2026 Making Your Consulting Case Competition Finalists and Winners Announced

Employers are often asked to evaluate potential based on resumes, grades, credentials, and interviews. Yet these tools reveal only part of a person’s professional capability.

The Making Your Consulting Case Competition was created to provide something more substantial: independently reviewed evidence of how participants analyze problems, develop recommendations, and create value for organizations.

The results of the 2026 competition demonstrate both the diversity of challenges participants addressed and the rigor of the review process used to evaluate their work.

How the Making Your Consulting Case Competition Evaluates Excellence

Every submission to the Making Your Consulting Case Competition underwent multiple blind peer reviews.

Field experts and experienced case consultants evaluated each consulting case independently, with no author names attached to submissions. This approach ensured that cases were judged on the quality of analysis, recommendations, and reasoning rather than institutional affiliation, professional title, or reputation.

Cases recommended for recognition by multiple reviewers advanced to the finalist stage.

By separating evaluation from author identity, the competition reinforces an important principle: strong ideas and strong analysis should stand on their own merits.

For participants, this creates a level of credibility that extends far beyond a traditional classroom assignment.

Making Your Consulting Case Finalists: Graduate and Practitioner Division

The Graduate and Practitioner Division featured consulting projects addressing challenges across multiple industries and regions.

Finalists included:

• Aptus Staffing Solutions
• Northeastern University’s Global Extension
• Square: Expansion into South America or Europe
• HUB Enterprises, Pakistan: Evaluating Market Readiness in the Gulf

Together, these projects examined topics ranging from workforce strategy and higher education to international expansion and market entry.

Graduate and Practitioner Winner

The winning consulting case was developed for Aptus Staffing Solutions.

The project brought together academics and practitioners who collaborated on a strategic human resources challenge, demonstrating the value of interdisciplinary perspectives when addressing organizational problems.

Making Your Consulting Case Finalists: Undergraduate Division

The Undergraduate Division highlighted the ability of emerging professionals to engage with complex strategic questions.

Finalists included:

• X-Ceramics Group, Bangladesh: An Introduction from Emerging Markets
• Strategic Growth at the Florrest
• AI, Space, and Strategy: Assessing Privateer’s Global Expansion

These cases addressed international business, growth strategy, innovation, and market development.

Undergraduate Winner

The undergraduate winner was Lucas Salzgeber for his consulting case examining expansion opportunities for Privateer and its future global growth strategy.

The project demonstrated strong strategic analysis and reflected the type of work participants can accomplish when theory is applied to a real organizational context.

Why the Making Your Consulting Case Competition Matters

The industries represented among finalists were intentionally diverse.

The cases addressed:

• Staffing and workforce development
• Higher education
• Financial technology
• Manufacturing
• Aerospace
• International market expansion

The organizations represented markets spanning Bangladesh, Pakistan, Europe, North America, and South America.

This diversity reflects a core principle of the competition: a consulting project can be developed around virtually any organizational challenge.

Participants are not confined to a predefined industry or topic. Instead, they are encouraged to engage with the industries and professional paths that align with their future goals.

As a result, participants create more than an academic deliverable.

They build evidence of capability in the field they intend to enter.

Building Employability Through Independent Evaluation

One of the most distinctive aspects of the competition is the anonymous review process.

In today’s labor market, professionals often struggle to demonstrate the quality of their thinking before they are hired.

Credentials tell employers what someone has studied. Experience describes what someone has done.

A rigorously reviewed consulting project provides a different form of evidence. It demonstrates how an individual approaches complex challenges, structures analysis, develops recommendations, and communicates solutions.

That type of evidence contributes directly to employability investment and long-term career capital.

For employers, it offers insight into capability.

For participants, it creates a portfolio asset supported by independent evaluation.

From Competition to Career Capital

The competition serves as part of the broader ConsultPro Accelerator pathway.

Participants can begin by learning foundational consulting methods through Becoming a Case Consultant, continue by developing a consulting project through Making Your Consulting Case, and ultimately present their work through the Case Pitch experience.

Each step contributes to:

• Professional confidence
• Industry engagement
• Strategic thinking
• Portfolio development
• Career visibility

The result is a structured pathway for converting learning into demonstrated capability.

Looking Ahead

The next competition cycle is already underway.

Whether participants are students, educators, practitioners, career changers, or emerging consultants, the process offers an opportunity to transform real-world challenges into meaningful evidence of expertise.

Congratulations to all finalists, winners, reviewers, and organizational partners who contributed to this year’s competition.

Authors interested in developing their own consulting project can begin through the ConsultPro Accelerator and participate in the ongoing Making Your Consulting Case 2026-2027 Competition.