Winners named in UB School of Management marketing competition

By Kevin Manne

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Four teams of MBA students from the University at Buffalo School of Management will share $2,000 in prize money as first- and second-place winners of a competition in the school’s “Marketing Planning and Strategy” course.

The capstone competition pulled together tools and techniques students learned during the course and throughout the MBA program. Prizes were awarded in each of the course’s two spring sections.

Placing first in the event from section one were Aaron D’angelo, Srutakirti Das, Bookeeun Lee, Girish Nair and Xuefei Zhao. The first place winners from section two were Jeffrey Chouinard, Caitlin Curry, Swetha Sarathy, and Tamilarasan Tamilselvan.

Placing second from section one were N. William Bartz, Harish Govindarajulu, Sugritha Murgugesan, Alexander Rogava, and Tingting You. The second place winners from section two were Senthivel Arulselvan, Emily Clark, Tejaswi Mullapudi, Vincent Schutt, and Kelsang Tsomo.

The prize money was donated by Arun Jain and his wife Jean. Arun Jain is the Samuel L. Capen Professor of Marketing Research in the UB School of Management and taught both sections of the course.

All students enrolled in the Marketing and Planning Strategy course took part in the competition. In all, eleven teams made performance reports to panels of alumni judges on May 9.

The teams were assigned individual firms to operate in a new foreign market for nine years with the objective of maximizing value for shareholders through a marketing strategy.

Judges for the competition were Umesh Babaria, administrative vice president, Finance Division, M&T Bank; Joel Cropp, competitive intelligence analyst, Independent Health; Gerry Murak, principal and founder, Murak & Associates LLC; and Daniel Penberthy, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Rand Capital Corp.

The UB School of Management is recognized for its emphasis on real-world learning, community and economic impact, and the global perspective of its faculty, students and alumni. The school also has been ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek, the Financial Times, Forbes and U.S. News and World Report for the quality of its programs and the return on investment it provides its graduates. For more information about the UB School of Management, visit mgt.buffalo.edu.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system that is its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB’s more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.