Southeast MBA students claim first place in first ever Show-Me MBA Case Competion

Masters of Business Administration students at Southeast Missouri State University participated and placed first in the first ever Show-Me MBA Case Competition on Feb. 24 and 25.

The competition, hosted by the University of Missouri-Columbia, required teams to create a marketing and management analysis of the target company, “Lockton Companies, LLC.” Teams were presented the case and given five hours to complete their analysis. The next day, the teams presented their findings to a panel of judges and participated in an question and answer session to defend their work.

Southeast’s team consisted of Harman Mahli, Brett Kazandjian, Kayla Ray and Bobbie Dampier and was coached by Dr. Willie Redmond, faculty associate in the Office of the Provost and professor in the Department of Economics and Finance.

During their undergraduate years, three of the students studied accounting and one of them studied finance, which Mahli said posed a particular challenge to the team.

“This case focused on HR and marketing, so we had to change the model that we’re used to,” Mahli said.

Mahli added that examples presented by Redmond during their preparation helped them succeed.

The students had one month to prepare for the competition and did so by doing practice cases together and learning different strategies to solve them.

Mahli said winning the competition helps prove the quality of education available at Southeast.

“The education that we have here is very competitive and prepares students for the future and helps them become great leaders in business,” she said.

Besides bringing home the first place prize of $5,000 as a team, members were awarded individual prizes as well. Mahli was presented a $250 prize for “Best Q&A” and Kazandjian was awarded the “Best Presenter” and a $250 prize.

Southeast’s MBA program holds the same AACSB accreditation as many of the top schools around the world, including Dartmouth and Harvard, and has been named one of the top online MBA programs in the United States by a number of sites. For more information about the MBA program at Southeast, visit semo.edu/mb