Dirk Zikeli, Alan Dodson, Kim Henderson, Nathan Foster, and Bruce Walker

This past April, the McColl School of Business hosted its annual Executive MBA Business Plan Competition. For this capstone project, the Executive MBA participants work in teams to develop a business plan for an original business idea or a new take on an existing idea. Participants work on this project throughout their second year of the EMBA program in coordination with their Entrepreneurship class. The project integrates all aspects of the coursework they have covered in the program, and for some participants, it is the first step towards a new career as an entrepreneur.

In the last weeks of the Executive MBA Spring semester, each team presents their business plan to a panel of Entrepreneurial Leadership Circle (ELC) members who judge not only the presentation but also the critical data in the business plan. For this year's competition, we were proud to have Paul Solitario, Founder and CEO - Cerium Capital; Rajeev Kulkarni - VP of Global Engineering, 3D Systems; Louis Foreman - CEO of Eventys and Executive Producer of the Everyday Edisons [Emmy award winning National PBS television show) and Melissa McGuire, Founder and CEO of Sherpa, LLC, serve on the judging panel.

The team determined to have the best business plan is awarded the David C. Stephens Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award. The award honors Executive MBA student and entrepreneur David Stephens who passed away in 2005. This year the award was given to  Alan Dodson, Nathan Foster, Kim Henderson, Bruce Walker, and Dirk Zikeli for a business plan to design and sell fully functional everyday household tools that parents feel safe using with their children in an instructional, fun and innovative way.

We hope to have you join us for the next Business Plan Competition in April 2013!