Publications

September 2017
Case

Blackstone's Julia Kahr at the Summit

By: Paul A. Gompers, John D. Dionne and Amram Migdal

In 2009, Blackstone, the New York-based alternative asset and financial services firm, committed to invest up to $750 million into Summit Materials, a new company in the aggregates sector (i.e., construction materials, such as crushed stone, sand, gravel, cement,... View Details

20 Oct 2009
First Look

First Look: October 20

cases and readings in the module and relates the cases included to the main patterns of international capital flows in the last thirty years. Finally, the chapter also presents the key insights from the field of international economics covered in the cases as well as... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Jun 1999
News

Allison Hughes

summer, Hughes will join Lone Pine Capital, a billion-dollar hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut, as a managing director. "I think my penchant for numbers and my love of competition truly go back to those afternoon card games with... View Details

Keywords: Charlie Hogg

23 Mar 2022
Blog Post

Learning Curve: The Brother-and-Sister Team Behind a New Edtech Nonprofit

Foundation, an educational fund founded by board chair Ashish Dhawan [MBA 1997] and Siddharth Yog [MBA 2004], founder of the emerging-markets investment firm Xander.) Rocket already works with public schools in the populous View Details

Web

Winners & Runners-Up | New Venture Competition

bridges in the United States at risk. Quickstor Rebecca Greene Todd Rudnianyn Business Track Runner-Up This new venture has developed a mobile app to facilitate the process of finding self-storage facilities, now used by half of all U.S.... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

The overarching goal of my research is to produce works that are influential and informative to both academics and practitioners in the field of operations management. To accomplish this, I collaborate with industry partners who provide knowledge about their field,... View Details

01 Jun 1998
News

Simmons Family Endows Professorship

and make time for family life, believe in hard work, and support their communities. The family recently established a fund to create the Roy and Elizabeth Simmons Professorship of Business Administration at HBS. In announcing the chair,... View Details

June 2020 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Vanguard Retail Operations (A)

By: Willy C. Shih and Antonio Moreno

The first two cases in this series are set in the financial services industry, and explore whether it is better for back-office workers to be generalists who provide the flexibility of being able to handle the complete range of transactions that the company faces or... View Details

Keywords: Pooling; Generalist Model; Specialist Model; Operations; Service Operations; Management; Job Design and Levels; Financial Services Industry; United States

January 2015 (Revised October 2018)
Case

Nasty Gals Do It Better

By: David Collis, Diane Chang, Matthew Shaffer and Ashley Hartman

In 2006, Sophia Amoruso started Nasty Gal, an eBay boutique selling vintage clothes. With a strong sense of style and personality, Amoruso poured herself into building the brand and developing relationships with her customers—typically the slightly edgy 18–24 year old.... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth; Brand Management; Online Retail; Clothing; Apparel; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Management; Marketing Strategy; Strategic Planning; Social Media; E-commerce; Digital Marketing; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

Article

Experiments in Open Innovation at Harvard Medical School

By: Eva C. Guinan, Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim R. Lakhani

Harvard Medical School seems an unlikely organization to open up its innovation process. By most measures, the more than 20,000 faculty, research staff and graduate students affiliated with Harvard Medical School are already world class and at the top of the medical... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Boston

Find at Harvard

03 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 3

disseminating information about peer behavior on savings. Low-saving employees received simplified plan enrollment or contribution increase forms. A randomized subset of forms stated the fraction of age-matched coworkers participating in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

11 Oct 2023
News

Soldier On

Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Spotify More Skydeck episodes In November of 2022, 33-year-old Phillip Jones (MPA/MBA 2021) was elected mayor of Newport News, Virginia, where he had spent part of his childhood. The son of two Air Force veterans, he served six years in... View Details

18 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 18

and Fortune 500 executives. The bet-by providing "no-strings-attached" help to ecosystem partners, the partners might someday reciprocate by steering founders seeking funding to a16z. The case closes by asking whether a16z... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

30 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Ethical People Become Unethical Negotiators

PeopleImages Convicted stockbroker Bernie Madoff knew exactly what he was doing when he stole billions from clients, yet the financial advisor didn’t pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in the United States by himself. He had the help of... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

May 2020 (Revised December 2022)
Case

Soofa: Displaying the Right Path?

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Amy Klopfenstein and Amram Migdal

In November 2019, Sandra Richter, co-founder and CEO of Soofa, a network of advertising-supported digital bulletin boards, must decide between two different fundraising and expansion plans for her company. One plan entails raising $15 million in a Series A round and... View Details

November 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Rebuilding Puerto Rico

By: Laura Alfaro, Laura Phillips Sawyer and Haviland Sheldahl-Thomason

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria swept over Puerto Rico, devastating the island’s infrastructure and agriculture. The natural disaster was layered atop years of mounting financial distress. Before the hurricane, Puerto Rico had accumulated $74 billion in debt and... View Details

Keywords: Natural Disasters; Financial Crisis; Infrastructure; Borrowing and Debt; Economy; Strategic Planning; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Puerto Rico

January 2015 (Revised March 2017)
Case

New Urban Mechanics

By: Mitchell Weiss

Funding to scale Citizens Connect, Boston's 311 app, is both a blessing and a burden and tests two public entrepreneurs. In 2012, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provides Boston's Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics with a grant to scale Citizens Connect across the... View Details

December 2020 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Riverstone

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

In 2020, Luke Minion and the leadership team at Riverstone, a hog producer founded in 2013 in Shandong, China, were evaluating Riverstone’s strategy as it rebounded from outbreaks of African Swine Fever (ASF) in two of its three farm complexes. Riverstone was a joint... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Globalization; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Disruption; Risk and Uncertainty; Risk Management; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Consulting Industry; United States; China