Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship

We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!

Tune in for excitement!

Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.

Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture.

2025 NVC Competition Live Stream

2025 NVC Awards Live Stream

Start your entrepreneurial journey

Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.

Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.

We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.

Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.

Student opportunities

Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.

Find your path

Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.

A student standing with a faculty member holding big winning checks from the New Venture Challenge 2024.

Start up

Build up your venture idea.

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A student smiling and standing in front of his venture display at the 2024 New Venture Challenge.

Family business

Explore the Alternative Entrepreneurial Pathways category at NVC.

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A close-up of the Prusa i3 MK3 printer in the entrepreneurship makerspace, the IDEA Den in Grawn Hall 166.

Product and prototype design

Create and patent your ideas.

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Innovation

Explore your ideas and build your skills.

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CMU tops 200-plus schools in banking competition

by Sanjna Jassi

CMU students Jake Aymen and Eric Scott won the grand prize in the international National Investment Banking Competition of Canada.

Two seniors in the College of Business Administration have become the first Central Michigan University students to win a prestigious international finance competition.

wrap-IMG_8286 CMU’s Jake Aymen and Eric Scott beat out more than 10,000 participants from more than 200 schools — including world-class universities such as Cambridge, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, HEC Paris and more — to win the $6,000 grand prize in the 2019-20 National Investment Banking Competition of Canada.

Scott, of Canton, Michigan, and Aymen, of Port Austin, Michigan, are also the first team of only two people to win the NIBC.

Aymen is majoring in finance and minoring in economics. Scott’s double major is in accounting and finance.

NIBC teams apply and develop skills in financial modeling and pitching based on a simulation of an investment banking transaction. They value companies and present recommendations to a board composed of senior management of real-world banks.

"I’ve never felt more pride being part of the CMU community. Fire up forever!” — Jake Aymen

“Neither of us has formal investment banking training, nor did we complete investment banking internships,” Aymen wrote on LinkedIn. “We had something more powerful: support. Support from faculty, support from alumni. Support from administration. Support from our peers. Support from NIBC volunteers.

“If you belong to one of these groups, thank you. It’s as much your victory as it is ours. I’ve never felt more pride being part of the CMU community. Fire up forever!”

Aymen and Scott were among roughly 63 teams selected to attend the National Investment Banking Competition and Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, in March.

Another round of presentations whittled finalists to eight teams. A Goldman Sachs technology group from San Francisco, California, chose three teams, including Aymen and Scott, to advance and present to the whole conference.

Judges, including the head of capital markets for all of British Columbia at TD Bank, selected Aymen and Scott to win the grand prize.

The honor has special meaning for CMU Finance and Law faculty members Bradley Taylor and Maxim Dolinsky.

With support from the college and dean, Taylor and Dolinsky started the Michigan Finance Scholars program just over two years ago to bolster students' experience with additional case studies, competition opportunities and development of soft skills.

“We congratulate Jake and Eric on their win,” Taylor said. “Success like theirs makes our careers worthwhile.”