A Lively Season of Case Competitions: Practical Lessons and Real-World Readiness
From ethics to algorithmic trading, Leeds students demonstrated their business acumen at case competitions across the country this spring.
This spring, Leeds students and faculty returned victorious from case competitions of all kinds—local, regional, national and beyond. Each year, both undergraduate and graduate students participate in case competitions, bringing home glory, prestige and prize money—and, most importantly, confirmation that classroom lessons are directly applicable in real-world business environments.
In addition to collaborating with talented classmates, students benefit from working closely with Leeds faculty and mentors from Leeds Centers of Excellence.
Here are highlights from three national-level competitions.
Rising talent in real estate
Three Leeds real estate majors—juniors Yashwant Chapagain, Ali Marcus and Sehaj Singh—earned second place in Boston University’s School of Hospitality’s 2025 Hospitality Real Estate Competition. The inaugural event brought together 21 teams and nearly 100 students from 17 universities.
The team placed second out of 12 national teams and was awarded $3,000 in prizes, said Chapagain. “The challenge focused on the development of a high-profile air rights parcel near Fenway Park, where we proposed a luxury hotel, an indoor food and beverage mall, and a modern office tower,” he explained.
The team used a strategic storytelling approach to pitch “Fenway Heights” to an audience of more than 180 industry professionals, Chapagain said. He noted that they leveraged AI tools to visual market dynamics and support the team’s design rationale.
Team member Sehaj Singh emphasized that the site came with both high potential and plenty of challenges. “Our concept aimed to meet growing demand for high-end hospitality, attract year-round foot traffic beyond game days, and connect key parts of the neighborhood through improved pedestrian access and transit integration.” He added that the opportunity allowed the team to consider various audiences, including business travelers and local professionals, positioning the site as a vibrant new destination.
“It was a great hands-on experience that challenged us to apply financial modeling, design and strategy in a real-world context. Case competitions like this are invaluable for learning, networking and testing ideas under pressure,” said Singh.
“It was a great hands-on experience that challenged us to apply financial modeling, design and strategy in a real-world context.”
Sehaj Singh (RelEst’26)
At the regional level, another Leeds real estate team secured first place in the Sherman Miller Case Competition at Colorado State University. Seniors Emma Bedrick, Jackson Eskridge, Jonah Duran, Madison Fanshawe and Blake Kuykendall, along with sophomore Dane Westen, competed against CSU and University of Denver teams to win $4,000 in prize money.
CU team shines at the Daniels Fund Case Competition
Under the guidance of Joshua Nunziato, a team representing CU Boulder earned second place in the Daniels Fund National Ethics Case Competition, advancing from an original pool of 83 teams across 38 universities to compete in person as one of the top 20 finalists. Their impressive performance earned them an $80,000 prize.
The team—Mitali Desai, Jesse Hettleman, Marina Levine and Aaditya (Aadi) Pore—were all CU seniors from outside Leeds but were heavily involved with the Leeds Consulting Group.
“It’s a big prize and symbolic milestone in these hardworking students’ journeys: They’ve been developing their consulting and teamwork skills for years as active members of the Leeds Consulting Group and Presidents Leadership Class,” said Nunziato. “After graduation, Aadi will be joining NASA, while Mitali, Jesse and Marina have all accepted positions at McKinsey.”
Top honors in quantitative trading
Darrell Zechman, senior director of Career Development and Experiential Learning at Leeds, mentored three CU students—two from Leeds and one from engineering—at the 13th Annual UChicago Algorithmic Trading Competition. CU’s team—Ephram Cukier from Engineering, and Caden Patel and Yusuf Hanif of Leeds—earned recognition in several categories.
“To see engineering and business students collaborate and perform so well was such a wonderful feeling,” Zechman said.
“This is the premier collegiate quant trading competition in the country and attracts teams from places like MIT, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard and Princeton,” Zechman added.
The two-day event includes cases on market making, options trading and time series analysis, and features networking opportunities with over a dozen trading and financial firms. The winnings exceed $13,000.
“I’m excited to announce we ended up winning second place overall,” Patel shared on LinkedIn, “while taking third place for Algorithmic Trading and 4th place for Portfolio Optimization.”
His teammate Yusuf Hanif noted, “It was an incredible opportunity to apply quantitative strategies and classroom concepts to real-world inspired challenges, all the while meeting with many other fantastic students and learning more from professionals about the quantitative finance industry as a whole.”
Developing a solid business acumen
Case competitions offer students more than just accolades—they are transformative experiences that foster collaboration, critical thinking, valuable networking and real-world readiness.
“Leeds students have an impressive track record of performance, often competing against teams from the top business schools in the country.”
Julie Gibson, Sherman R. Miller Executive Director of the Michael A. Klump Center for Real Estate
“Everything we do at the Klump Center is in partnership with the industry, giving students opportunities to deepen their learning outside the classroom from industry experts,” noted Julie Gibson, the Sherman R. Miller Executive Director of the Michael A. Klump Center for Real Estate at Leeds.
“Case competitions offer an incredible opportunity for students to apply their classroom learning on real projects. Leeds students have an impressive track record of performance, often competing against teams from the top business schools in the country,” Gibson said.
Across the curriculum, Leeds students have consistently proven they have what it takes to apply their academic experiences to complex business environments.
At the 2025 Leeds Sustainability Case Competition, which brought in top students from leading business schools, Leeds MBA student James Anderson was a member of The Green Beans team, which won second place.
The experience took “a mix of hard work, practice and maybe a little magic," Anderson said.
“I came in with limited knowledge of the sustainability space, so learning from my teammates was awesome. It also gave me great practice in translating technical knowledge into digestible insights that resonated with a broader audience, including the judges.” He also enjoyed participating in the Venture Capital Investment Competition, organizing logistics for five visiting teams and supporting the Leeds competitors with research and diligence screening.
A few other competitions where Leeds students grabbed the spotlight this spring included the NAIOP Rocky Mountain Real Estate Challenge, the Bascom Undergraduate Real Estate Competition and the New Venture Challenge.