JPMorgan Business Leadership Case Competition

 

Congratulations to the teams from Kellogg, Columbia and Darden for finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the

2008 Business Leadership Case Competition out of a pool of more than 200 participating MBA students!

 

 

The Final Round

"The Walter Shipley Case competition has been the highlight of our business school experience so far."

- Sproule Love and Juan Aristi, Columbia Business School, participants in the 2008 competition.

 

 

Overview

The 2008 Walter V. Shipley Business Leadership Case Competition was  once again a huge success!   Finalist teams from Kellogg, Darden, and Columbia took turns presenting on the difficult and provocative case question: how should the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) proceed with negotiations during the private equity buyout of Texas coal producer TXU? The case writers from the Yale School of Management were pleased to see their hard work garner such outstanding review from talented students, and two university representatives plan on disseminating the case study at their respective schools.  The student participants were thrilled by the opportunity to compete for scholarship money and meet an outstanding assembly of JPMorgan executives and influential guests of the Aspen Institute.

 

Click here to see the full agenda from the Final Round of the competition.

 

 

 

The Case

The competition introduced a newly commissioned case-study, produced by the Yale School of Management (SOM), that brought some unique and topical issues into the competition. This year's case dealt with the recent buyout of Texas utility and coal producing giant TXU. The largest leveraged buyout in history, the deal was particularly unique because the buyers, private equity firms Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts (KKR) and Texas Pacific Group (TPG), consulted with major environmental NGO's during negotiations. The commitment to considering the positions of the EDF and the Natural Resource Defense Council was so strong that the buyers said the deal itself hinged on the NGO's involvement and blessing. For their analysis, the students were asked to put themselves in the shoes of the investment bank advising EDF and assess the value of EDF's essential consent to the deal's success.

 

 

The Winners

First Place: Kellogg School of Business, Northwestern University (Photo)

 

Second Place: Columbia Business School (Photo)

 

Third Place: Darden School of Business, University of Virginia (Photo)

 

Submissions and Presentations

Written Submissions

These are the written submissions of the three finalist teams as they were originally submitted for Round 1 of the 2008 competition.

 

 

Presentations

The presentations were crafted by the finalist teams exclusively for the final round of the competition. They are available below just as the audience saw them during the final round at the Ritz-Carlton, Battery Park, New York City, on April 25th, 2008.

 

 

The Final Round Judges

Jaan Elias is Yale School of Management's first Director of Case Study Research. In his time at Yale, Elias has overseen the development of a case research team that has produced over 40 cases for the Yale curriculum, including a dozen “raw” cases that draw together Internet links, interactive exhibits, text and video on a multimedia, web platform. The “Advising EDF” case produced in conjunction with the Aspen Institute is Yale's first raw, multimedia case to receive significant national attention. Prior to joining the staff of the School of Management, Elias was an independent consultant providing reports, case studies and written analysis for large national foundations, professional associations and corporations.

 

James J. Fuschetti In February 2008 Jim Fuschetti rejoined JPMorgan Chase as the Managing Director for Environmental Affairs after seven years working with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Washington, DC.  While at WWF, Jim worked as a Managing Director in the Conservation Finance Group where he developed and executed payment for environmental services (PES) projects in Asia and Latin America. He was also responsible for managing WWF's relationships with the leading U.S. commercial and investment banks.

 

Mary C. Gentile is an independent consultant based in Arlington, MA. Previously Gentile was a faculty member, researcher, and administrator at the Harvard Business School. As an independent consultant (1995-present), Gentile works with corporate, non-profit and academic institutions on executive coaching, training and curriculum development, issue definition and strategy design on issues of social impact management, ethics, business education and diversity.

 

David H. Langstaff is a business leader with extensive experience as Chief Executive Officer and Director of advanced technology and professional services companies. He created and served as President, CEO and Director of Veridian Corporation from 1995 until its sale to General Dynamics in August 2003 during which time Veridian's annual sales increased ten-fold, from $100 million to $1.2 billion. Veridian specialized in mission-critical national security programs, primarily for the intelligence community, military and other U.S. Government agencies involved in law enforcement and homeland security, and developed a reputation as one of the preeminent companies in its field with a strong values-based culture.

 

 

 

Click here to read more about the history of the case competition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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