A Yale SOM student team took first place in the 2025 Case Competition World Cup on February 21.
The team, named “Team Beetles,” was composed of five students in SOM’s Master of Advanced Management program, all of whom will graduate in 2025. The students won in the competition’s “Advanced Degree Track,” which pits teams of MBA and other advanced professional-degree students against each other.
Hosted by the coaching firm Management Consulted and the case interview organization Case Questions, the global competition invited student teams to devise impactful solutions to a real-world business problem in order to showcase their analytical and problem-solving skills. The competition’s “Early Degree Track” was reserved for undergraduate students and those enrolled in specialty master’s degree programs. In all, 1,131 students competed on 253 teams from 17 different countries.
Team Beetles included Shivanjan Srivastava ’25, Shaninka Abeysinghe ’25, Maddelena Ponter ’25, Kevin Mellado ’25, and Sebastián Mohr ’25. The team’s challenge centered on helping the brewing company Anheuser-Busch regain market share.
After receiving their case prompts on February 1, teams refined their case analyses and recommendations. Three weeks later, final presentations took place virtually before a panel of judges from companies including McKinsey, Nestle, L.E.K. Consulting, FTI Consulting, and Stax Consulting.
“Our team was really well balanced,” Srivastava said. “We brought unique backgrounds and strengths from consulting, venture capital, marketing, finance, and manufacturing. We worked well together and became something more than the sum of our individual skills.”
Abeysinghe said the competition was fierce.
“What really set us apart was our team’s mix, creative approach, and commitment to having fun,” she said. Abeysinghe credited her teammates’ diverse backgrounds for the team’s creative edge.
“While most of the top teams pitched ideas around creating or buying a non-alcoholic beer, we took a different route by suggesting we purchase Olipop, the prebiotic soda,” she explained.
Team members were in far-flung locations when the news of their victory came, but they still celebrated together.
“Even though we were all in different places—Shiv and Kevin in New Haven, Maddelena and I in New York for the Private Equity/Venture Capital Symposium, and Sebastián in Texas playing for the SOM soccer team—we still managed a quick celebratory call,” Abeysinghe said. “I’m pretty sure Sebastián picked up right from the field!”
