Category Archives: Event Recaps

Written by Paige Kimball

One of the fantastic things about BHP is that the program is constantly providing its students with real world experiences that will be applicable to them when they begin their working careers. Last Friday the BHP sophomore class experienced one of these occasions by participating in the BA151 Case Competition. The class was split into teams and given a case problem to come up with a solution for. This year’s case competition was sponsored by PepsiCo, who generously provided the case and industry professionals to judge the presentations.

 The sophomores received their case a week before Thanksgiving break and were given two and a half weeks to create a fleshed out solution and accompanying presentation. The case revolved around a real product that PepsiCo gave the sophomores to sample, which helped bring the case to life and made the students excited about the project.

After receiving the case instructions and guidelines, it was up to the sophomores to put together a plan of action and decide where to go with their ideas. Everyone was put out of their comfort zone by not only being given a problem in which the solution was open to interpretation but being placed into teams where they didn’t necessarily know all their members. PepsiCo played a big part in the learning experience by providing an issue to solve that was current and relevant to the students.

After a few late nights and some good old case bonding, the BHP sophomores had their slide decks in tow and were ready to present. Dressed to impress in business professional, the sophomores were assigned to one of five rooms. Each room had judges who were PepsiCo professionals and BHP professors. While the teams presented their ideas, the judges were encouraged to interject with questions and comments about their solutions, just as they would if the students were actual consulting groups.

Once every team had presented, the judges chose the best presentations from each of their respective rooms to move on to the final round. The six teams who were chosen to advance to finals then presented their solution again to a room of eight judges. After the judges deliberated, first through third place were awarded and a very busy and exciting day came to an end. Congratulations to the following teams!

First place: Mariette Peltier, Paige Kimball, Anna Chong, Mariel Trimble

Second place: Farahn Seibert-Hughes, Kruti Mehta, Katherine Barnhart, Bryson Hearne

Third place: Mary Claire Adams, Adam Roossien, Jonathan Go, Priyunka Maheshwari

Thank you to all the students who participated. And a huge thank you to PepsiCo and its employees who made this event possible by providing a great case and fantastic judges. This was a learning experience the sophomores will not soon forget.

Written by Bethany Rolan

This week during the BA 151 lyceum course, facilitated by BHP Faculty Director, Robert Prentice, BHP sophomores were visited by Blake Chandlee, Vice President of Global Partnerships at Facebook. In his role at Facebook, Chandlee has helped to integrate the website and mobile application into countries around the world including Switzerland, England, France, Egypt and Japan.

Chandlee studied management at Gettysberg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where he played college football. As a college sophomore attending a small liberal arts school, Chandlee shared that he was thinking more about what he was going to do on Saturday night than his future career. He completed an internship at an insurance company while in college and accepted a full-time position in the insurance industry after graduation. Chandlee soon decided that insurance was not a good fit for him, and began an incredibly dynamic and diverse career, which included jobs at his own tree business, a website startup, Catalina Marketing and Yahoo!

Around 1997, having already worked for large corporations and started his own business, Chandlee became interested in data. A client exposed Chandlee to what was, at the time, a cutting edge idea: using data to understand and profit from purchase behavior. This exposure sparked a new passion in Chandlee and significantly changed his career trajectory. He then started working heavily with technology and leveraging his marketing experience to create value in the digital space. Chandlee shared that he strongly believes that most work will involve some type of computer programming or “coding” in the near future and encouraged the students to take advantage of coursework or opportunities that would expose them to programming.

Even though he has now been with Facebook for seven years, Chandlee describes himself as an entrepreneur. He experienced his most difficult challenges as the owner of a web-based business during the dot-com bust. Through this experience, he learned the importance of financial responsibility and emphasized this principle to the students. Chandlee also shared that building relationships and knowing the right people is essential in entrepreneurship and that relationships helped him get in front of large clients like Coca-Cola and CNET during his time in small firms. Working with large clientele eventually led to his being recruited by Yahoo!, moving to London, and becoming the company’s Vice President and Commercial Director in the UK.

One of the students’ favorite topics during the presentation was Chandlee’s candid recounting of his first experience with Facebook. While he was working in London for Yahoo!, Chandlee shared that he “got a call from a kid starting a company he had never heard of,” and that call prompted him to fly to New York and meet with the “kid,” Mark Zuckerberg. Chandlee thought he was being a bit rebellious by choosing not to wear a tie to the interview, so he was shocked when “Zuck” (as he repeatedly referred to Zuckerberg during the discussion) came into the meeting wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt and didn’t even shake his hand. Although his presentation was unconventional, “Zuck” impressed Chandlee with his questions about European markets and skillful articulation of the mission and vision he had for Facebook. Chandlee felt that “Mark filtered the world differently,” and was convinced to take a large pay cut and move back to the US to be a part of a company led by a man who, in Chandlee’s option, was “the next Steve Jobs.”

The passion that Chandlee has for his job and his company was palpable as he described the company as one of few truly “mission-based” companies. It was a unique and insightful experience for students to hear from an executive at a modern, fast-paced company with whom most students interface on a daily basis. As the final speaker in the 10-speaker series the sophomore students have the privilege of hearing throughout the semester, Chandlee kept the students entertained with his laid-back style and honest answers. The Business Honors Program is grateful to Blake Chandlee for sharing his time and advice with our business students.