Anthony Moore, an MBA student studying entrepreneurship at DePaul University, has won first place in the Executive Leadership Council’s 2002 Excellence in Business Commentary National Essay Contest.

Moore’s essay was chosen for first place among more than 400 entries submitted by students from across the country. The annual competition is sponsored by the Washington D.C.-based council, a national organization of African-American executives from Fortune 500 companies. The competition challenges students to write an essay about critical business issues and trends, which are then reviewed by a panel of business executive judges who choose the winners. Moore won sixth place in last year’s contest.

In this year’s essay about “new millennium leaders,” Moore discussed the leadership qualities of several African-American executives, including Pamela Thomas-Graham, president and CEO of CNBC; Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Capital Management; and Darien Dash, founder of Digital Mafia Entertainment, the first African-American Internet services company to go public. He then discussed his own plan to become a millennium leader.

Moore won the top prize of $7,000 and spent the first week of October with nine other finalists touring corporations and meeting executives in New York and Washington, D.C. “The competition gave me a valuable opportunity to build networking relationships with top executives and with my peers,” Moore said. “It’s an ongoing relationship, too. Past essay winners keep in touch.” Moore, 23, of Chicago’s South Side, expects to graduate in January of 2004 and plans to start his own clothing business.

“We’re proud of Anthony’s accomplishment,” said Arthur Kraft, dean of the DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. “He is an example of the type of high-caliber students enrolled in our program.”