The Reception

The formal reception was held at the SMG building - BU's School of Management building - at 595 Commonwealth Ave. in the 9th floor ballroom. Our ballroom is a perfect place to mix and mingle and Mary Sforza, the events coordinator, and her excellent staff made it a lovely comfortable place to do so. MIT showed up early (or was it on time?) and the rest sailed in on the bus from the hotel with Nicole Bludeau bringing up the rear with two members of the London School of Business. Jim McGroddy was reliably at hand to usher folks upstairs and the mingling began.

It was a very relaxed atmosphere with teams meeting other teams and professors and Deans working the room. Wines, cheeses, fruit and assorted nibbles were at hand and the Case Competition Committee members were very good with making the teams feel at ease and indeed at home.

Associate Dean Chalykoff started with his opening remarks on how excited he was to be present in the midst of representatives from the world's best business schools. We did miss Wharton (who, unfortunately, had to pull out of the contest at the last minute and were not there to defend their title) - maybe they weren't up for the challenge! But as Dean Chalykoff said to the competing teams, "our loss and your gain!" In all seriousness though, apparently Wharton pulled out because of personal (or perhaps personnel) reasons and we sincerely hope that all is well with them. Dean Chalykoff enthusiastically welcomed all the students and introduced Sr. Associate Dean Lawson as the Chief Operating Officer who ensures that all the tough jobs associated with getting things done get.. well.. done! Dean Lawson rightly said that an international competition of any kind is unique in management education. I agree with him in that we are very lucky to be able to have this opportunity to come together as a large intellectual force bringing our respective strengths to the table for a healthy joust.

Dean Lawson then introduced Josh Cleveland, the President of the MS-MBA Association, as a fantastic example of what the BU MS-MBA is all about and I'm sure there isn't a single person on campus who would contest the fact that Josh is a tremendous leader and an all-round terrific guy to boot! Josh acknowledged that he couldn't have pulled it off without his committee and the support staff. He did make it a point to introduce me, which I thought was lovely.

I do realize at this point that many of you reading this blog may not know who I am. I'm a 2nd year MS-MBA student at BU graduating this May with concentrations in Strategy & Business Analysis and Marketing. I responded to an open 'Blogger Wanted' advert sent out by Josh and the committee and I'm very pleased to be part of this event and am privileged to be able to bring the thoughts of our fantastic entrants - hopefully I'll get to speak with all 44 of them!

Jim and Steve worked on the case competition committee last year as well and they did point out that not much has changed in the organization of the event. Last year's event was a huge success with everything going off without a hitch so why mess with a winning formula, I guess. Steve did mention one reason why he volunteered to work on the committee one more time and I'm sure many of the other members echo this sentiment - we get to be part of a community that comprises of some of the world's best MBAs from amazing schools. What could be better than that.

Here's Steve's tip for the teams - it's all about stamina. Tomorrow's 24 hours are going to feel like 36. It's important to stay fresh.

Good luck all!

The Case Competition Committee members:

Committee Chair – Josh Cleveland
Internal Comp. Coordinator – Jim McGroddy
Web Development Coordinator – Sean Chen
Facilities Coordinator – Manu Goel
Volunteer Coordinator – Jeff Symons
Finance Coordinator – Jingjing Li
Guest/Com Coordinator – Steve Gerety
Marketing Coordinator – Divya Sood
Recruiting Coordinator – Natasha Bastien