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Gabelli School Undergraduate Consulting Cups – The Culmination of a Semester-Long Exercise in Solving Real-World Business Problems

YETI Cohort F poses with the winner’s trophy at the end of the Consulting Cup competition at Lincoln Center.

Team ROO Comcast holds their winner’s trophy at the conclusion of the Consulting Cup competition at Rose Hill.

The Gabelli School undergraduate programs at Rose Hill and Lincoln Center hosted their Consulting Cup competitions in December and, as always, the pitches and strategies were phenomenal. Preparation for the Consulting Cup competition begins months prior to the actual event at the start of a semester-long integrated project course. Students are split into teams of four or five classmates and are provided with a real company to investigate. They are given four months to identify their company’s biggest problem in the marketplace, come up with an innovative solution, and present their proposal to a panel of industry judges and professors. This exercise—which mirrors what business consultants do in real life—draws upon all of the knowledge of strategy, marketing, accounting, IT, management, and other business disciplines that students learn about as part of the Gabelli School undergraduate core curriculum.

Towards the end of the semester, a series of competitive rounds take place during which some teams are eliminated, ultimately culling down the number of teams to those that will compete in the highly anticipated Consulting Cup final competitions. These groups demonstrate the talent and endurance of those competitors who have taken innovation, strategic thinking, problem-solving, analytics, and team work to the highest level. Competing teams are impeccably dressed, thoroughly prepared, and incredibly well-disciplined in their approach to presenting critical solutions to pressing corporate problems.

This year’s Rose Hill competition, which took place in Keating 1st, on December 11, 2024, was packed to the rafters with cheering students and administrators who watched six teams face off under intense pressure to impress the judges—all of whom hailed from industry. The teams identified and addressed key problems for well-known consumer brands—Yeti, a leader in manufacturing high-end coolers, stainless steel drinkware, and branded apparel; Comcast, the third-largest broadcasting and cable television company worldwide; and Colgate Palmolive, an American multinational consumer products company. Challenges ranged from reinvigorating brand reputation to appealing to new and younger audiences. Ultimately the judges chose Team ROO Comcast as the winner, for its innovative ideas regarding re-imagined programming to attract new viewers.

At the Lincoln Center competition, which took place in the McNally Amphitheatre on December 12, 2024, a similar scene took place with three teams competing. Two teams focused their efforts on problem-solving for Yeti and Comcast, a third pitched new strategies for T-Mobile, a major American wireless network operator, and a subsidiary of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom. The winner of the competition was Yeti Cohort F.

The Consulting Cup and its related coursework was the brainchild of a group of Gabelli School faculty members who came up with the idea many years ago. It has since become a cornerstone of the rigorous course of undergraduate study, providing real-world experience for those who are just starting out in their business careers.

—Paola Curcio-Kleinman

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