Competitions Bring Nation’s Best to Campus

Two of the school’s highest profile student competitions continue to attract top business schools from around the world to campus.

Wake Forest MBA Marketing Summit 2007

Wake Forest MBA Elevator Competition 2007

February’s 2007 Wake Forest MBA Marketing Summit featured corporate sponsor Motorola and teams of MBA students from eight schools. Each team spent 36 hours developing a marketing strategy for positioning Motorola’s new Q product to small to medium U.S. companies.

MBA teams from the University of Virginia, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the University of Washington finished first, second and third, respectively. Other schools competing in the case competition were Cal-Berkeley, Dartmouth, Indiana, Michigan State and Wake Forest.

The summit also included the annual Undergraduate Challenge, with teams from Pennsylvania, Florida and Boston College placing first through third, respectively; and a marketing forum, “Breaking Through the Clutter: How Marketers Can Reach Consumers in Today’s Technology-Driven Environment.”

Two schools from China were among those that competed in the seventh annual Elevator Competition, held at the Wachovia Center in downtown Winston-Salem in March.

Entrepreneurially minded MBA students compete by pitching their business plans to a venture capitalist during a pair of two-minute elevator rides, with the goal of earning additional face time with venture capitalists that judge the competition. The winning team – from Carnegie Mellon – earned $45,000 in cash and professional services and the chance to pursue discussions and possible funding of their business plan.

A Babcock team that included students Wesley Burgess (‘07 Ev), Ben King (‘07 Ft) and Daniel Beaudry (’09 JD/MBA) placed third. Teams from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Peking University competed along with students Arkansas, Babson, Chicago, Duke, Michigan, New York University and Yale.