The American University of Sharjah (AUS) team earned the runner's up award at the KPMG Ace the Case competition held February 1-2 at the Meydan Hotel in Dubai.

This business case competition involved students being given two days to learn and apply quantitative and qualitative analysis on an actual Harvard business case and were then asked to pitch to a panel of judges as they would in a real life consultant-client scenario.

Ace the Case had eight teams participating from six universities in the UAE. These included American University of Sharjah; University of Wollongong, Dubai; Zayed University, Abu Dhabi; University of Dubai; Heriot-Watt University, Dubai; and Canadian University of Dubai.

After a question-and-answer based selection round two teams made it through to the finals. Team Legacy from the University of Wollongong in Dubai won first place and will go on to participate in the KPMG International Case Competition finals in Hong Kong in April. The AUS team, comprising of Omar Qaddoumi, Deeppriya Kejriwal, Fazel Bashiri and Sami Al Haj, secured second place.

Representatives from KPMG visited AUS to present the award. Dr. Malcolm Richards, Dean of the School of Business and Management (SBM), accepted the award on behalf of the students.

"The purpose of Ace the Case is to stress to future graduates that KPMG is not only an auditing firm and to allow participating students to experience KPMG as a mentor," said Reyana Menzel, Head of HR, KPMG UAE.

Also at the ceremony were other senior SBM officials. Representatives from KPMG included Menzel; Prathap Katharikuppam, Partner; Jackie Okeke, Assistant Manager, Human Resources; and Nina Allison, HR Associate.

This was the first edition of Ace the Case in the UAE.