The Lisbon MBA partners with Caixa Geral de Depósitos in Business Case Competition
From left to right: Manuela Calhau (Invited Professor at The Lisbon MBA Católica | Nova), Rui Negrões (Head of Digital Banking at Caixa Geral de Depósitos), João Baptista Silva (The Lisbon MBA International student – winning team), Alban Auffray (The Lisbon MBA International student – winning team), Vitor Ferreira (Digital Bank Manager at Caixa Geral de Depósitos), Maria José Amich (Executive Director at The Lisbon MBA)
Yesterday, The Lisbon MBA International students presented the final projects developed for the Business Case Competition – an initiative in which participants address a complex and strategic level assignment by using the value of their MBA learning, their work experience and the guidance of The Lisbon MBA faculty. Students are divided into teams and work separately, competing to present the best solutions and recommendations, to the proposed challenge.
The Lisbon MBA partners with a Company that sets this business challenge. For the Company, this initiative intends to serve as a consulting source from high-talented students from The Lisbon MBA International program, provided in an oral and written report format.
This year The Lisbon MBA partnered with Caixa Geral de Depósitos, that challenged students to present a sound, coherent, innovative, applicable and well supported recommendation for growing DABOX, the materialization of Caixa’s Open Banking Strategy.
DABOX has already won a couple of prizes: ‘Best App 2020’ by Exame Magazine; ‘Highly Commended’ by Tink.
The jury was composed by Rui Negrões, Head of Digital Banking, and Vitor Ferreira, Digital Bank Manager at Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Manuela Calhau, Invited Professor and Maria José Amich, Executive Director at The Lisbon MBA.
Alban Auffray, Gianfrancesco Verzola, João Baptista Silva, Patrick Henrici, Veronica Pechnikova were the winning team, and said that: “When we started this Business Case Competition by the Lisbon MBA, we saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to work on an impactful solution for the Portuguese people. Our diverse team tried to tackle it by taking the users point of view on the DABOX App and was quickly aligned with the vision of building a product that makes saving money easier and more fun. We feel honoured to be awarded as the winners of this competition, competing against six other truly outstanding and creative teams that would have all deserved this acknowledgement. We want to thank Caixa and The Lisbon MBA to provide us with this opportunity, working on the DABOX App.”
Rui Negrões stated that “The opportunity to have The Lisbon MBA students solve a business challenge for Caixa is something that makes us very proud. The quality, analysis capacity, diversity of opinions and experiences of the 35 students who accepted our challenge, greatly enriched the final result of the work they developed in the Business Case Competition. It will serve as a valuable input for the way in which Caixa will proceed with this project. Our thanks to all students for their commitment and excellent work and, in particular, to The Lisbon MBA team for inviting us to join the Business Case Competition.”
Manuela Calhau, invited professor for The Lisbon MBA, also shared her opinion on this project: “Leveraging on students´ professional experience and MBA learning, the Business Case Competition offers students the opportunity to simulate a real consultancy exercise, by addressing a business issue currently on the top management agenda of the participating company. In addition, students have the chance to network and work with some of the most successful top executives/companies in our market. I am always surprised to acknowledge how it is possible to learn so much in such a short period of time. Also, how a fresh and unbiased look can add valuable different perspectives for a business case. That is why some of the top corporate companies based in Portugal continue to enthusiastically participate in the Lisbon MBA Case Competition, and, most of the times, as it is the case with the 2020 edition, invite the winning team to share their work in a presentation to its top management, while, simultaneously, adopt some of the team recommendations. As the Lisbon MBA Case Competition invited faculty, noting can make me prouder. ”
Congratulations to the winning team and to all students for their hard work and commitment!