Penultimate-year student Jake Lawrence (studying law, business and finance) seemingly never stops. He’s spent the last three weeks leading his team to create what they hope will be a winning entry to one of the world’s most prestigious finance competitions: Harvard University’s Global M&A Case Competition 2025.
Together, they’ve pored over spreadsheets, run the numbers and thrown around countless ideas. They’ve produced an 80-slide presentation – only to realise that the rules capped it at 40. And now, just before the deadline, Tropical Cyclone Alfred is about to hit.
“Two of my teammates had completely lost power in the storm, apartments were flooding and fallen trees blocked the road,” Jake recalls. “So I drove out, carefully dodging road debris, and picked them up. We spent the next two days not sleeping much, but just working, working, working.”
Fast company
Every year, the Global M&A Case Competition asks ambitious student teams from business schools across the globe to step up to the plate. In 2025, the case was centred around Italian supercar giant Ferrari, and the (fictitious) question for the would-be analysts was “Should the company acquire Italian tyre giant Pirelli?”
Jake’s team – aptly named the Kangaroo Capitalists – loved the brief and set to work. While many teams zeroed in on the numbers, they looked beyond the obvious. Concluding that the deal carried little to no upside with a whole lot of risk, they instead proposed Ferrari acquire a battery company – a bold recommendation supporting the company’s shift to electric that set the team apart from the pack.
Despite the weather and the slide deck, Jake and his colleagues Sin Yik Ong (B Business ’25), Leyton Hilmer (B Commerce/Data Science ’26), Sizzan Vahora (B Business ’26) and Thomas Skorupanovic (B Business ’25) were selected to present their submission in Harvard Business School’s legendary lecture theatre in Boston. There, they faced a panel of seasoned judges determined to rip their presentation – Fuelling the Future: Ferrari’s Road to Dominance – to shreds.
“Suddenly we had these top-end professionals grilling us,” Jake says. “And there were countless questions that we weren’t expecting. It was nerve-racking, but we were well prepared overall and I think we delivered really highly.”
The result? They beat out more than 1,000 other leading universities (including Stanford, the London School of Economics and Harvard itself) to the top ten. It’s a feat that Griffith Business School has now achieved not once, but twice.
The OG trailblazers
In 2019, Lorenzo Ciapetti (B Commerce ’20) and his teammates Eden Peterson (B Commerce ’19), Caitlene Hillman (B Commerce ’19) and Sonja Kobinger (GCert Research Studies ’13; MBA ’07) became the first Australians to reach the finals of the contest.
The 2019 team also faced a daunting brief: “Should General Motors acquire Tesla?” The question wasn’t just about balance sheets. The team had to take a deep dive into patents, innovation pipelines and the long-term value of a company rewriting the rules of the car industry.
“We went beyond just valuing Tesla’s worth,” recalls Lorenzo. “We proposed that if GM wanted to acquire an electric vehicle company, then the framework should also provide the option of acquiring other smaller, more easily integratable EV companies.”
That holistic approach was hammered out in the Business School trading room, where the team all but lived for weeks. “It was a whirlwind of long hours, fuelled by coffee and sheer determination,” says Lorenzo. “When we made the finals, the team was overjoyed and proud. Knowing that our hard work had paid off on such a prestigious global platform was a huge morale boost.”
Aiming high
Supporting both teams was Associate Professor John Fan (B Commerce ’08; GBS Honours Program ’10; PhD ’14), who says the impact of these competitions reaches far beyond the classroom and proves that Griffith students have the ambition and ingenuity to thrive on a global stage.
“The level of engagement that students exhibit when you’re doing this kind of activity is unparalleled. They have accountability and feel like they’re doing something real and tangible. And these students were hard working, intelligent and eager to learn.”
Indeed, Griffith students belong in the world’s biggest arenas, he says, and they shouldn’t be shy about staking their claim. “Australia is so physically remote. But as soon as our students go overseas, they realise the world is a big place. You shouldn’t be limited to Sydney or Melbourne. You should think about London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore.”
Today, Lorenzo is a senior analyst at Virgin Australia who says he still uses the skills he learnt back in those weeks in the trading room. Jake is still on a winning streak – in November 2025, his Green & Gold Capital team won the McGill International Portfolio Challenge – the first time Griffith has ever won. And once he finishes his final year, he’s got ambitions for a global career in investment banking. The Kangaroo Capitalists and their forerunners have shown them – and everyone else – just how far they can leap.
Now, the Kangaroo Capitalists want to use their expertise to benefit others. Find out more about their not-for-profit project
Sustainable Development Goals
Griffith University is aligned to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is committed to promoting quality education, decent work, and industry, innovation and infrastructure, working towards a world where innovation drives sustainable development.
Explore more from the newsletter
Stay connected
Keep in touch with your alumni community.
