A team of four Western students received top prize at the 2022 Business Foundations Case Competition for determining how a local herbal-infused coffee business could carve a path forward during the COVID-19 pandemic. The winning team included Theo Kalff, Kate McCallum, Naomi Walch, and Patrick Westdal.
Two teams were named as runners-up. One was comprised of Dominic Bazina-Grolinger, Oscar Civello, Jacob Ke, Jeffrey Martinovic, Matt Proulx, and Mandric Sittaro. The other included Shrey Bangera, Alyssa Choi, Rickie Huang, Charlotte Lemon, Akshay Samuel, and Arun Vora.
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Hosted by the Business Foundations department at Ivey, the annual competition is open to first-year Western students enrolled in Business Foundations courses and is completely voluntary. Interested students form groups and have the opportunity to develop and hone their presentation skills while tackling a general management case chosen for the competition.
A total of 65 teams competed through preliminary and semi-final rounds before the three finalists were selected to present their analyses to a panel of judges at a virtual event on March 31.
Cafézia Coffee: Brewing Entrepreneurial Success
This year’s case focused on growth options for Cafézia Coffee Inc., which was founded by Natalie White, HBA ’17, in 2019 and sold to a new owner in 2021.
According to the case, White was considering strategic options to grow the business during its first year of operations. Options included partnering with a food and beverage industry distributor or broker or buying out the company’s co-owners to assume full control.
Judges included White, who is now Senior Consultant at Deloitte LLP, as well as Daniel Clark, an assistant professor of Entrepreneurship at Ivey, and Nicole Haney, a business coach, Fanshawe College professor, and speaker.
