Home > Graduate > MBA > Practice
Q: What Do Katz MBAs Have in Common with Pitt Football Legends Tony Dorsett and Dan Marino?
A: Practice, practice, practice
Left to right: Jason Plymire, Steven Scott, Ashwini Kumar, Daniel Frazier, and Visiting Assistant Professor Aziz Lookman. Not pictured: Veronica Yao, and Travis Hite
In the Katz School, experience-based learning is always front and center. One avenue for gaining hands-on learning is through coursework such as Investment Banking and Venture Capital, taught by Visiting Assistant Professor Aziz Lookman. Working in teams, students assist companies in the financial or venture capital industries solve a problem.
This past term, a cohort in Lookman's course worked with the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), located in Doha, the capital city of Qatar, to assist them in setting up an international model for one of their projects. Team leader and two-year MBA student Ashwini Kumar joined part-time MBA students Veronica Yao, Jason Plymire, Steven Scott, Travis Hite, and Daniel Frazier in analyzing existing models of Clearing, Settlement, and Depository (CSD) institutions.
The team encountered several unique challenges, including never having the opportunity to meet their client face to face. Throughout the term, the Katz team communicated with their client via telephone and e-mail. Utilizing teleconferencing technology, the students met their client nearly every two weeks.
Katz students routinely work on cases involving European and American companies and as a result have a degree of familiarity with how business in these countries operate. The opportunity to work with a Middle Eastern company gave added dimension to the learning experience as students learned the importance of understanding Middle Eastern clients within the global business context.
The Katz team made their final presentation via teleconference. In their report they recommended a suitable CSD model for Qatar.
"We found the deliverable [to be] of a high quality and the work put into it was commendable," says Akshay Randeva, a senior business analyst for Qatar Financial Centre Authority.
"QFC plans to use our report as part of its proposal to a more global consortium," reports Kumar.
Left to right: Jason Plymire, Steven Scott, Ashwini Kumar, Daniel Frazier, and Visiting Assistant Professor Aziz Lookman Not pictured Veronica Yao, and Travis Hite