Part-time MBA Students Win First Prize in Regional ACG Cup

Winners of the ACG Cup Competition, posing for a photo

For the second consecutive year, Weatherhead School of Management has dominated the ACG Cup Competition, winning both first and second place.

The ACG Cup that takes place in January is a unique case study competition designed to give students from leading MBA programs experience and insight into mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, financial advisory and private equity.

This year, Weatherhead’s cross-discipline teams represented several programs from the school including the MSM-Finance program, Part-time MBA, Full-time MBA, undergraduate programs and integrated programs.

The winning Weatherhead teams were:

First Place:

  • Brittany Folino, PT MBA
  • Julie Foote, PT MBA
  • Joe Kestner, PT MBA
  • Karan Patel, PT MBA
  • Kurt Sardiga, PT MBA

Second Place:

  • Ben Guisto, MSM-Finance
  • Nick Kapernik, Full-time MBA
  • Andrew Lease, Undergrad Finance (Senior)
  • Alex Romanowski, Full-time MBA
  • Adam Zybko, Undergrad Finance (Senior)

First place winners received a cash prize, attendance to a networking event and an all-expenses paid trip to the national ACG conference to be held in Las Vegas in April.

“This is another strong first and second place showing by our exemplary students in this important regional competition,” said Scott Fine, professor of banking and finance who coached the Weatherhead teams during the ACG Cup. “It was especially rewarding to see so many of Weatherhead's programs represented with several teams comprised of members from as many as four programs.”

Steve Ellefson, MSM-Finance, Chris Elliot, PT-MBA, Gabrielle Wallach, MSM-Finance, Shi Xun, MSM-Finance and Yishi Zhang, MSM-Finance, also participated in the competition and narrowly missed third place.

Other participating schools included John Carroll (third place), three teams from Ohio State, and one from Ashland and University of Akron.