A team of six Full-time MBA students recently competed in the Daniels Ethics Race &  Case Competition in Denver, taking the title of the combination of ethics competition and ski race over second-place Colorado State University and Denver in third. One of the team members, Whitney Williams, shared her experience.

Whitney writes: 

This is not your average case competition.

The David Daniels Ethics Race & Case judges a team’s skiing ability, ethical intelligence and their business savvy. This popular and competitive event is now in its 11^th year at the University of Denver and Beaver Creek Ski Resort. Last year’s David Eccles School of Business team won the whole thing, so we had big ski boots to fill.

Two weeks before the competition our six-member team received the case. Our challenge was to develop a commercialization strategy for Sample6’s rapid listeria testing product. Listeria has one of the highest mortality rates of any food-borne illness, killing more than 260 people in the United States each year. Sample6’s product is able to test a food-manufacturing facility for listeria and show results within 4 hours; competing products can take 24-72 hours to show results.

The six of us spent many late nights and early mornings deciding how we would leverage Sample6’s value proposition into a business plan. Throughout our research we used the utilitarian ethical framework to evaluate our decisions. For example, when we were deciding what food category to target for the initial product launch, we asked ourselves, “Which category harms society the most (for instance, processed meats or dairy)?” And we asked, “Which category would provide the greatest net benefit to society?” Our final recommendation outlined Sample6’s target market, marketing strategy and funding plan – and even included a unique social impact bond to cover R&D expenses.

We boarded our flight to Denver as the Ethical Consulting Management Group, the snappy moniker we attached to our team, which included Anders Aabo, ’14, Tania Bashford, ’15, Mark Mugleston, ’15, Mark Pittman, ’15, Annie Studer, ’15, and Whitney Williams, ’14. In Denver we were given 15 minutes to present, 10 minutes of Q&A and five minutes of feedback. We then had one hour to incorporate the judge’s feedback before presenting to the second round of judges. This is the first time that I have received feedback from the judges in a case competition and I loved the mix of guidance and criticism that improved our second presentation.

After two nerve-inducing presentations it was all downhill from there, literally. The remainder of the weekend was spent slope-side in Beaver Creek. On Saturday morning we hit the slopes to test our skiing abilities. It snowed the night before, making the racing course soft and fun. Each team member had three opportunities to ski the EPIC racing course and the judges took their fastest time. Then, the top two female and top two male times from each team would count towards the team’s skiing score, or 20% of the overall competition score. Our team had a strong ski performance and, to our delight, filled three of the six top places – Anders Aabo, Bronze; Annie Studer, Silver; Whitney Williams, Bronze.

It was a tiring and emotional two weeks, but worth it in the end. After it all, when the judges announced the winners, we jumped and danced just as well as we’d skied. Our team had the right combination of skiing ability and corporate strategy to take home the Gold. Go Utah!