How Leeds MBA Students Gave Big B’s a Boost
By bringing a real company into the classroom, Eli Marx-Kahn (MBA’27) turned coursework into measurable growth, helping a beloved Colorado brand scale while sharpening skills in business innovation.
From brand work to classroom insight, consultant Eli Marx-Kahn (MBA ’27) brought Big B’s story to MBA classmates, unlocking ideas to grow marketing and improve operations.
Eli Marx-Kahn (MBA’27), a High Growth Venture Fellow with the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, arrived at Leeds already running his own consulting practice, with experience launching (and sunsetting) a startup. That hard-won experience helped him identify the gaps he wanted to fill in his skill set.
An MBA at Leeds offered the right next step, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Marx-Kahn had been working with , a legacy Colorado beverage company, for about six months when he started the program at Leeds. As his role at Big B’s grew from consultant into brand manager, he recognized a unique opportunity: bring the company into his coursework and collaborate with classmates to solve real business challenges.
Making that direct connection helped Marx-Kahn broaden his expertise in go-to-market strategy to gain a better understanding of operations, finance, marketing and management, while helping expand Big B’s distribution channels across Colorado and the Mountain West.
From classroom to company
In Operations Management, a team tackled inventory and production capacity, trekking to Big B’s facilities in Hotchkiss to identify opportunities for more efficient transportation, expanded warehousing and scalable growth. In Marketing Management, he and his classmates created a comprehensive roadmap for a brand that had historically done little formal marketing.
“I’ve been able to touch multiple aspects of the business with the MBA skill set,” Marx-Kahn said. “We’re taking what we learn and integrating it directly into how Big B’s operates.”
A campus partnership with a sustainability focus
One of the most visible outcomes has been bringing Big B’s products to CU Boulder. Marx-Kahn helped build relationships with campus dining, retail, and catering, creating a partnership that benefits both the university and the brand.
“It’s been incredible to build relationships with stakeholders right here on campus,” he said. “I can walk from Leeds to meet with our contacts—it feels like doing business in a small town.”
The partnership also aligns with CU Boulder’s sustainability priorities and efforts to support local business. Big B’s is introducing glass bottles to comply with the university’s ban on single-use plastics, positioning the brand for similar opportunities at ski resorts, other universities and health-focused retailers that are making the same shift.
Building skills beyond strategy
Along with other experiential learning opportunities at Leeds, this project has helped Marx-Kahn reframe his perspective of consulting. Early in his career, he approached companies with ready-made solutions and a focus on fixing inefficiencies. But the MBA program has transformed his mindset.
“No amount of strategy matters if the organization isn’t ready to adopt it,” he said. “Now I focus on embedding within a team and understanding where change will actually take hold.”
“No amount of strategy matters if the organization isn’t ready to adopt it. Now I focus on embedding within a team and understanding where change will actually take hold.”
—Eli Marx-Kahn (MBA’27)
That shift reflects a larger career goal. “Much of my work has focused on strategy, but my goal is to build companies from the ground up,” he said. “That requires an operator’s skill set—and that’s why I came to Leeds. The work with Big B’s fits directly into that.”
Part of what makes the Big B’s work especially meaningful to Marx-Kahn is the company itself. Founded more than 50 years ago, Big B’s has nostalgic appeal.
“The product is really just a medium that evokes memories of being on Big B's Orchard out on the Western Slope, which, for a lot of Coloradans, is a really special place,” he said.
Learning at the speed of business
For Marx-Kahn, Big B’s project is a through line of his MBA experience. “It's been an interesting process to go from an MBA-style report to meaningful change inside of a small, family-owned, family-run business,” he said. “I’m now touching everything from packaging to manufacturing and distribution. It’s exactly the kind of hands-on experience I was hoping to gain.”
From orchard rows to data rows, Leeds MBA students took a deep dive—tracing the full Big B’s journey from field operations and warehouse logistics to data-driven insights.
The ability to apply coursework directly to a real company has accelerated both his learning and the company’s growth. He expects to continue working with Big B’s after graduation, building on that momentum.
Big B’s has already implemented several of the team’s recommendations, contributing to double-digit growth compared to 2025—a substantial acceleration compared to their norm, Marx-Kahn said.
“That’s huge for a company like this,” he added. “But it also raises important questions, like how fast should we grow, and what does sustainable growth look like?”
For him, those are exactly the kinds of business decisions that make the MBA experience meaningful—not just analyzing growth but also managing it.
“If I were in the classroom and just read the cases and did all the thought experiments, it would be great. But to be able to directly port my newfound knowledge into a real business means the feedback cycle is so quick. It's incredible,” he said.
An added bonus: "Saying I'm a Leeds MBA student is a wonderful way to introduce myself to people who might otherwise not be open to talking with me. It’s a real door opener.”