Pitt Business: Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business & College of Business Administration

Press Release

April 21, 2008

Pitt Students Expansion Strategy Project for Howard Hanna Real Estate Services Wins April 18 McKinsey Cup Competition

PITTSBURGH—The audience voted and Team B is the winner! The April 18 McKinsey Cup Competition at the University of Pittsburgh resulted in a win not only for Team B-that included four Master of Business Administration (MBA) students from Pitt's Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and one undergraduate student from the Pitt College of Business Administration (CBA)-but for Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, Team B's project sponsor, as well. The real estate company received winning advice from the Pitt student team on the best strategy for expanding its market.

During the April 18 McKinsey Cup Competition, three finalist teams presented their analysis of three separate company projects that they had worked on and developed recommendations for throughout the spring 2008 term. The competition was hosted by Bill Besselman, associate principal of McKinsey & Company, Pittsburgh. Judges for the competition were Steve Tritch, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Westinghouse Electric Company; David Barensfeld, president and CEO of The Ellwood Group, Inc.; and Max Mitchell, group president of Crane Fluid Handling Group.

Members of the winning team were two-year MBA students W. Taylor Frankovitch and Silvana Guihur; MBA/Juris Doctor dual-degree students Joe Knupp and Erin Rice; and Prachi Gupta, an undergraduate pursuing degrees in finance and English writing. The students were advised by Marick Masters, a Pitt professor of business administration and public and international affairs and the director of the Center on Conflict Resolution and Negotiation.

After the finalist teams presented their projects, the judges offered their critical assessment (in a similar style to popular television reality shows American Idol and Dancing With The Stars). Then an audience of Katz MBA students used electronic voting devices to determine first, second, and third prize winners. The second prize project sponsor was Respironics. The sponsor of the third place project was Concurrent Technologies Corporation.

During the spring 2008 term, 17 teams made up of MBA students from the Katz School and eight CBA students worked separately on various company, institutional, or government projects. Throughout the term and in order to give students the skills necessary to manage their interaction with clients, consultants from McKinsy & Company, Pittsburgh-the local arm of a global management consulting firm, provided students guidance on various aspects of the consulting profession, including important issues, processes, and approaches. The final requirement of these "project courses" was for each team to present a project summary as well as their findings and recommendations to a panel of judges who evaluated each presentation based on its analytical rigor and content.