January 8 - 11, 2009. Calcutta. -- After three full days of gruelling competition, CEIBS MBA 2008 student Joo Yi beat out seven other finalists to win the IIMC-hosted Olympus match-up, the flagship event of the Intaglio competition, which challenges the skills of the brightest leaders of the future.
CEIBS MBA 2008's Joo Yi (right) and Harsh Chhaparia from IIMC selling massages and career counselling -- their products for one of the events during the competition.
CEIBS was the only school from China to participate in the international event, which is now in its second year. The other participating schools were: the six IIM campuses from India (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow), and Wharton from the U.S.
Representatives from each school were selected based on two rounds. The 1st round had all interested candidates send in a resume and a short essay in response to the topic: "The best way to understand the character of a society is to examine the character of the men and women that the society chooses as its leaders". There were three finalists selected from each school, and then a 2nd round of interviews was conducted by IIM school professors and leaders of industry in India to determine the sole candidate.
Joo Yi (second left), Harsh Chhaparia from IIMC (second right), and David Larson from Wharton (right) being announced as the final three.
Joo was chosen as the CEIBS representative and attended the exciting event from January 8-11th in Calcutta, India. Across the three full days, none of the participants had a clue about what types of tasks they would face until the start of each event. It was only after the competition was over that finalists were made aware that the purpose was to test how well they demonstrated leadership skills during situations which could not be anticipated.
The competition was extremely comprehensive, testing many different facets of leadership such as quick decision making, business acumen, and diplomacy in diverse individual and team settings. Home schools were also involved in the event, contributing through votes for different candidates based on their credentials and answers to questions posted on the Olympus blog. Both '07 and '08 students were quite active in voting and CEIBS was among the schools with the highest participation.
The competition's most memorable event occurred at three o'clock one morning, where in an abrupt wake-up call, finalists were informed they were the CEO of an Indian company where a worker had just died in a factory accident and all the workers were now on strike -- therefore immediate attention was needed. Each was taken on motorcycle to a location -- where chants of "Down with the CEO" could be heard from outside the door -- and were evaluated on how well they could handle the situation.
On the last night, the eight finalists were divided into two teams and asked to come on stage to defend leaders portrayed in two different movies, one being Braveheart and the other being Hotel Rwanda. The results were then accumulated and tallied for all the events preceding and including the debate and the top three scorers -- UPenn, IIMC, and CEIBS -- remained for the final event of the night. The grand finale was where one finalist was asked to leave the stage while the other two had to speak for and against him/her on their qualities as a CEO. The results between the three finalists were extremely close, less than three points in the spread, but Joo Yi from CEIBS emerged as the winner of the event and awarded 150,000 INR. IIMC and Wharton came in at 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.
Joo Yi (right) being announced Intaglio Olympus 2008-09 winner and receiving the 150,000 INR prize money.
Said CEIBS MBA Director of Operations Yvonne Li in reacting to the news: "We are very proud of Joo Yi's great achievement, which marks a good start for year 2009. We also appreciate the teamwork of the whole CEIBS MBA Student Community. Special thanks go to Margaret Kan, who spent great time and effort in coordinating many different competitions. We thank you all for the great support to the school in the past year and we look forward to working together with you this year."
The general feedback from participants? Olympus was certainly challenging, even gruelling at times, but the variety of the tests, the high calibre of the participants, and the excellence in the way the competition was run, made it that much more enjoyable and fun.
More information regarding the leadership forum created for Olympus can be found at: www.waytolead.co.in , and for the Intaglio festival at www.iimc-intaglio.com.
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发表于 2009-1-22 19:53:00
