DATE: November 2, 2005

A team of undergraduate students from the UW Business School reached the final four of the prestigious International Business Challenge at the University of Texas at Austin in late October.

The UW team consisted of seniors Cynthia Samanian (concentrating in finance), Gaurav Mehta (entrepreneurship and finance), Ciaran Thompson (information systems and entrepreneurship) and Kenny Kadar (finance and marketing). In reaching the final four, the UW bested teams from domestic and international universities including Harvard, USC, the University of Edinburgh and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The 20 participating teams had 60 hours to analyze a topical and complex business problem/opportunity facing the Ford Motor Company: how to enter the hybrid market, where Toyota has taken a quick and commanding lead. Each team was tasked to weigh the many variables at play in Ford’s real world, and deliver a polished strategy to senior management.

The UW team arrived with a load of text books, the expert preparation of Frances Maloy, a lecturer in finance and business economics who coached them, and the support and feedback of Andrea Gomes, the Global Business Center’s assistant director for undergraduate programs, who accompanied them to Texas. The UW quartet delivered an engaging pre sentation that prescribed a focused strategic growth strategy, topping nearly all but Concordia University in Montreal.

The team was proud to have delivered before an exacting panel of judges that included senior executives and academics. "This made for challenging questions," Thompson said, "and gave us an insight to what managers, consultants and executives look at when scrutinizing a proposal."

Perhaps the highest compliment arrived from a grudging source: John Doggett, a long-time judge from the UT faculty who has earned a measure of menacing renown for his armor-piercing inquests. Over the years many a team has crumbled under his withering cross-examination. And, he admitted at the post-competition banquet, the UW team nearly did, too. "In the past, teams in the same situation have cracked, walked out or been unable to fix the problem," Doggett said, "but the University of Washington deserves a round of applause for pulling through."

Then Doggett added a touch of macabre hyperbole appropriate for the weekend before Halloween: "Never before in the history of this competition has a team looked death in the face and walked out alive."

The UW Business School IBC Team