Every undergraduate student who earns a degree from the Penn State Smeal College of Business must negotiate the rigors of BA 411: Analyzing Business and Industry. It is the college’s capstone course.
For two dozen of those students, BA 411 ends with a trip to the Lion’s Cage.
Accounting instructor Nancy McClure selects 25 students each semester for an accelerated section of the course.
“Students who want to be challenged ask to be considered for the accelerated section,” McClure said. “It is an alternate path for those students interested in entrepreneurial ventures. Students design a complete business plan for a working venture then present it to a panel of judges as though they were pitching an investor. We call that the Lion’s Cage.”
Five teams of five students each develop their business plan, helped by a rigorous mentoring process with Smeal master of business administration students.
The final test of that plan comes in the Lion’s Cage, in which the teams have 30 minutes to present their business plans to a panel of judges from the business community.
This year’s panel included: Mike Lynn, retired CFO of Avail Technologies; Dave Matta, a retired executive from Avail Technologies; John Tierney, Class of 1976, a retired partner in EY; Tara Weiner, Class of 1976, a retired managing partner of Deloitte’s greater Philadelphia region; and Bill Zally, a self-employed consultant.
Those judges deliberated and selected Boustany Film Co. LLC as the winner. Its team members included Griffin Boustany Jost, Nikhil Kethavarapu, Xiaoqi Yang, Benjamin Zeh and Xinyao Zhang.
Boustany was seeking funds to produce a documentary presenting the students' view of Penn State and its ties to the surrounding community. The title of the documentary is "Dear Old State." PBS has agreed to air the documentary, so the students are moving forward with the project and the future for the documentary looks bright.
“If we give our students a challenge that they value, they will more than step up,” McClure said of her accelerated section. “All of these teams worked long hours and produced professional plans and presentations. It’s really a pleasure to see the development of the students’ skills during the semester and the looks of pride and accomplishment on their faces after they’ve completed their presentations.”