close window 
Despite living in Paris and taking classes in Singapore, Alexandre Brown, ’07 (AXP-6), led a team that won $5,000 from Mitsubishi and $5000 from DaimlerChrysler for his company, Septet Systems, at the Edward L. Kaplan New Venture Challenge business plan competition finals May 24 at the Charles M. Harper Center in Hyde Park. Brown, who commuted to Chicago for each level of the contest, took the rigorous commute in stride. “My GSB experience was absolutely international and I loved it,” he said.
Brown was among several students in the Executive MBA Program who competed in the 2007 challenge. He communicated with teammates in New York, Montreal, and Paris by e-mail, telephone, and WebEx sessions. Technology also enabled executive MBA student Mike Sorrentino to provide his expertise from Atlanta for his team, The Perfect Dinner, LLC, which took second place in the overall competition.
“I didn’t make it to Chicago for a majority of the classes for the competition,” Sorrentino said. “That was a challenge in itself. But I’ve learned to accommodate people in those types of situations. You send e-mails, do conferences calls—basically, whatever you need to do to communicate.”
In facing hurdles, Executive MBA students possess the advantage of their executive experience. “You have a better perspective,” said Chris Kaltenbach, ’07 (XP-76), a member of first place winner Braintree Financial who commuted by train from Milwaukee to take part in the event. “Our teammates had more developed skill sets in their particular areas.”
Karen Gruber, founder and owner of The Perfect Dinner, LLC, took advantage of the skills of her classmates to piece together her team. “I knew I needed financial expertise and technology expertise, and I needed some help to take the marketing plan to the next level,” she said. “I sought out people who had expertise in those areas. I knew some of them were interested in entrepreneurship and I got referrals to help round out the team.”
Three teams of students from the Executive MBA Program won $5,000 in the 11th annual competition, which was sponsored by the Michael P. Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship. The program admits about 90 students at each campus each June. To meet the demands of students’ current professional lives, students at the North America campus in Chicago meet on alternate Fridays and Saturdays over 21 months; at the Singapore and London campuses, classes are taught in 16 one-week modules over 21 months.
“We’re at a different life stage,” said Wes Thompson, ’07 (XP-76), another Braintree Financial member. “We have full-time jobs with considerable responsibilities. Lots of us have families and kids. It makes you manage your time more effectively.”
The tough part, according to Kaltenbach, was that the 2007 competition began just after his team members finished their courses. “Although I’d gotten my diploma, I wasn’t really done yet,” he said. “It was a challenge to keep things going, to keep having the conference calls and to keep working weekends.”
If an MBA student has any inkling of launching his or her own business, the New Venture Challenge is a great way to get started, Gruber said. “A lot of people have this desire to go out and do something, and they don’t know exactly what that is and they don’t know how to get started,” she said. “This is a way they can get started and they won’t regret it later in life for never trying. The level and quality of feedback from the judges is invaluable.”
Braintree Financial is an “end-to-end” provider of payment processing solutions. The Perfect Dinner is a “hub-and-spoke” fresh-made dinner service. Septet Systems delivers novel information analysis and classification tools and services to general Web users.
—Phil Rockrohr