Winning Strategies

Before BYU football’s first kickoff in a Power Five league in 2023, and before men’s basketball wowed with a winning streak straight to the Sweet 16 in 2025, a different kind of BYU team—this one made of MBA students—won a top spot in the Big 12 arena.

Just as BYU sports teams compete in the Big 12 Conference, BYU MBA students face off in the Big 12 MBA Case Competition—an event that brings together business students from across the conference. When the first team of BYU MBA students took second place in the annual competition, “everybody was absolutely blown away,” says Marketing Assistant Professor John Howell, who coached the team.

Stellar competition placement is typical for BYU Marriott. “The other teams hate to see us coming,” says MBA Director Daniel Snow. BYU MBA students regularly place at prestigious national and international competitions, including supply chain competitions at Purdue University and Texas Christian University (TCU), the Baylor Business Ethics Competition, and the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC). At the VCIC especially, says Snow, the BYU Marriott team has a reputation for “performing extraordinarily well”; they’ve made it to the finals 8 times in 10 years and placed in the top two 7 times. VCIC is one of the larger events, drawing 72 teams from 12 countries—making BYU’s year-afteryear success there even more significant.

BYU has also cultivated a reputation as a generous host. In 2025, Howell led out in hosting the Big 12 competition (in which BYU again placed second) on campus. “BYU is friendly, open, and comfortable,” Howell explains. “Utah is beautiful; schools like to visit, especially in the winter when it’s ski season.” And a new BYU-grown, student-led competition centering on faith is drawing international teams and corporate sponsors. “The Faith and Belief at Work Case Competition, now in its third year, has become a huge deal,” Howell says. “It brings teams from all over to come to BYU to talk about faith in the workplace.”

For the MBA program, case competitions are not just about a winning reputation and an oversized check. “Competitions allow students to get experience in a way that we cannot mimic in the classroom,” Howell says. And that experience builds confidence. “It’s amazing how you go from not knowing anything about a topic to suddenly, in 24 hours, realizing, ‘I worked with my team, and we created a strategy,’” says Liz Frost, a second-year MBA student who participated in three competitions. “It reminds me I have grit, I have capacity, and I can grow.”

REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS

Studying and discussing solutions to real-life business problems has long been the foundation of a business education, explains Snow. Harvard Business School led the way, adapting legal case discussions used in law schools to educate future business leaders with mock cases.

“What we’re trying to do is build judgment and problem-solving heuristics in our students,” Snow explains. “The real world is a lot messier than a textbook. So in our MBA classrooms, we teach with cases that go far beyond demonstrating the right way to do things. When case discussions are done right, they help students burn in neural pathways they can use to confront real-world challenges later.”

Case competitions, Snow says, transform a valuable learning experience into a fun contest and connect students with peers at other universities. Participants think on their feet, test their mettle, and see who takes home the prize money. “MBAs tend to be competitive people,” Snow says.

Hosted at universities across the United States and beyond, the competitions center on one area, such as supply chain, ethics, finance, HR, strategy, or healthcare. Topics within the selected area might include marketing to a new customer base, managing inventory, implementing AI, or making the workplace more inclusive. Cases aren’t hypothetical. “A company presents a past or current business scenario,” says Barry Brewer, BYU Marriott associate professor of global supply chain and longtime case-competition coach. “The students are given a time frame to solve the problem and then present their results.” Some competitions give students a few weeks to prepare; others give just a few hours. Judges listen to the presentations and then determine which standout teams and presenters take home the prize money.

“For the companies, it becomes an opportunity to find talented individuals,” says second-year MBA student Grant Keller. He compares the experience to a think tank and emphasizes that these competitions “benefit both the companies and the students.” Brewer adds, “To have 60-plus MBAs look at a problem and give you an opinion—that’s pretty powerful.”

Competing also gives students a taste of high-level decision-making. “It simulates what it looks like to be an executive,” Howell says. “Getting that perspective makes students better at an entry-level job and prepares them to move up.” Keller adds that companies that work with case competitions often release real analytics, helping students “get their hands on realworld data.”

REFINING THE STORY

In the three events Frost attended—a healthcare leadership competition called the Wasatch Cup, the Big 12 MBA Case Competition, and the Faith and Belief at Work Case Competition—she learned the power of a good story. “One of the biggest things I learned in doing case competitions is how to take all these ideas and create a narrative,” Frost says.

In the 2025 Big 12 MBA Case Competition, Frost was proud of how her team “strategized together, created a game plan, created the slide deck, and then presented our findings to the judges”—all on just one and a half hours of sleep. “There’s something about the sleep deprivation and coming together as a team that just really is fun,” Frost says.

Brewer explains that a competition is like a pressure cooker because it challenges MBA students not only to brainstorm a solution but also to communicate it in a compelling way. BYU students, he says, often already have the frameworks and analytical skills needed to succeed. Coaches help them learn how to manage limited time, find a story in the data, and hone their presentation.

“Lead with the insight,” Howell tells his students. “Don’t lead with the data. The data is there just to support whatever the story is. We talk a lot about storytelling with data and how to frame a compelling pitch.” The coaching offered by BYU faculty can elevate a team’s performance from solid to memorable in the eyes of judges.

A successful competition “could be something to talk about in a job interview or put on a résumé or even just in a LinkedIn post,” Keller says. “It can really bring a lot of publicity to a student.” Beyond that, competing can help students conceptualize what their career might look like. Frost, a speech pathologist before starting her MBA, initially wanted to get into the business of healthcare—until a case competition gave her a taste of that field. “The competition was a good experience to solve a healthcare problem,” Frost says. “But it also helped me realize I didn’t want to go into healthcare leadership.”

The compressed deadlines at competitions can also bring students together. “The students love competitions,” Howell says. “Students say that some of their best friends from school have come from case competitions.”

The chance to forge connections is what motivated Frost to participate so often. “You’re building community with the team members because you’re spending so much time together,” she says. “You’re also meeting all these teams who are in the same boat as you but are from different schools.” Frost recalls talking with a student at the Faith and Belief at Work event who mentioned interest in a company, and Frost was able to help her make a connection there. “I’ve been able to widen my network.”

SHOWCASING THE BYU MARRIOTT BRAND

BYU MBA teams have a well-earned reputation for excelling in case competitions across the board. So when a team Brewer coached at the TCU global supply chain competition didn’t place for the first time ever, “everybody came up to me and was apologizing,” he remembers. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It was our turn to lose gracefully.”

Why do BYU Marriott students generally do so well, especially when other schools seem to have a leg-up in preparation? “A lot of other schools have dedicated case competition teams—it might be a yearlong elective course,” Brewer explains. “They treat it much more like a college sport.” BYU teams, on the other hand, tap into the larger pool of all MBA students. Some participants audition and are handpicked by faculty coaches, while other participants are invited by a team captain—a fellow student charged with crafting a balanced team. “BYU MBA students all have great work experience,” says Howell, citing an admissions requirement that all applicants work at least two years prior to the program. “That work experience matters. They have a broader perspective.”

Howell also credits the quality of teaching at BYU Marriott for giving students a competitive edge. The business communications course prepares students to be effective public speakers, and professors prioritize group work and in-class presentations over traditional exams. These experiences, he says, “push students beyond memorization into thinking on their feet.”

Still, winning a case competition takes more than a flashy presentation and engaging speaking skills. “There has to be good analysis behind the presentation,” says Snow. “We have intelligent students who are well trained, and they take competitions seriously.” Their success reflects well on BYU Marriott, contributing in part to its soaring rankings and job placement for graduates. “It’s really nice to have our students get external validation, both for the school and for them to see what we’ve been telling them all along: They are bright, they are world class, they are capable, and they are leaders.”

And yet, Snow notes that BYU Marriott students stand out at competitions for more than their winning performance. Even in the face of competition, “they love their neighbor,” Snow says. “They showcase all the things we know BYU stands for.”

A LEADER IN FAITH AT WORK

BYU was never a place Asher Brooks expected to f ind himself leading a prayer and spiritual thought. Yet Brooks, a second-year MBA student at Yeshiva University (a Jewish school in New York City), stood before a mixed-faith group at BYU to offer the Jewish morning prayer Modeh Ani and explain its meaning. “It mentions your gratitude for waking up and getting to live another day,” he says.

Brooks was a member of the first all-Jewish team to compete in BYU’s Faith and Belief at Work Case Competition, an annual event that addresses how employers can accommodate faith.

The idea took root four years ago when a team of three BYU MBA students participated in the Baylor Business Ethics Competition. Matthew Young, Sarah Lyman Smith, and Christina Muhlestein Bates were struck by how naturally and consistently their hosts wove in discussions of faith. Curious how a competition hosted at BYU might take a similar approach, they reached out to Paul Lambert, director of BYU’s Wheatley Institute Religion Initiative and affiliate professor in the Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics.

Lambert has long focused on incorporating employees’ religious needs and expression into the workplace. He and Snow became faculty advisors, helping the student founders launch the Faith and Belief at Work Case Competition, which featured a company debating whether and how to fund a faith-based employee resource group. That first competition “was a rousing success,” Snow says. “Faith is a relatively new topic for case competitions. We’re building a community of people interested in this.”

The competition has since grown in reputation, attracting big-name sponsors such as American Airlines, Equinix, PayPal, PwC, and Accenture, plus competitors from 16 religious and nonreligious universities. The third Faith and Belief at Work Case Competition, held in 2025, welcomed students from six different faith backgrounds.

“Our goal is creating networks between future leaders and firms that care about faith and belief in the workplace,” says Keller. “There are large Fortune 100 companies that want to support their employees emotionally and spiritually.”

While the competition was gaining traction externally, it was also sparking introspection for students like Keller, a University of Utah graduate who initially felt uneasy about attending BYU for his MBA and listing it on his résumé. “I wouldn’t be able to hide my faith anymore.” Free pizza drew him to an informational meeting about the Faith and Belief at Work event, where he was touched by students expressing how “faith could fit in a workplace,” Keller says. “I wanted to be involved in something that was so entirely different and that had changed people’s lives.” He ended up serving as one of 12 MBA students on the organizing committee, helping find sponsors and track down a real-life case for the competition.

That change of heart is relatable to Shivi Ravi, a second-year MBA student from the UK studying at the University of Navarra in Barcelona, Spain, and part of the first international team to compete at the Faith and Belief at Work Case Competition. “I’m a British Indian, and I’m a Hindu,” Ravi says. “Growing up it was very difficult to express my faith because it wasn’t something I was super proud of. If you talked about your religion, it was seen as weird.”

As an adult she feels more confident sharing her culture, but that childhood struggle came to mind when she decided to come to Utah for the competition. “I knew it would be an environment where you could talk about faith freely,” Ravi says. “I also wanted to give myself the opportunity to be able to do something a bit outside of my comfort zone, because I’d never done a case competition.”

Beyond the interfaith networking and on-her-feet learning, Ravi found her trip to be a cultural education. She went skiing at Sundance with fellow conference participants, attended a Utah Jazz game, ate at Olive Garden, discovered her favorite Swig drink (Dr Pepper with coconut creamer and a hint of blueberry), and bought a Stanley tumbler at Target. “I just loved interacting with people from Utah,” Ravi says. “It was also nice to interact with other MBA students within the case competition and have discussions with people from different parts of the US.”

Ravi says she came home with both a better understanding of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and an appreciation for her classmates’ religious backgrounds. “We were openly sharing about our faiths,” she says. “And even last week, we celebrated the Islamic holiday Eid with one of my team members from the competition. I would never have been exposed to something like that before.”

That spirit of mutual respect also resonated with Brooks, who appreciated the kosher catering and the thoughtful gesture of a BYU representative who replaced Brooks’s nametag to match his preferred name. “That really stood out to me, the attention that was given to each person there,” he says. “It was super accommodating, and it made me feel proud about my faith to be in such a faith-focused environment.”

That’s the kind of comfort and belonging Keller hopes the Faith and Belief at Work Case Competition can infuse into corporate cultures. Research shows that “when employees feel like they can bring their whole selves to work, they are not only more robust and more resilient to problems but also willing to work harder and stay with the company for longer,” Keller says. “And there are all these benefits that come when employees feel like they belong.”

HANDS-ON LEARNING

Case competitions are an example of experiential learning, especially for the students who work each year to plan the Faith and Belief at Work event. “The students who participate in case competitions are getting skills that are really difficult to teach,” Howell says. “These are often the soft skills—like how to communicate and present with confidence.”

Brewer recalls watching a capable student grow from insecurity to self-assurance through participation in a case competition. “Students develop an ability to tackle complex problems in a short amount of time and build confidence,” he says.

It’s rare, Snow says, to see students take the initiative to start a competition like Faith and Belief at Work and then watch it garner organic growth. “Our students are remarkable,” he says. “We take our BYU Marriott vision to transform the world through Christlike leadership seriously here. It is a privilege to mentor students on their journey to becoming Christlike leaders. We really care about this.”