Gavin Purdy '23 and Teddy Zinn '25 represented Elon in the corporate social responsibility-focused competition hosted by the University of Arizona.
Entrepreneurship major Gavin Purdy ’23 and finance and project management double major Teddy Zinn ’25 represented Elon University in the 20th annual Collegiate Ethics Case Competition hosted by the University of Arizona’s Center for Leadership Ethics.
The pair, mentored by Associate Professor of Business Law Christy Benson, joined students from schools around the world for the Oct. 13-15 competition held in Tucson, Arizona. Role playing as financial consultants to the senior leadership of a non-profit university foundation, teams evaluated whether the university should invest a significant amount of endowment funds into cryptocurrency. Teams’ evaluations and recommendations needed to account for stakeholder, economic, legal and ethical considerations.
The judges, who included University of Arizona faculty, executives from companies such as 3M and Hewlett-Packard, and Tucson-local business owners, evaluated presentations on delivery, depth of analysis, persuasiveness, creativity, recommendations in both an ethical and practical context, and responses to the judges’ questions.
“The competition was an incredibly cool experience to grow as a person and network with others my age,” Purdy shared. “It allowed me to explore areas outside of my comfort zone and identify aspects of myself that I can work on to become the best I can be.”