A Western Michigan University Business: Created by Students to Benefit Students
Learn About The Program That Made It Happen
Bronconess was born from a simple but powerful idea: learning business by doing business with purpose. While leading a study abroad program, Dr. Derrick McIver saw an opportunity to connect students with a real business challenge. Tremonte, an international winery, wanted to enter the U.S. market but didn’t know how.
Alongside Dr. Lepisto, he challenged Leadership and Business Strategy students to build a solution—creating a purpose-driven wine brand that would support Tremonte while giving students hands-on experience. The goal was clear: combine profit with purpose.
The following semester student teams researched every aspect of whether, and how, to introduce a new wine brand into the Southwest Michigan market. A fundamental question the students faced was differentiation – how do you stand out and drive demand in a highly competitive market?
The winning team from the semester long wine project, determining if and how the brand was possible.
The answer to this question was to introduce a new purchase criteria to the wine category: purpose. While the notion of “one-for-one” exists in other product categories – think Tom’s Shoes – it is largely absent in wine. What might that look like in wine?
Bronconess was built on shared benefit. To capture the spirit of what makes a Bronco, students coined the term “Bronconess”—representing courage and enthusiasm in the face of challenge. In partnership with Silvio, they brought this to life by directing 100% of profits toward student scholarships. Bronconess is business education, purpose, and impact in action. Cheers!
Learn Business by Doing Business
During our Spring 2026 tour with Apollo at St. Julian, we went beyond the surface of wine tasting and into the history, strategy, and intention behind each bottle. Understanding the legacy of the winery and how it continues to adapt in a competitive, ever-changing market gave us perspective on what true differentiation looks like. It reinforced our responsibility as the Bronconess team to not only honor that foundation but to build on it—finding new ways to stand out through purpose-driven branding and meaningful consumer connection.
Spring 2026 Bronconess team touring St. Julian Winery, Paw Paw
Collaboration of Business and WMU to Achieve Mutual Benefit
MBA students with Silvio (third from left) at Tremonte Vineyards in Chile on Study Abroad.
“The most significant benefit we saw was the experience that we could provide to the students in the Business school by having them involved in real life cases that would provide immediate results that they could use to measure how effective their strategies and other decisions would be.”
Silvio Di Gregorio | secretary-treasurer of Whitewater Investments S.A.
Brice Dowling touring students through imperial Beverage Warehouse
“The Bronconess wine project is all about experiential learning, and it has been a privilege for Imperial Beverage to have been part of this project from day one. I have been continuously amazed by what the students have accomplished with each step of the process. They have been imaginative, resourceful, and relentless. They have had to actually use the skills they learned from dedicated professors. This was particularly evident during the brand pitch competition, in which I was honored to participate as a judge. Everyone involved with Haworth College of Business and WMU should be proud of and excited about this program—it is truly a differentiator!”
Brice Dowling - Wine Category Manager, Imperial Beverage