LEAD All-Stars Challenge A Success
Harper, Maroons Claim Top Prizes
Tim Tse and Evelyn Yee
Issue date: 11/25/02 Section: GSB News
For 70 first year GSB students, Saturday 23rd November marked the culmination of over eight weeks of hard work and effort. The event? The 2002 LEAD All Stars Challenge. Seven select members from each cohort, chosen as a result of their active LEAD class participation, contribution and consummate application of LEAD skills, represented their classmates in an inter-cohort challenge at the Gleacher Center.
The All Stars Challenge, this year kindly sponsored by Merrill Lynch, is an intensive one-day competition where each team is given four substantial cases representative of real life business situations. The cases involve skills such as negotiation, presentation and teamwork. After just three hours of preparation, the teams are pitted against each other over four one hour rounds.
Not another LEAD session with more role-plays, you might say. However, what differentiates this LEAD activity from others during the quarter is the significant involvement of GSB alumni. More than 30 alumni from various industries including investment banking, management consulting and the pharmaceutical industry attended. Their deep involvement in this part of the program underlines the real life importance of interpersonal skills emphasized in LEAD. In fact, over two thirds of the alumni judges returned to Chicago after their enjoyable experience last year to again provide their perspectives of how participants could further hone their interpersonal skills.
Dean McGill further notes, "It is typically good chemistry to put students and alums together...We engage each other on the values that bind us together as the GSB community." This is echoed by Michael Krauss, GSB '76 and now Partner and Chief Marketing Officer of DiamondCluster International, Inc., "This is a great opportunity for seasoned alumni to meet current students."
The students were well prepared. "I was impressed by the professionalism, poise, enthusiasm and intensity that the students brought to the Challenge. Their classmates would have been proud of them," sang Chris Miller, facilitator coach for the Rockefeller All-Star Team. Professor Evelyn Williams, Faculty Chair of the LEAD Program also commented, "I had a number of alumni remark on the high quality of interpersonal skills they witnessed during these Challenges. Alumni threw numerous tough curveballs at our students and they consistently hit them out of the park."
The long day of strategizing and presenting by students did not go unrecognized. Participating students each received a leather-bound GSB portfolio. First place winners each received an additional $500 and second-place winners each received $250. Not all prizes were material however. The event allowed first-year students a unique opportunity to network with senior alumni. Moreover, in light of the tight job market, the LEAD All Stars have a clear differentiator for their resumes.
So, many congratulations to the winners of the LEAD Challenge All Stars:
First Place Team: Harper (coached by David Fein):
Kate Aquila, Brian Brosnan, Derek Herbst, Maya Mehta, Melanie Palm, Brent Paul, Ted Pyne
Second Place Team: Maroons (coached by Chris Turner):
Del Bennett, Jonas Bordo, Kara Fudge, Paul Gollash, Tyson Overton, Alyson Tesler, Laurence Vanden Bussche
And many thanks to the rest of the All Stars participants, who were willing to give up their Saturday to compete.
This was a great experience for all involved. A big thank you goes to all those who contributed to and participated in making the event a success for the 2nd year running.
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The All Stars Challenge, this year kindly sponsored by Merrill Lynch, is an intensive one-day competition where each team is given four substantial cases representative of real life business situations. The cases involve skills such as negotiation, presentation and teamwork. After just three hours of preparation, the teams are pitted against each other over four one hour rounds.
Not another LEAD session with more role-plays, you might say. However, what differentiates this LEAD activity from others during the quarter is the significant involvement of GSB alumni. More than 30 alumni from various industries including investment banking, management consulting and the pharmaceutical industry attended. Their deep involvement in this part of the program underlines the real life importance of interpersonal skills emphasized in LEAD. In fact, over two thirds of the alumni judges returned to Chicago after their enjoyable experience last year to again provide their perspectives of how participants could further hone their interpersonal skills.
Dean McGill further notes, "It is typically good chemistry to put students and alums together...We engage each other on the values that bind us together as the GSB community." This is echoed by Michael Krauss, GSB '76 and now Partner and Chief Marketing Officer of DiamondCluster International, Inc., "This is a great opportunity for seasoned alumni to meet current students."
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The students were well prepared. "I was impressed by the professionalism, poise, enthusiasm and intensity that the students brought to the Challenge. Their classmates would have been proud of them," sang Chris Miller, facilitator coach for the Rockefeller All-Star Team. Professor Evelyn Williams, Faculty Chair of the LEAD Program also commented, "I had a number of alumni remark on the high quality of interpersonal skills they witnessed during these Challenges. Alumni threw numerous tough curveballs at our students and they consistently hit them out of the park."
The long day of strategizing and presenting by students did not go unrecognized. Participating students each received a leather-bound GSB portfolio. First place winners each received an additional $500 and second-place winners each received $250. Not all prizes were material however. The event allowed first-year students a unique opportunity to network with senior alumni. Moreover, in light of the tight job market, the LEAD All Stars have a clear differentiator for their resumes.
So, many congratulations to the winners of the LEAD Challenge All Stars:
First Place Team: Harper (coached by David Fein):
Kate Aquila, Brian Brosnan, Derek Herbst, Maya Mehta, Melanie Palm, Brent Paul, Ted Pyne
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Second Place Team: Maroons (coached by Chris Turner):
Del Bennett, Jonas Bordo, Kara Fudge, Paul Gollash, Tyson Overton, Alyson Tesler, Laurence Vanden Bussche
 |
And many thanks to the rest of the All Stars participants, who were willing to give up their Saturday to compete.
This was a great experience for all involved. A big thank you goes to all those who contributed to and participated in making the event a success for the 2nd year running.