QUT Business School’s combined MBA and eMBA team has blitzed the Sasin mai Bangkok Business Challenge for the second consecutive year, taking the top prize for the best venture plan and presentation and accolades in other categories.
The team of Kerrie Muir, Barry Hankinson, Brandon Miller, Damian Seaton was coached by Dr Peter Beven and demonstrated their skills in business planning and persuasive presentations over a gruelling couple of days at the prestigious business school’s annual business case competition.
Dr Beven, who coached QUT’s 2013 winning team, said the team competed against 48 international business schools from 20 countries.
“The competition is backed by the Thai Stock Exchange and industry and is the showcase venture planning event across Asia,” Dr Beven said.
“The team presented a plan for a proposed new venture, the Lemna Cropping System, an innovative real-world agribusiness which produces protein from an aquatic plant that is found around the world for use as a feed for intensive animal farming.
“The plant has the real potential to replace traditional crops in particular soybean using lower volumes of water, having the same, in fact, better nutritional qualities and is many times more productive.
“The team was able to cover and promote every aspect of the business and make presentations to a judging panel which included consultants, and venture capitalists from Asia, US and Europe, CEOs and board members of large global corporates led by the chair of Toshiba Asia.
“They faced very intense competition from the likes of Cornell and Rice universities in the US, Singapore’s Nanyang University and INSEAD one of the world’s largest business schools with a combined team from Singapore and Europe.”
Team member Kerrie Muir, who was the team’s director of operations, said it had been her first competition but she now “had a taste for it”.
“It was quite daunting because of the calibre of the other universities but the feedback from the judges and the experience are just invaluable,” Ms Muir said.
“To be judged by real business people and entrepreneurs who make their living by picking winners, was just amazing.”
Dr Beven said the team’s success at Sasin had brought an invitation to participate in the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition in Austin, Texas to pitch the venture to US venture capitalists in April.
