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February 7, 2001
McCombs Marketing MBAs Win Silver Medal
Austin,TX - Teams of students from eight leading MBA schools examined the marketing of HIV/AIDS drugs in South Africa at the 12th annual Babcock MBA Marketing Case Competition held January 31 through February 3 at Wake Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management. The McCombs team took second place. First place went to Harvard, and Berkeley grabbed third.
The McCombs team included second year student Joan Saslow and first year students Elizabeth Gorski, Tyler Norwood, Timothy Evers, Ned Lavelle, Guillermo Rospigliosi and Rosanna Picillo. After working only 36 hours to construct a marketing plan, the McCombs team delivered an award-winning presentation to the competition's sponsor, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), that addressed the question of how to market GSK's product in Africa to their patients with the HIV/AIDS virus.
The McCombs team competed against teams from Columbia Business School, the Johnson Graduate School of Management – Cornell, Harvard Business School, Haas School of Business - U.C. Berkeley, Kenan Flagler Business School – U.N.C., Babcock Graduate School of Management - Wake Forest, and Yale School of Management. The judges were a distinguished group, including David Ho, Time Magazine's "1996 Person of the Year"; Claude Allen, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Stephen Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of The Coca-Cola Co.; Marian Chapman Moore, Associate Professor of Marketing at Duke University; and Dr. Peter Moore, Medical and Corporate Affairs Director for GlaxoSmithKline South Africa.
Each team member played a special role. Joan Saslow provided an amazing amount of energy, an unshakable spirit, and incredible presentation skills. Liz Gorski proved essential in her ability to win the judges' respect with her communications expertise. Tyler Norwood's recommendation that GSK lead a coalition of various groups concerned with AIDS research and treatment helped strengthen the presentation as well.
The competition, believed to be the oldest of its kind in the country, exposes students to realistic business challenges and provides prospective employers with an opportunity to gauge the students’ marketing skills. More information on the competition is available online at www.mba.wfu.edu/case/.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
