After months of competition, we're thrilled to recognize the winners of the Hitachi Foundation's 2011 Pioneer Employer Competition. This year's teams brought their A-game to the conference, and truly earned their spots on the podium.

The competition had two parts, both centered on investing in lower-wage employees to help Pioneer Employers develop a competitive, yet sustainable advantage. First, teams were asked to work with faculty at their university to incorporate cases on Pioneer Employers into their core curriculum in order to introduce business students to the possibilities of this powerful model. Five finalist teams showed remarkable integration, including more than a dozen letters of support from faculty stating their progress.

The second part of the Pioneer Employer Competition was analyzing a Harvard Business Review Case about Pioneer Employer QuikTrip, a convenience/gasoline retailer in the Southern U.S. Teams had two weeks to develop their case analysis, and presented their findings to judges at a lively session at the 2011 Net Impact Conference.

Here at Net Impact, we can't help but be inspired by the hard work these teams put into working for a sustainable business model that will positively affect lower-wage workers and businesses as the competition continues. Thank you and congratulations to all of our finalists!

The Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland | Curriculum Change Winner and Case Competition Runner-up

Congratulations to Stephen Huie, Luisa Fernanda Lopez Gordillo, and Lacey Nguyen! They demonstrated the most solid integration of Pioneer Employer cases into their business curriculum, allowing students to learn about these models for years to come. As one judge put it, they had a great understanding of faculty challenges and constraints, as well as program view. In the case competition, judges were most impressed by how effective these three were at communicating their points - both on paper and in person.

Yale School of Management | Case Competition Winner

Julia Otis, Emma Pollack-Pelzner, Julia Rozovsky, Matt Schmitt, and Jason Zahorchak showed the highest quality analysis, but where they really shined was in their ability to defend their recommendations for the case. Congratulations to Yale!

MIT Sloan School of Management | Curriculum Change Runner-up
The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University | Curriculum Change Runner-up
Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis | Finalist