Smith Takes First Place at AKPsi Case Competition

From February 7-9, numerous chapters from the nation’s largest professional business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, gathered in Philadelphia, Pa.,  for the organization’s annual Principled Business Leadership Institute. The weekend offers students a chance to develop valuable business skills and network with chapters from all over the country, culminating in a case competition featuring students from the schools in attendance. 

Undergraduate students Lilian Hoang, Vincent Bennett, Jiening Wu, and Jerry Gu represented the University of Maryland’s AKPsi chapter for the weekend, and represented the Robert H. Smith School of Business quite well. The group took home first place in the case competition, beating out the other 12 participating chapters and earning them a $1,500 prize. 

For the competition, each team was given a Harvard Business School case study where they had to analyze a potential company acquisition and then present their conclusions to a group of four judges. “The case brought out our greatest strengths, be it financial analysis, leadership, strategy, or creative thinking. Having a group allowed us to motivate each other during the long nights,” said team member Lilian Hoang, a junior majoring in finance and information systems. 

Hoang added that, “because Smith requires students take courses across all business majors, I have gained a great deal of business insight outside the realm of my specific major. The creative thinking that my professors have pushed really helped set our team apart from the others.” 

Patrick Gillece, MBA Candidate 2015, Office of Marketing Communications