The Fowler Center is pleased to announce the results of a student competition in the MBA Workshop on Business as an Agent of World Benefit (BAWB). Six teams had the opportunity to pitch a consulting project to help Clarke, a global environmental services company, consolidate its position as a flourishing public health company. The pitch was in response to a January 15 presentation given by Julie Reiter, Vice President of Human Resources and Sustainable Development at Clarke. Her presentation included a specific challenge to the students to assist in developing the company’s current strategic ambitions.
On April 15, 2020 the six teams presented via ZOOM to the company’s CEO, Lyell Clarke, and four additional members of the Clarke executive team, including Julie Reiter. The winning team received a First Place Award Certificate in Sustainable Value.
Team F was awarded 1st place: congratulations to Alex Lehmann, Cijin Jose, Nolan Sundheimer, Mehul Srivastava, and Fengjun (Bill) Li.
Team E was the runner up: congratulations to Dave Hakala, Jim Kavalec, Katie Van Dusen, Tianyi Wu, and Natasha Rafidi.
Below is direct feedback written by Julie Reiter on behalf of the Clarke executive team:
First, let me share our appreciation for all of the students and the work done on the presentations. From our point of view, each group accomplished the objective of pitching a viable consulting proposal to enable Clarke to fully realize our vision of becoming a Flourishing Public Health Company and influencing others to embrace or adopt the concept of Business as an Agent of World Benefit.
Each group offered up some great, and provocative, ideas that would enable us to expand our impact.
Well done everyone!
As difficult as it was to pick just one winner (and it was very difficult), the Clarke team has selected Team F and their presentation Clarke Worldwide: Tapping the Untapped, Benefiting the World.
We were impressed by the depth of research done by Team F, the quality of their presentation and for their recommendation that Clarke leverage its existing core strengths to address a critical global public issue. The recommendation was compelling and we appreciated the well thought out and targeted plan (with supporting analytics) to focus first on the country of Ghana. Nice work Team F!
A close runner up was Team E for their proposed Three Pillars of Flourishing consulting pitch.
As [CEO] Lyell [Clarke] mentioned at the end of our session, it felt a little like having participated in an Appreciative Inquiry process with each team conceptualizing a tremendous opportunity area for us to explore. In that vein, and as a gesture of our appreciation, we would like to invite 2 members from Team F and one member from Team E to be our guest at our next Clarke+ AI Summit event. Barring any conflicts or restrictions coming from the COVID-19 pandemic, our next full scale summit is planned for February of 2021.
Megan Bucher, Ron Fry, and Chris Laszlo join the Weatherhead community in congratulating all the students who participated in the competition. Their exceptional efforts in this Spring’s BAWB Workshop made a significant difference to the Clarke company.