Winners named in Verney case competition

By Jacqueline Molik Ghosen

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A team of five MBA students from the University at Buffalo School of Management will share a $2,000 prize as winner of the school’s seventh annual Steven C. Verney MBA Case Competition.

Placing first in the event were Satya Chavali of Hyderabad, India; Nicholas D’Ambrosio of Rochester; Meghan Lafferty of East Aurora; Yoshiki Moroe of Tokyo, Japan; and Michael Simich of Holland.

All first-year MBAs in the school’s full-time program took part in the competition. Eighteen teams made presentations to six panels of judges over the course of four days in April, and the award winners were announced on April 29.

Each team was assigned a separate case focusing on a distressed company facing serious operational and financial issues. Participants had to formulate a plan to turn around the troubled company and improve its long-term prospects for survival.

The competition was created exclusively for first-year MBA students at the UB School of Management through a donation from Steven C. Verney, executive vice president and chief risk officer at Allstate Insurance Co. in Chicago, who received his bachelor’s degree from UB in 1980 and his MBA in 1981.

Judges for the competition included Marc Bourgeault, owner, BC Group LLC; Joseph Curatolo, president, Georgetown Capital Group Inc.; William Grieshober, vice president/deputy general counsel, Rich Products; John Herman, CEO, Mercy Hospital; Anthony LaRosa, associate IT engineer, Xerox; Thomas Maxian, special counsel, Twin City Ambulance; Tom McManus, CEO, KegWorks; Robert Patterson, former president, Patterson-Stevens Inc.; Sandra Varela, process engineer, DuPont, and Jim Walleshauser, vice president, Office of Strategy Management, Independent Health.

Several judges from the University at Buffalo also participated: Arjang Assad, dean, School of Management; Beth del Genio, chief of staff for UB President Satish Tripathi; Katherine Ferguson, associate dean of academic programs, School of Management; Saira Hasnain, director, enterprise infrastructure services; John Ho, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor of physics, vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate School; Laura Hubbard, vice president of finance and administration; Nancy Kielar, assistant vice president/chief of staff, CIO Administrative Operations Office; Amy Monin, research administrator, Electrical Engineering Department; and Courtney Walsh, assistant dean of executive education, School of Management.

The second-place team received a prize of $1,000.

The UB School of Management is recognized for its emphasis on real-world learning, community and economic impact, and the global perspective of its faculty, students and alumni. The school has been ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek, the Financial Times, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report and the Wall Street Journal for the quality of its programs and the return on investment it provides its graduates. For more information about the UB School of Management, visit mgt.buffalo.edu.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB’s more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.