Another trophy for the mantle: How UCalgary created a dynasty in business case competitions

Just as athletes and teams have trophy cases to show off their accomplishments, the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business could build one for all its unparalleled successes in national and international competitions — maybe even two.

What the teams have accomplished over the past five decades could be greater than any dynasty in sports. And it all started with Dr. Bob Schulz, PhD.

Since his early days at UCalgary entering a team in the inaugural Inter-Collegiate Business Competition (ICBC) in 1978, he has coached Haskayne students to 108 national championships and more than 200 podium finishes. Each ICBC is made up of smaller competitions in two different streams that cover different disciplines like accounting, business policy, ethics, finance, human resources and marketing. Haskayne is also the only school to win all 10 historical ICBC Finals events at least once over the years. In fact, they have actually won each of those 10 events at least twice.

It’s an impressive feat given his teams typically have high turnover with graduation, but the professor, known affectionately as Dr. Bob, says the students’ success can be attributed to the strength of Haskayne BComm and MBA programs, coaching and logistical continuity, team selection, building on past successes, adjusting to coaching changes and sports-like practices.

“Decades ago, we started to understand what our teams needed to do to win as the competitions are different,” says Schulz. “We recruit and train great students and, at the same time, provide great career skills.”

This approach made UCalgary a business-competition powerhouse with no signs of slowing down. 

 

Outperforming his own bold expectations

Schulz joined UCalgary in 1973 after working as a consultant training hundreds of companies in online teleprocessing. As a teacher, he had the goal of integrating industry experiential skills such as business cases, real-world projects, report writing and presentation skills into traditional academic courses.

Schulz was serving as the faculty advisor for the Commerce Undergraduate Society in 1978 when the school received a letter from Queen’s University student organizers inviting Canadian BComm students to take part in the first ICBC competition.

He vividly remembers the letter being passed around at a student club meeting. His goal: seeing UCalgary become the top school within five years.

“At the time, I didn’t know exactly how we would do it,” Schulz says. “The journey begins with the first step, and the first step is to have a vision. Then next steps involve flexible laddering and learning-oriented implementation plans.”

The UCalgary contingent finished No. 1 in the Fall 1978 Business Strategy stream and overall, and No. 2 in the six-team final. 

Proving that was no fluke, Schulz’s UCalgary teams won the fall preliminaries in the next year, won the Debate finals, and — well ahead of Dr. Bob’s prediction — were No. 1 overall. That set the tone for decades of victories.

Very good can always be better

The key to UCalgary’s continued success in the competitions, Schulz says, has been taking a sports-oriented approach to fine-tuning and training for championships each year.

Relentlessly pursuing the same mindset as athletes, Schulz reached out to a variety of high-level coaches and trainers to show his teams the level of detail and preparation he wanted to see out of each participant.

Working with those who train Olympians and professional athletes helped hone the competitive appetite to win. For example, Schulz entered an undergraduate team in the Emory University international competition, where the UCalgary team scored top-five finishes six years running in the mid-1980s, before the competition was cancelled.

By the early 1990s, Haskayne BComm teams had won five of seven ICBC events. Then in 2008, they captured six of eight. 

Schulz’s teams also succeeded at events like the week-long Molson International Case Competition at Concordia University in Montreal. In 2010, he entered a team in the global Hult Prize and guided the team to a second-place finish among 50,000 teams in just seven years They then switched focus to the MBA Innovation Olympics in 2017, winning 30 of 58 events over the next seven years.

Adding their names to the legacy

Current Haskayne students Jillian Broderick and Stephanie Tan knew what they were getting into when they put their names forward for the ICBC.

Schulz paired them in the accounting stream, and they received detailed feedback and critiques from Schulz and Haskayne associate professor and alum Dr. Phil Davidson, BComm’90, MBA’17, DBM’23, who was recruited to help coach the teams.

 “Dr. Bob really pushed us to think beyond the obvious, to go outside the box, and to consider what would actually make sense in the real world,” says Broderick.

She says they finally stopped chasing perfection and started focusing on making a strong, thoughtful and persuasive case.

Tan says the team learned how to take an unfamiliar situation, work with incomplete information and break it all down quickly to come up with well-supported recommendations and strong presentations.

The pair won silver at the 2026 ICBC.

“I would honestly say it’s one of the most valuable experiences to have during your degree,” Tan says. “It pushes you outside of what you learn in class and forces you to apply your knowledge in a much more realistic setting.”

At that same event, the team of Renata Santander Rojas and Max Shedd placed first in marketing, while Edina Thai and Ivan Imshenetskyy finished third in finance, continuing UCalgary’s run of having top-three finishes in each ICBC. 

Notable alumni of Schulz’s ICBC competition teams have included former Calgary mayor-turned Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi, BComm’93; former Alberta cabinet minister Gary Mar, BComm’81; longtime Goldman Sachs managing director and partner Kent Clark, BComm’86; Direct Cash Income Fund co-founder Susan Gallacher, BComm’84; and lawyer Ken McKinnon, BComm’80.

Trusting the process

Schulz says it’s not just students who understand UCalgary’s reputation in international business competitions. Industry is also keenly aware of the successes and are quick to scoop up talent as soon as they see it.

He is quick to recognize the outstanding efforts of now-retired professor Dr. Larry Wood, who co-coached the teams for 35 years, and Davidson, as well as Haskayne administrative assistants Joan Taylor and Rebecca Losier, who have been integral for logistical support for more than 15 years.

“Our teams work together and have this experience of coming up with creative ideas and talking to real people in the real world who have real problems needing to be solved,” says Schulz. “That’s where we really shine: real solutions to real problems.”

For more than 50 years, Dr. Bob has been trusted by each cohort of students for his expertise and experience, as well as the processes he’s put in place to be successful in competitions and in life.

It’s something he doesn’t take lightly as he starts preparing another group for future competitions to add to what he hopes is a future trophy case.

“When you work with students who are serious and you see them grow and you see how far they get in their careers, it’s very gratifying,” Schulz says.