed business plan outlining their meticulous strategy to advance this change.

“The team continued Beedie’s strong record in sustainability-focused competitions with a strategy of calculated risks that would make a real difference, instead of playing it safe,” said Stephanie Bertels, Associate Professor at the Beedie School of Business and the team’s faculty coach. “It is fitting that our students with be at the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum in 2015, in a year that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is describing as, ‘The year of sustainability’.”

For more information on the Business for a Better World Case Competition, visit http://www.corporateknights.com/affiliates/2015contest/