TMA New York Student Paper Competition Winners Announced | April 2019

Continuing a long-standing tradition of the Chapter, TMA New York is pleased to announce the winners of its semiannual Student Paper Competition.

The TMA New York Student Paper Competition recognizes outstanding student achievement in the field of corporate renewal, as well as research that may offer new insight into the profession and expand TMA’s university outreach. The program establishes building blocks for future relationships with those students who have submitted papers, some of whom may eventually enter the industry full-time.

Students enrolled in an MBA program or equivalent business-related master’s degree program at an accredited university in the New York City area were eligible to enter. The competition judges evaluate the papers based on established criteria, including relevance to issues pertinent to corporate distress, financial restructuring, and reorganization; well-written, clearly constructed, and thorough treatment of the subject; originality of the subject and its interpretation; and depth of research and quality of analysis and presentation.

First Place:

Arun Nagabhairava, Divyani Kothari, Kavan Reddy, Miles Bloom, Patricia Ovidio, and Regen Wallis from Columbia University's Business School have been awarded first place for their paper entitled Turnaround of Dean Foods: A Strategy to Milk a Shrinking Industry. Click to read the paper. Click to view Restructuring Measures. Click to view Turnaround Baseline.

Second Place:

James Krasker, Genevieve Loomis, Max Esteves, Juan Camilo Castano, and John FitzSimons from Columbia University's Business School been awarded second place for their paper entitled Community Health Systems. Click to read the paper.

Third Place:

Sam Lamson, Andy Sheng, Brendon Earle, Robert Schaus, and Jonathan Bunz from Columbia University's Business School have been awarded third place for their paper entitled Campbells Soup: Turnaround Struggle of an American Icon. Click to read the paper. Click to view model.

“We are pleased with the high quality of submissions this year as in the past, and I appreciate and acknowledge the work of the Committee members who helped set the standards, grade the students’ papers and coordinate the results,” said George Utlik, who serves as Chair of the Academic Relations Committee of the TMA New York Chapter.

The Academic Relations Committee

Director | Chair, George Utlik, Arent Fox LLP
Vice Chair, Marti Murray, Murray Analytics
Purav Adiecha, Grant Thornton
Jasmine Ball, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
Eric Chafetz, Lowenstein Sandler
Larry Halperin, Chapman and Cutler
Sharmeen Khan, FTI Consulting
Sunil Kurien, AMA Capital Partners
Lawrence Loeb, LD Loeb
Glenn Siegel, Morgan Lewis
Bert Weil, CTP, Getzler Henrich