Publications

Lynn Sharp Paine is a Baker Foundation Professor and John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration, Emerita, at Harvard Business School. A member and former chair of the General Management unit, she has served in numerous leadership positions including Senior... View Details

November 1996
Case

Del Webb Corporation (C), The

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Samanta Graff

Dion and the other Del Webb directors were open to having Industrial Equity Pacific (IEP) and Webcott Holdings representation on the board. The IEP representative was perceived as reserved and lacking in sophistication. Cotter of Webcott, however, struck the directors... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Management Succession; Strategic Planning; Governing and Advisory Boards; Horizontal Integration; Conflict Management

March 2022 (Revised August 2022)
Case

Swvl: Smart Mobility for the Masses

By: Krishna Palepu, Esel Çekin and Menna Hassan

The case focuses on strategy and governance issues at Swvl, a tech-enabled mass mobility marketplace. It describes the journey of CEO and Chairman Mostafa Kandil on his journey from founding the company to its listing on Nasdaq. Since its founding in Egypt in 2017,... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Growth and Development Strategy; Initial Public Offering; Innovation and Invention; Business Startups; Transportation Industry; Technology Industry; Middle East; North Africa

20 Oct 2015
First Look

October 20, 2015

on the home country remains unclear. We know very little about return migration of workers engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship, except that it is rapidly growing in importance. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=49887 View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2012 (Revised June 2013)
Case

Dow Chemical: Innovating for Sustainability

Dow Chemical is one of the few major American industrial corporations that was founded in the late 19th century that is still in existence. From its origins producing bromine out of the brine underneath Midland, Michigan, the company has evolved from a diversified... View Details

Keywords: Innovation Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Chemical Industry

Jeffrey F Rayport is a faculty member in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the School’s MBA and Executive Education Programs and on HBS Online. His primary focus in teaching and research is growth-stage technology... View Details

October 2021 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Engine No.1: An Impact Investing Firm Engages with ExxonMobil

By: Mark Kramer, Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi and T. Robert Zochowski

ExxonMobil, the world's fifth largest source of carbon emissions, remained committed to aggressively expanding its oil & gas business despite global warming. During the COVID pandemic this strategy resulted in massive losses as the price and demand for oil declined. ... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Emissions; Global Warming; Impact Investment Funds; Hedge Fund Activism; Leadership Development; Business Model; Renewable Energy; Resource Allocation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Governing and Advisory Boards

June 2011
Case

Shelley Capital and the Hedge Fund Secondary Market

By: Luis Viceira, Elena Corsi and Ruth Dittrich

An advisory company has to decide how to sell their client's hedge fund holdings in the secondary market, and thinks about their future. Shelley Capital was a a European advisory company operating in the hedge fund secondary market, a market that boosted in 2008 with... View Details

Keywords: Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment Funds; Marketing Strategy; Financial Crisis; Sales; Leadership Development; Financial Markets; Crisis Management; Business Processes; Risk and Uncertainty; Globalized Economies and Regions; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; Europe

February 1991 (Revised June 1991)
Case

Raymond Jackson (A)

By: Jay W. Lorsch

Professor Jackson is offered a spot on the slate of directors that Harold Simmons, Lockheed's largest shareholder, has nominated for Lockheed's board to oppose the slate nominated by Lockheed in the Spring, 1990 elections. Jackson must decide whether to join Simmons'... View Details

Keywords: Business and Shareholder Relations; Corporate Governance; Decisions; Voting; Governing and Advisory Boards; Alliances

February 2018 (Revised August 2018)
Case

OpenInvest

By: Shawn Cole, Boris Vallée and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded by a team of hedge fund and NGO alumni, OpenInvest launched its platform in 2015 to enable retail investors to tailor their portfolios to their personal values in an automated way, for instance by screening out weapons manufacturers stocks or overweighting... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Impact Investing; Investment Portfolio; Customization and Personalization; Technological Innovation; Social Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Model; Financial Services Industry

September 2018 (Revised June 2019)
Case

THE VELUX FOUNDATIONS: Selecting Impact Funds

By: Vikram Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Nathaniel Schwalb

After much internal debate, THE VELUX FOUNDATIONS of Denmark have decided to allocate a small percentage of their investment portfolio to impact investments. Cambridge Associates, one of the leading investment advisory firms in the world, has been engaged to assist... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Mission-Related Investing; Foundations; Investment; Venture Capital; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Strategy; Investment Funds; Decision Making; Consulting Industry; Financial Services Industry; Denmark; Europe

November 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Wes Hall and the BlackNorth Initiative

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Marilyn Morgan Westner and Reza Satchu

Wes Hall founded Kingsdale Advisors and built it into one of Canada’s leading shareholder services and advisory firms. Influenced by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and a series of social injustices—specifically the death of George Floyd in police custody—Hall... View Details

Keywords: Racism; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Social Entrepreneurship; Diversity; Race; Social Issues; Ethics; Canada; North America

André Perold is a Founder, Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of HighVista Strategies, a Boston-based investment firm. HighVista focuses on investing in structurally inefficient public and private markets, including in life sciences, lower middle market private... View Details

Keywords: financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services

John A. Deighton

John Deighton is The Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School. He is an authority on consumer behavior and marketing, with a focus on digital and direct marketing. He teaches in the area of Big Data in Marketing,... View Details

Keywords: financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services

September 1998 (Revised July 1999)
Case

Integral Capital Partners

By: Andre F. Perold and Markus Mullarkey

Integral Capital Partners is a small firm with a very distinctive approach to investing in high-technology stocks. The firm invests privately in small start-ups as well as in publicly traded companies, and it develops important financial and advisory relationships with... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Value Creation; Venture Capital; Asset Management; Partners and Partnerships; Public Sector; Private Sector; Business Startups; Corporate Finance; Financial Services Industry