The academic school year ended off on a very positive note for York University’s Schulich School of Business MBA case team members as they finished in first place at the 10th annual Yale Graduate Student Consulting Club (YGCC) Case Competition. This was Schulich’s first year participating in the event, which featured top schools across North America.
The competition featured a total of 20 teams participating, including students from Yale, Harvard, Berkley, as well as a finalist team of PhD students. Teams were challenged with a real-world business case to develop solutions for the exodus of people and businesses from the state of California. The loss of tax revenue combined with the extremely high cost of living in the major cities is creating a complex set of financial and social issues.
Schulich’s first-place team: Azra Samji, Mary Wei, Rageeb Kibria, Deanna Galati, Kyle Hatton
“Seeing as all five of us were from Canada and not totally familiar with this issue, we had to learn a lot about the state of California fast,” said MBA student Azra Samji. “Teammates were handing in final deliverables, studying for exams, and finalizing their 601 all while trying to create a high quality and well-researched presentation.”
Schulich’s team was comprised of five MBA students:
- Azra Samji (MBA ’21)
- Mary Wei (MBA ’21)
- Rageeb Kibria (MBA ’21)
- Deanna Galati (MBA Candidate ’22)
- Kyle Hatton (MBA/JD Candidate ’23)
“I am so proud of our teams. They did their very best, and worked intensely on their solutions, in spite of their high workloads in the program,” said coach and Schulich instructor Joe Fayt.
“The championship Yale team has upheld a long tradition of success and excellence at Schulich when it comes to national and international case competitions,” said Detlev Zwick, interim dean at Schulich.