Team A presenting to the nine judges
Nine Teams Compete in 2022 Inclusive Excellence Case Competition
Diana Lutfi, Preeti Saldanha, Holly Trujillo and Sang Tong made up Team A, one of nine teams who competed in the 13th annual Inclusive Excellence Case Competition at the Daniels College of Business April 29.
It was Saldanha’s second time entering the competition. This year’s case, which focused on Denver arts organization’s goal to serve a more diverse audience, had specific appeal to her, since she’s a double major in vocal performance and management.
“I always get asked what I want to do with business and music, so my interests ties very much into this case and it’s what I got excited about,” she said.
Saldanha’s other teammates included a Denver MBA student, law student and accounting student. Teams themselves are required to be diverse, so each team is a mix of students who are undergraduates, graduates, male, female, domestic, international, multidisciplinary and ethnically diverse. This year, teams were about 50% undergraduate and 50% graduate students from 13 different programs across campus from arts and engineering, to analytics and public policy.
Team A: Preeti Saldanha, Sang Ton and Diana Lufti (Holly Trujillo not pictured)
Because Team A had such different class schedules the team struggled to find time to work on the case.
“We were meeting sometimes at 7:30 a.m. and 10 p.m., so the fact that we pulled it together was great,” Saldanha said.
The team not only pulled it together, but ended up winning the competition, taking first place and $5,000.
Lydia Garcia, executive director of equity and organization culture at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, was impressed by all of the student presentations.
“Each of the teams tackled a different angle of how they identified the issue and what they’d recommend,” said Garcia, who was one of the judges. “It’s really powerful for professionals in the field now to know what the concerns and priorities are from those who are getting ready for leadership after us.”
Nicholas Murray (JD 2011), senior director and associate general counsel with Twilio, agreed. Murray was also one of the seven judges.
Second place to Team B
“You think about it from your organizations perspective, your problems and your potential solutions,” Murray said. “So getting out in front of folks that have wider lens on that gives you a better idea of what other solutions are out there and how other people think about the problem. It’s nice to get in front of a younger group of people who think about problems and solutions differently.”
The other judges include Rhetta Shead, director of administration with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance; Monica Williams, chief consulting officer with The Equity Project; Michelle Marsh Garcia (MS 2022), manager of diversity, inclusion and social impact at Everside Health; Aisha Ahmad-Post, executive director of the Newman Center for the Performing Arts, and Alexandra Tune (MAcc 1995), managing director of Delloite and Touche.
This is the second year in a row that the Inclusive Excellence Case Competition has been sponsored by Deloitte LLP. Not only do they provide the student prize money for the event, they also partner with the graduate student club, the Daniels Consulting Firm, to provide participating students with a case prep workshop to provide case competition tips and best practices.
Team J took third place.
Team B took second place and $3,000. The team included law student Jose Amezola Beltran, business analytics graduate student Ethan Hood, undergraduate international business major Alisa Sautter and undergraduate marketing student Emily Winn.
Third place went to Team J. Marketing student Julia Mantooth, finance student Ryan Banisadr and marketing and computer science major Leah May took home $2,000.
While there were nerves and a sense of competition, teams had fun too.
“I don’t think I’ve had this much fun in a business presentation,” Saldanha said. “Everyone was so passionate and brought their personal experience to the case.”