Leonard A. Schlesinger

Changing consumer behaviors have redefined what it means to be direct to consumer ("DTC"). What once began online a decade ago as a distribution and disintermediation strategy has since evolved into a multifaceted approach for the modern-day brand.

The future of direct-to-consumer is happening now. Years of innovation, pre-existing trends, and consumer evolution have been accelerated by a digital movement proliferated by COVID-19. However, many of the favorable market trends have changed in recent months. This year, we will examine the new challenges that DTC businesses face through our teaching and research programs, along with the unique strategies that founders have adopted to stay relevant in the wake of the global pandemic and the shifting consumer and investor preferences – from reinvesting in retail, introducing new channels, optimizing delivery and last mile logistics, exploring emerging interactive digital media such as TikTok and the metaverse, and building an approachable brand centered around community.

"Moving Beyond DTC," an HBS Teaching and Research initiative in its fifth year, serves as a launch pad for passionate and resilient students and readers eager to design, incubate and invest in DTC businesses through multiple formats and iterations.

Len Schlesinger and Ayelet Israeli of Harvard Business School, and Matt Higgins, of RSE Ventures, along with an extraordinary lineup of founders, investors and leaders, focus on delivering natural world perspectives that enable and empower students and readers in our community to build, operate, and scale successful DTC businesses.

Here are some of the 2024 committed class visitors:

Leaders today have to lead in the context of extraordinary changes and challenges. The demands of today's stakeholders have risen significantly, and what is expected of senior leaders is quickly evolving in terms of their mission (more than profit), the scope of their responsibilities (beyond the four walls of the business), and how they should lead (not as superheroes and not just as good business leaders, but also as great human leaders).

In this program, participants will prepare to become an authentic, purposeful leader who can step up to more challenging roles and lead effectively in this new era. Participants will develop new capabilities and learn new tools and approaches on how to orient participants business around a noble, meaningful and credible purpose, set strategies that can help the chosen purpose come to life (addressing the needs of participants company's varied stakeholders in the process), and create an environment that can unleash the potential of their organizations. In parallel, the program will guide participants in a profoundly personal exploration that builds their self-awareness and emotional intelligence, delving into the core of participants' experiences to strengthen their capacities as a great purposeful, authentic human leader, not just a great business leader.

This program explores key challenges leaders confront as they seek to pursue a purpose-driven strategy, leveraging lessons from leading CEOs and companies. As participants dig deeply into what it means for executives to lead effectively in today's business environment, they will discover how to move purpose from words on a page and planning sessions to reality, by reflecting the purpose across day-to-day operations and creating an environment that can result in surprisingly strong performance.

Harvard Business School (HBS) professors Hubert Joly and Len Schlesinger are the faculty cochairs of the HBS Executive Education program.