CU MBA students are first in national e-commerce contest

By Linda Myers

MBA students at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management took first place in the second annual Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney E-Commerce Case Competition in New York City Dec. 1.

MBA students, from left, Sean Neville, Allan Aks and Greg Hubbell took first place in the Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney E-Commerce Case Competition. Matthew Fondeur/University Photography

The winning team of Johnson School MBA students Greg Hubbell, Sean Neville and Allan Aks took home a prize of $10,000 after competing against teams from business schools at the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), University of Michigan, Columbia University and New York University (Stern).

The teams were asked to address real-life topics compiled by Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney (SSB). Hubbell, Neville and Aks looked at e-business marketing strategies to influence consumer preferences in children 10 years of age and under. The judges were e-business experts from the international banking, investment and financial service firm.

"This first-place win in a highly competitive national contest is a gratifying endorsement of our e-business initiatives," said Robert Swieringa, the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of the Johnson School.

"Allan, Sean and Greg dazzled everyone," said William Huling, senior corporate programs director at the Johnson School. "They basically built a case for a web site for kids that Citibank could implement tomorrow. They delivered the content with great confidence and humor, fielded some challenging questions and were the only team to connect so personally with the audience."

To qualify, Hubbell, Neville and Aks won a local competition on Cornell's campus Nov. 15, in which they competed against 11 other teams of three to five Johnson School MBA students, 60 in all or about one quarter of the school's first-year MBA class.

That competition, during which the threesome won a $5,000 prize, was judged by e-commerce experts from Citigroup, Professor Richard Conway, leader of the faculty team who will be teaching the Johnson School's new e-business immersion course next semester, and team member Johannes Gehrke, assistant professor of computer science.

The members of the second-place winning team in the local competition in November were Dirk Krieger, Justin O'Keeffe, Osam Iyahen, Susie Welgos and Jason Jagatic. Their case presentation focused on new networked appliances. They shared a $1,000 award. The third-place team of Tangwena Nelson, Jesse Goichman, Douglas Jarrett, Geoff Goodman and Geoff Vitale presented on Internet fraud and money laundering and shared a $500 purse.