Isenberg MBA Team Places Second in International Competition

A team of four Isenberg MBA students placed second in the Aspen Institute’s 2019 Business & Society International Case Competition in April. At the prestigious competition’s finals in Manhattan, the Isenberg team vied against four other finalists that had emerged from a preliminary pool of teams from 23 business schools. The tight-knit Isenberg quartet comprised Paige Hill ’19, Allison O’Neill ’19, Mike Cook ’19, and Yosh Schulman ’20.

The Aspen Institute’s Business & Society Program works to challenge conventional ideas about capitalism and innovate at the intersection of corporate profitability and ethically sound social and environmental concerns. At its signature case competition, which is in its tenth year, teams of future business leaders presented strategies to bring business sustainability to the Connecticut Green Bank and one of its co-creations, Inclusive Prosperity Capital. The Connecticut Green Bank was created by the state in 2011 to accelerate development of clean energy by leveraging public dollars to attract private investment in projects—so far, it has generated more than a billion dollars in investments.

The Isenberg team’s proposal scored high points for creating a model that linked the Bank’s many constituencies. “We went with a big idea that was at the same time pragmatic,” recalls Allison O’Neill. The team’s financially driven model, she added, invested the bank’s network of public and private stakeholders with clearer definition and accountability.

The team was greater than the sum of its parts, observed Yosh Schulman. “We all had our roles—analytic, financial, creative. I focused on creative. Paige was the ringleader—she put the team together.” The competition, Paige Hill observed, “allowed us to show and use some of the strong fundamentals that we’ve learned at Isenberg. Our program encourages us to dream big—to go way beyond those basics.”