L’Oréal competition winners among first graduates of Schulich International BBA degree program

TORONTO, June 17, 2004 – Three International Bachelor of Business Administration (iBBA) students from York University’s Schulich School of Business have taken first place in the 2004 L’Oréal Marketing Award finals, recently held in Paris, France, for their innovative business and marketing plan for a new line of skincare products for men.

Yasna Beheshti, Pooja Subramanian, and Anna Waskow who will graduate from York during spring convocation ceremonies to be held this Friday, June 18 at 10 a.m., beat out some 3,300 other participants representing 130 business schools and programs from 26 countries.

Mr. Lindsay Owen-Jones, president and CEO of L’Oréal – the world’s largest cosmetics company – personally congratulated the Canadian “Trendsetters” team of young marketing students from York.

In addition to their first place win, York’s team also shared the Publicis Special Prize for Best Communication awarded by Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis (a leading European PR firm).

Photo from left: Anna Waskow, Yasna Beheshti and Pooja Subramanian with L’Oréal President and CEO Lindsay Owen-Jones. Photo by Hamid Fadavi

The L’Oréal Marketing Award is an innovative recruitment tool which allows marketing students to put their creative skills to the test in a real business setting. The aim of L’Oréal’s competition, which concluded last week, was for students to present a complete international marketing strategy, new product range, packaging and communication campaign for Biotherm Homme skincare products.

Beheshti, Subramanian, and Waskow will also be among Schulich’s first iBBA graduating class. The iBBA degree is a four-year, direct-entry honours program. It offers candidates an opportunity to acquire a business degree with a global perspective.

The program requires every student to spend at least one academic term abroad at one of the Schulich exchange partner schools. The School continues to develop partnerships with leading management schools around the world. At present, students have the option of studying on exchange in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, China (Hong Kong), Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and Uruguay.