{"id":4291,"date":"2015-03-06T15:14:56","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T15:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.hult.edu\/?p=4291"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:22:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:22:25","slug":"hult-mba-students-feel-heat-front-san-franciscos-leading-execs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hult.edu\/blog\/hult-mba-students-feel-heat-front-san-franciscos-leading-execs\/","title":{"rendered":"Hult MBA students feel the heat in front of San Francisco’s leading execs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hult San Francisco<\/a> saw 200 MBA students go head-to-head\u00a0in the campus’s second large-scale\u00a0business strategy competition, Hult Heat. 35 teams of students responded to a case challenge on\u00a0autonomous automobiles (driverless cars), presenting their analytical findings and strategic recommendations to 17 top executives,\u00a0former CEOs of Fortune 500+ firms, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

What is Hult Heat?<\/h2>\n

Hult Heat is a one-day strategy case competition held as a part of the Global Strategy course in San Francisco Campus. This event is a collaborative initiative between Olaf Groth, Hult’s Professor for Global Management, Strategy & Innovation<\/a>,\u00a0and the\u00a0academic and operational staff at Hult San Francisco, as part of the effort to continuously improve Hult courses and make\u00a0them more experiential.\u00a0During Hult Heat, students are faced with real-life business challenges and receive feedback from experienced professionals that act as members of an Executive Board.<\/p>\n

What\u00a0was the 2015 challenge?<\/h2>\n

This year, the competition was based on a Hult Case co-authored by Prof. Groth and two Hult\u00a0MBA 2014 alumni, with input\u00a0from other alumni, about the future of the autonomous automobile. The case asks: ‘Who will win the autonomous automobile race’ and ‘How will a prominent global car company position in this race?’ This is a very engaging\u00a0case about strategic disruptive innovation that touches on both automobile and technology industries. It has also been written as a global case, specifically with our globally diverse student\u00a0community in mind.\u00a0Students worked for a\u00a0week on the case, conducting research, analysis, and designing an innovative solution with execution moves, before presenting to the judges.<\/p>\n

\"Hult<\/a>
One of the teams present their solution.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Who was there?<\/h2>\n

More than 200 MBA students were organized in 35 teams that competed in 7 \u201cCompetition Courts\u201d in front of 17 judges that included Chris Galvin, former CEO of Motorola, and Tim Koogle, former CEO of Yahoo, both now leading venture capitalists as well as Gerhard Blendstrup, Former VP of IBM and 14 other top-level execs from leading telecoms and tech firms (see full list at the bottom of the page).<\/p>\n

The business leaders attending also got a lot out of the day with\u00a0Brad Davis, VP at Forensic Logic, saying: “I had a blast, and these things always help clarify my own thinking within our<\/em>\u00a0company as well.\u201d\u00a0Boris Schubert, ET Capital USA CEO added: “It was truly amazing and thought provoking to spend the day with these high energy students\u00a0\u2013 and judges.”<\/p>\n

In addition to the competition itself, students heard from\u00a0keynote speakers, Navi Radjou, renowned Silicon Valley innovation and leadership strategist, and author of ‘Frugal Innovation’, and Chris Galvin, Former CEO of Motorola. Navi set the tone for the event with his welcome keynote, explaining how important is to ‘think out of the box’ and how frugal innovation, doing more with less, is changing the way firms innovate nowadays. In his award keynote, Chris gave students advice on building a winning corporate culture and pointers on disruptive innovation, as well as providing\u00a0fascinating\u00a0insights into\u00a0strategy and career development.<\/p>\n

Carmen Cardila, a current student on\u00a0Hult’s One-Year MBA program<\/a>, said of the event: “This was one of the best days at Hult so far! This external opinion about our work, especially by executives with this high level of quality, has given us a lot of energy and motivation\u00a0to keep working hard.”<\/p>\n

\"Judges<\/a>
The winning teams and the\u00a017 judges, industry\u00a0experts, and business leaders.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Judges:<\/strong>\u00a0Chris Galvin, Former CEO of Motorola; Tim Koogle, Former CEO of Yahoo; Gerhard Blendstrup, Former VP of IBM; Edgar Auslander, VP of Audience and Former VP of Qualcomm; Michael Gonella, SVP Applications of Salesforce; Boris Schubert, CEO\u00a0of ET Capital Inc. and former CEO of Q.Cells North America; Colin Ritchie, VP at Advantest; Mike Fitzgerald, EVP at Cepheid; Ted Verani, EVP at Trilibis;\u00a0Karen Coppock, VP at TechSoup;\u00a0Tristen Langley, Director of Amalfi Capital;\u00a0Jeff Clark, Founder of 4G Partners and former CEO of mBlox; Sebastian Steinbach, serial entrepreneur and executive at CleanTech Open; George Baeder, Founder of China.Global Insight; Brad Davis, VP Forensic Logic and former consultant Kissinger Associations and Monitor 360.<\/em><\/p>\n

The author, Neus Esteve, is an MBA graduate from the Class of 2014 and is a Teaching Assistant and former consultant to Professor Olaf Groth.<\/p>\n

Kickstart your career right next door to Silicon Valley by studying at Hult’s San Francisco business school<\/a>. To find out more, take a look at our blog A story about why I chose Hult San Francisco<\/a>. Download a brochure or get in touch today to find out how Hult can help you to learn about the business world, the future, and yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hult San Francisco saw 200 MBA students go head-to-head\u00a0in the campus’s second large-scale\u00a0business strategy competition, Hult Heat. 35 teams of students responded to a case challenge on\u00a0autonomous automobiles (driverless cars),…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":4309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[175,229],"yoast_head":"\nHult MBA students feel the heat in front of San Francisco's leading execs | Hult International Business School<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hult San Francisco saw 200 MBA students go head-to-head in the large-scale business strategy competition, Hult Heat, with 17 of the city's top executives.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" 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