Vanderbilt Wins SEC Case Competition with Help from the Library

Vanderbilt University won first place at the 10th annual Southeastern Conference (SEC) MBA Case Competition aided by research preparation help from Kelly LaVoice, the Associate Director of the Walker Management Library. This is the first time a team from Vanderbilt has won the SEC competition. The winning team received a $10,000 prize.  

The winning team consisted of Chris Scheinert, Ben Jickling, Haley Menz, and Caleb Petersen. Caleb spoke about how Kelly aided in their win: 

“Some classmates and I had signed up for a case competition and wanted to show up prepared, so we didn’t have to spend as much time during the competition getting up to speed on the industry and company. We knew that as Owen students we had access to great research resources but didn’t know which would be most helpful and honestly needed a refresher on how to use them.  

We reached out to Kelly LaVoice who was incredibly helpful in several capacities. Not only did she have great suggestions on which resources might contain the most relevant information, but she also recommended excellent research questions that we hadn’t considered. 

Kelly absolutely played a huge role in our success at the competition and we’re incredibly thankful for her support!” 

Courtney Fain, Vanderbilt MBA competition advisor and Associate Director of MBA Coaching and Advising at the Owen Graduate School of Management stated, “They [the winning team] prepared above and beyond from what I have seen before.”  

The SEC MBA Case Competition is a graduate-level competition for business schools in the southeastern United States. Case competitions allow students to demonstrate their talents in solving real-world problems in the business disciplines.

Photo courtesy of Brian Powers

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