Cold Call

In 2014, Larry Fink started writing letters to the leaders of some of the largest publicly listed companies, urging them to consider the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Fink is the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, one of the largest asset management houses in the world. The firm’s success was rooted in its cost-effective, passive investment products that rely on tracking indices and funds. But Fink wanted his firm to engage with the companies in which they invest and hold them accountable for their social and environmental impacts. What role should investors play in urging business leaders to take ESG issues more seriously and enforcing compliance?

In 2020, Kwame Spearman made the career-shifting decision to leave a New York City-based consulting job to return to his hometown of Denver, Colorado, and take over an iconic independent bookstore, The Tattered Cover. Spearman saw an opportunity to reinvent the local business to build a sense of community after the pandemic. But he also had to find a way to meet the big challenges facing independent booksellers amid technological change and shifting business models.

Captain Michael Davidson, of the container ship SS El Faro, was determined to make his planned shipping trip on time—but a hurricane was approaching his intended path. To succeed, Davidson and his fellow officers had to plot a course to avoid the storm in the face of conflicting weather reports from multiple sources and differing opinions among the officers about what to do. Over the 36-hour voyage, tensions rose as the ship got closer and closer to the storm. When the ship ultimately sunk on October 1, 2015, it was the deadliest American shipping disaster in decades. But who was to blame for the tragedy and what can we learn from it?

Dr. Timnit Gebru was the co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI research team –until she raised concerns about bias in the company’s large language models and was forced out in 2020. Her departure sent shockwaves through the AI and tech community ad raised fundamental questions about how companies safeguard against bias in their own AI. Should in-house ethics research continue to be led by researchers who best understand the technology, or must ethics and bias be monitored by more objective researchers who aren’t employed by companies?

Bombas was started in 2013 with a dual mission: to deliver quality socks and donate much-needed footwear to people living in shelters. By 2021, it had become one of America's most visible buy-one-give-one companies, with over $250 million in annual revenue and 50 million pairs of socks donated. As Bombas continued expanding, the company struggled to determine what pace of growth would best allow it to reach new customers while maintaining its social mission.

At the height of the pandemic in 2020, US Foods struggled, as restaurant and school closures reduced demand for foodservice distribution. The situation improved after the return of indoor dining and in-person learning, but an industry-wide shortage of truck drivers and warehouse staff hampered the foodservice distributor’s post-pandemic recovery. That left CEO Pietro Satriano to determine the best strategy to attract and retain essential workers, even as he was tasked with expanding the wholesale grocery store chain (CHEF’STORE) that US Foods launched during the pandemic lockdown.

Esusu launched in 2018 with a rotational savings product and continued growing their fintech startup in late 2019 with Esusu Rent, a rent reporting tool that enables renters to improve their credit scores. In March 2020, co-founders Abbey Wemimo and Samir Goel were working to determine how best to scale Esusu to advance their mission of promoting financial inclusion in the U.S. Harvard Business School assistant professor Emily Williams discusses how the two co-founders decided how to allocate resources and scale their business.

In the wake of George Floyd’s killing and widespread protests for social justice in the United States, OneTen was formed by a coalition of 40 large companies to address the disparity in job opportunities for African-Americans without four-year college degrees. Their goal was to provide one million jobs in 10 years. But in order to do that, OneTen had to analyze the underlying problems and formulate recommendations for both system-level problems and those that manifest themselves at an organizational level.

Corruption is as old as humanity, with cases documented as far back as the Egyptian dynasties. While the World Bank estimates that international bribery exceeds $1.5 trillion annually, the larger and more subtle effects of corruption on economies and populations is incalculable. Harvard Business School professors Geoff Jones and Tarun Khanna explore how corruption uniquely affects business in emerging markets, and why it should be addressed by the public and private sectors.

THE YES, a shopping app for fashion brands, uses a sophisticated algorithm to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on her style preferences, size, and budget. After launching the app in 2020, the founders must decide whether to continue developing the algorithm to deliver on the company’s customer value proposition or to focus their resources on new customer acquisition, with the idea that more users on the app would improve the algorithm's performance.

Community Solutions is a nonprofit founded in 2011 by Rosanne Haggerty, with the ambitious goal of ending chronic homelessness in America. After they were awarded a $100 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation, Haggerty and her team had to decide how to prioritize projects and spending to maximize the grant’s impact.

From 1997 to 2012, Scott Tucker built a nationwide network of payday lending businesses, becoming a pioneer in online lending along the way. But in 2012 federal prosecutors indicted Tucker on several criminal charges that he violated disclosure requirements. Harvard Business School associate professor Aiyesha Dey discusses the role of individual leaders in the corporate governance system, as well as their responsibility for creating a positive corporate culture that embodies ethics, self-restraint, and a commitment to serve.

Pixel helps facilitate open talent and crowdsourcing for Deloitte Consulting client engagements. But while some of Deloitte’s principals are avid users of Pixel’s services, uptake across the organization has been slow, and in some pockets has met with deep resistance. Balaji Bondili, head of Pixel, must decide how best to grow Deloitte Consulting’s use of on-demand talent, as consulting companies and their clients face transformative change.

Etsy, the online seller of handmade goods, grew substantially but remained unprofitable in its first decade. But after it was almost bought out by private equity firms, a new CEO arrived with a mission to save the company financially and, in the process, save its soul. Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati discusses CEO Josh Silverman’s purpose-driven turnaround at Etsy.

The France Telecom case series follows the evolution of the organization from a national telephone monopoly to a private company facing severe challenges. As increasing pressure mounted internally to make changes and 22,000 jobs were lost between 2006 and 2009, the culture at France Telecom shifted from one where employees were proud to work to one where the physical and mental wellbeing of some employees became increasingly fragile. Did corporate leaders push employees too far, creating unacceptable levels of stress and unhappiness? Editor’s note: This episode discusses suicide. If you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please use this list of suicide crisis lines around the world to seek help.

AptDeco, a peer-to-peer marketplace for used furniture in the New York City area, was growing rapidly in the massive $120 billion furniture market, despite its complexity and high costs. Co-founders Reham Fagiri and Kalam Dennis were considering different options to scale the business, including converting sellers into buyers and vice versa, finding superusers to fuel the supply for their platform, expanding to new markets, and rebranding with a sustainability focus. What’s the best way for them to scale?

In May of 2021, Kevin D. Johnson had just graduated from a rigorous Executive MBA program, and he needed to decide on his next career move. Johnson was the founder and CEO of a successful media company, but his career goals had shifted during business school. He wanted to use his talents to help other Black entrepreneurs access capital and provide opportunities to create intergenerational wealth. Johnson evaluated his four options: work full-time at an online platform dedicated to connecting Black founders with funding, join a BIPOC-focused venture capital ("VC") firm, pursue a job at an established VC firm, or continue scaling his media company. Which should he choose?

After more than 20 years in the media industry in the UK and Nigeria, EbonyLife Media CEO Mo Abudu is considering several strategic changes for her media company’s future. Will her mission to tell authentic African stories to the world be advanced by distributing films and TV shows direct to customers? Or should EbonyLife instead distribute its content through third-party streaming services, like Netflix?

In 2018, Linda Oubré was selected as the president of Whittier College in Los Angeles County – the first Black woman to serve in that role. The student body had been slowly evolving to represent the growing diversity of the surrounding area, but the college’s leadership remained largely white and male. Harvard Business School professor Debora Spar and Oubré discuss how she galvanized support among the college’s constituents, while working to diversify the college’s staff, administration, and board of trustees.

In 2021, the footwear startup Allbirds was extending its product range into apparel and expanding beyond its online store to open more retail stores around the world. Harvard Business School professor Mike Toffel and Allbirds co-founder and co-CEO Joey Zwillinger discuss the growing environmental impact of the fashion industry and how the company managed the tension between advancing its mission to decarbonize fashion and staying ahead of competitors.

Harvard Business School professor Mitch Weiss and Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s CGO and co-founder, discuss the challenges entrepreneurs face when working with the public sector, and how investing in new ideas can enable entrepreneurs and governments to join forces to solve big problems.

Recruit Holdings, an advertising media, staffing, and business support conglomerate was founded in Japan in 1960 by Hiromasa Ezoe. The company was built on the principle that the company should add value to society. But in 1988, Recruit hit rough waters when Ezoe sold 2.8 million shares in a subsidiary before it went public to 76 Japanese leaders in politics, business, and media. The "Recruit Scandal," as it was called, resulted in the resignation of Japan’s prime minister and his entire cabinet. Thirty years later, Recruit has become a global conglomerate, with $16 billion in sales in 2017. How did the company not only survive, but thrive after its insider trading scandal?

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around the simple idea of helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. By May 2020, TikTok operated in 155 countries and had roughly one billion monthly active users, placing it in the top ranks of digital platforms globally. But the app had drawn the attention of competitors, regulators, and politicians -- especially in the U.S., where commercial success was critical to its long-term enterprise value. Would TikTok become the first “Super App” with a global footprint, or did it run the risk of becoming a supernova that shone brightly only for a passing moment?

In November 2019, Mass General Brigham (MGB) was the largest recipient of National Institutes of Health funding in the world. The Innovation Office, led by Chief Innovation Officer Chris Coburn, sought to capitalize on that funding – with the goal of commercializing research done at the hospital to generate revenue and improve patient care. But CEO Anne Klibanski and other key stakeholders had a serious concern: although women comprised approximately 40 percent of the medical researchers and physicians at MGB, the percentage of women participating in innovation activities lagged behind. Can the leadership team identify the main sources of the disparities and find the right strategy to expand and diversify MGB’s community of innovators?

Founded in 2014, Thinx, Inc. makes absorbent underwear that can be worn during menstruation. But the feminine care market had seen virtually no innovation in half a century because of the taboo against discussing the topic of menstruation. As a result, the startup was competing against large incumbents like Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. Can CEO Maria Molland lead a marketing strategy that confronts those taboos in order to bring innovation to the feminine care market?

In early 2019, global beer company Molson Coors was exploring how to enter the cannabis beverages business. At the time, cannabis had not yet been legalized in Canada. Initially the company had planned to test a few products in a small geography in Canada to see if there might be a viable market opportunity. But the team charged with developing an entry strategy recommended a more aggressive move: pulling forward $65 million to build a facility in Canada to produce cannabis beverages and seize first-mover advantage. That sudden change in direction gave then-CEO Mark Hunter pause. Should he approve the request, or push the team back to the original, more conservative plan?

The Chinese telecom giant Huawei and other Chinese telecom firms, like ZTE, had been poised to lead the globe in 5G technology—until the U.S. State Department embarked on a global campaign to challenge the market dominance of Chinese firms with the Clean Network program. Did that initiative create a new era of multilateral, democratic governance of the internet, or a “splinternet” forcing participants to choose between the U.S. and China?

In 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced a $30 billion “Commitment to Advance Racial Equity.” This included investments in housing, small businesses, and financial literacy across the U.S., as well as in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the bank. Harvard Business School professor emeritus Joe Bower and Alice Rodriguez, head of community impact, managing director at JPMorgan Chase, discuss the implementation of that commitment and how it aligns with the bank’s longer-term growth strategy.

In February 2013, US Airways announced that it would merge with American Airlines to create the world’s largest airline. During the acquisition integration process, CEO Doug Parker had to determine how best to combine the two airlines’ core systems, operating processes, and leadership teams, as well as the appropriate scope and speed of strategic changes. Harvard Business School senior lecturer David Fubini discusses how Parker approached those decisions in the case, “Merging American Airlines and US Airways.”

In August 2017, Baroo Pet Care founder and CEO Lindsay Hyde wanted to continue expanding her pet services startup to new cities. In addition to raising venture capital, she needed to consider her growth strategy. Should she continue focusing on the needs of her early adopters or start tailoring Baroo’s services to more mainstream customers? And how fast is too fast to grow? Hyde (MBA 2014) joins Harvard Business School entrepreneurship Professor Tom Eisenmann to discuss how an early false positive signal from investors set an unsustainable course for her startup.

Gong’s business proposition is simple: provide software that automatically captures, understands, and analyzes written and spoken sales conversations to help sales teams sell more effectively. But can technology that leverages conversational insights make a measurable impact on a company's bottom line?

Horst Dassler, the son of the founder of Adidas, cultivated relationships with athletes and national associations – with the aim of expanding his family’s sports apparel business. In doing so, he created the first sports sponsorships for the Olympics, and ultimately became a key force behind the commercialization of sports today. Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones explores the pros and cons of the globalization and commercialization of sport in his case, spanning from the 1930s to the 1970s, “Horst Dassler, Adidas, and the Commercialization of Sport.”

In 2007, Alibaba’s Taobao became China’s leading consumer e-commerce marketplace, displacing the once dominant eBay. How did underdog Taobao do it? And will it be able to find a way to monetize its marketplace and ensure future success? Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee discusses his case, “Alibaba’s Taobao,” and related strategy lessons from his new book, Better, Simpler Strategy: A Value-Based Guide to Exceptional Performance.

When Kathy Fish became Procter & Gamble’s Chief Research, Development & Innovation Officer in 2014, she was concerned that the world’s leading consumer packaged goods company had lost its capability to produce a steady stream of disruptive innovations. In addition, intensifying competition from direct-to-consumer companies convinced Fish that P&G needed to renew its value proposition to make all aspects of the consumer experience “irresistibly superior.” But making this change would require wholesale transformation from within. Can Fish bring lean innovation to scale at Procter & Gamble?

After years of success in providing quality furniture at affordable prices, Swedish furniture maker IKEA is challenged by the rise of online shopping and changing consumer behavior, plus the arrival of a new leader. The company's top executives know they must step out of their comfort zones and embrace new strategic initiatives to stay relevant. But which initiatives will best enable IKEA to evolve while staying true to the company’s core values?

Marcus by Goldman Sachs marked a dramatic shift for the 150-year-old financial institution, which historically had served only businesses and the wealthiest people. The fintech startup operated within Goldman Sachs, offering unsecured personal loans for the mass market, high-yield deposits, and a credit card in partnership with Apple. Harvard Business School associate professor Rory McDonald discusses the challenges of operating and expanding a startup within an established company.

Georgia State University was facing a growing "summer melt" problem, where nearly 20 percent of incoming students never actually enrolled. The university used a data-based approach to retain students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds and help them graduate. Harvard Business School professor Mike Toffel and Harvard University senior fellow Robin Mendelson discuss what the university learned about improving student success, while scaling its efforts to help other universities.

After decades of brain drain in rural America, Tulsa Remote is working to attract a diverse group of remote workers to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Harvard Business School professor Prithwiraj “Raj” Choudhury discusses how the program gives workers the flexibility to move out of congested cities and explores the challenges in scaling this model throughout rural America and beyond.

How did the evolution of Boeing’s organization and management lead to two tragic plane crashes within six months, in which a total of 346 people died? Harvard Business School professor Bill George discusses the long roots that ultimately led to the crash of Lion Air flight 610 in October 2018 in Indonesia and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 in March 2019 in Ethiopia. He discusses the role cost cutting, regulatory pressure, and CEO succession played in laying the foundation for these tragedies and examines how Boeing executives responded to the crises in his case “What Went Wrong with Boeing's 737 Max?”

Rubicon began with a bold idea: create a cloud-based, full-service waste management platform providing efficient service anywhere in the U.S. Their mobile app did for waste management what Uber had done for taxi service. Five years after the case’s publication, Harvard Business School associate professor Shai Bernstein and Rubicon founder and CEO Nate Morris discuss how the software startup leveraged technology to disrupt the waste industry and other enduring lessons of professor Bill Sahlman’s case about Rubicon.

Guild Education is an education marketplace that connects employers and universities to provide employees with “education as a benefit.” The Denver-based company is transforming traditional tuition-assistance programs by facilitating direct payment by the employer to the academic institution and by supporting students with coaching and advising. Now CEO and co-founder Rachel Carlson must decide how to manage the company’s future growth. Should she focus on expanding Guild’s core education marketplace, or extend the business model to include the career placement market?

In 2000, Rohit Gera turned his family’s boutique real estate development firm in Pune, India, into a dynamic innovator in housing solutions for urban Indian families. Today Gera Developments stands at a crossroads, with Gera planning the end of his managerial career. How should the family think about scaling the business? And, should the company seek a successor to lead those efforts from inside or outside the family?

Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants believe historic social injustices should be addressed through reparations. Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai discusses the arguments for and against reparations in response to the Tulsa Massacre and, more broadly, to the effects of slavery and racist government policies in the U.S.

The late 20th century saw dramatic growth in incarceration rates in the United States. Of the more than 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention centers in 2020, 60 percent were Black or Latinx. Harvard Business School assistant professor Reshmaan Hussam probes the assumptions underlying the current prison system, with its huge racial disparities, and considers what could be done to address the crisis of the American criminal justice system.

As the first Black female factory manager to lead a John Deere plant, Rosalind Fox must figure out how to build relationships with her staff, who are mostly white men. Harvard Business School senior lecturer Tony Mayo discusses the pressure on Fox to assimilate into the dominant culture, her decision to lean into her authentic self, and the deep connection between employee engagement and authenticity.

As a Black female CEO, Shellye Archambeau is no stranger to adversity. Now she faces her most critical leadership decision. The software company she leads, MetricStream, is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash, and struggling to make payroll. Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley discusses Archambeau’s leadership style and the importance of developing resilience, particularly when managing through a crisis.

Bill Riddick, an African-American community leader and counselor, must find a way to bridge the divide between Black and white community leaders, who are on opposing sides of school integration in Durham, North Carolina, in 1971. Harvard Business School professors Francesca Gino and Jeffrey Huizinga discuss how empathy and curiosity can foster understanding in divisive situations.

Melvin Carter, the mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, swept into office in 2018, promising to improve equity. In his campaign, he had spoken from experience about what it felt like to be pulled over by police as a Black man. He wanted to create a new public safety framework that would be rooted in community. But then the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out much of the city’s budget and the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer in neighboring Minneapolis sparked calls to defund the police. How would Mayor Carter make these changes happen?

For family social workers, coping with the hardships of children and parents is part of the job. But that can cause a lot of stress. Is it possible to use non-cash rewards and recognition to improve social workers’ well-being? Ashley Whillans describes the experience of Chief Executive Michael Sanders’ experience at the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care.

Unilever’s Dove soap became a brand with purpose when it launched the “Campaign for Real Beauty” to combat media-driven stereotypes of female beauty. But now Dove is facing criticism about its other brands that contradict the Dove campaign, and struggling to determine the best allocation of funds between advertising and the educational programs that deliver social impact. Can Dove maintain both its market position and social impact in the future?