Carlsberg raise a glass to students with project award

If University courses offered student prizes…

Students at the University of Northampton were given an extra special incentive to succeed in a recent assignment, courtesy of Carlsberg.

Thomas Shanley, Finance Business Partner for Carlsberg UK, who have its UK headquarters in Northampton, gave a talk to MSc students in both Finance & Accounting and Corporate Governance about its global business strategy, SAIL’22.

Students were then tasked with writing a critical analysis of how Carlsberg’s business strategy has been successfully implemented in the UK, based on the models covered in the course. The highest graded assessments were then submitted to Carlsberg to choose a winning project.

The winning student, Gemma Towns, achieved an A* for her assessment and was awarded two hospitality tickets to a Northampton Saints home match of her choosing, courtesy of the brewer.

Karen Mustard, Module leader for Financial and Business Strategy, hailed the success of the competition, saying: “Having a senior member of the finance team from Carlsberg UK come and give insights into the strategy was invaluable. The students really engaged with this project and the results of this assessment reflect that.

“Tom discussed some of the strategic tools which Carlsberg use and our group discussed how that fits with the theoretical models which we have discussed. The visit from Carlsberg showed the students that the models which we had covered are adapted and used by organisations when planning and implementing strategy – and crucially it illustrated the relevance and importance of the Masters module to gaining senior management roles in business.”

Thomas Shanley posted on Linkedin following the talk: “Many thanks to Karen and her amazing MSC students at the University of Northampton for the opportunity to speak about Carlsberg’s Sail 22 Strategy and how we distil that down in to a local strategy. Thanks for making me so welcome!”

For more information on these courses, please visit the MSc course pages of Account and Finance and Corporate Governance.