UC Lindner Team Wins Global Case Competition in Shanghai, China

A team of graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business emerged as winners of a global case competition in China that earned them $1,000 each and $5,000 for the UC Real Estate Program.

In an all-expenses paid trip, the UC team traveled to Shanghai in March to present their recommendations to 600 corporate real estate executives from around the world at

CoreNet’s Global Summit

.

CoreNet Global is a professional association for over 10,000 corporate real estate professionals in more than 50 countries. They, along with Cushman & Wakefield, developed an academic challenge for real estate students as a way to raise awareness of corporate real estate as a viable career opportunity available to all academic disciplines.

The members of the UC team are: Zebulon Copley, a Lindner MBA specializing in corporate finance and real estate; Anthony Bridgewater, a master’s in community and regional planning student with a certificate in real estate; Austin Lazenby, a finance and real estate major; Toni Strauch, a student majoring in urban planning and minoring in real estate with certificates in historic preservation and geographic information sciences; and Matthew Obringer, a master of science in finance student specializing in real estate. Lindner adjunct professor Lydia Jacobs-Horton, former director of Procter & Gamble’s global facilities and real estate, accompanied the student team on its journey.

The team presented the best workplace solutions to the challenge of how to attract and retain millennials for a hypothetical Hartford, Connecticut-based insurance company.  

“UC's solution was creative, feasible and demonstrated value to be created for the corporation,” Jacobs-Horton said. The competition provided a great opportunity for UC students to tour and learn about Shanghai's world-class real estate projects and historic sites, she said.

The judges declared the UC team the winner over two other teams from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. UC prevailed over 26 other international teams before reaching the finals.

The judges were impressed by all 29 submissions, said Dean Jordan, vice president of university & external relations for CoreNet Global, but the University of Cincinnati team “frankly, blew them away.”