Publications

May 2017 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Battle for the Soul of Capitalism: Unilever and the Kraft Heinz Takeover Bid (A)

By: William W. George and Amram Migdal

This case describes Kraft Heinz Company’s (KHC) February 2017 unsolicited $143 billion takeover offer to acquire Unilever. The offer was made to Unilever CEO Paul Polman by KHC chairman Alexandre Behring, who was also co-founder and CEO of Brazilian-based 3G Capital... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Value Creation; Decision Choices and Conditions

26 Jun 2020
Video

Peter Vundla

Peter Vundla, who co-founded the first Black-owned advertising agency in South Africa, discusses how he discerned the importance of strong values in business success, and resolved to place integrity at the... View Details

05 May 2020
Video

Narayana Murthy

Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of the India-based software company Infosys, explains his belief that compassionate capitalism is the best solution to poverty, and makes the case for a broad stakeholder view of... View Details

28 Dec 2021
News

How Businesses Could Approach Return to Work in 2022

17 Feb 2023
Video

Engineering a New Pathway: Integrating Science and Entrepreneurship

October 2021 (Revised September 2022)
Case

SmartOne: Building an AI Data Business

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Pippa Armerding, Gamze Yucaoglu and Fares Khrais

The case opens in August 2021, as Habib and Shahysta Hassim, husband and wife co-founders of the data labeling company SmartOne, contemplate the strategy of the high growth company. Between 2016 and 2021, SmartOne had kept doubling its size every two years and now,... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Data Labeling; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Operations; Business Model; Growth Management; Growth and Development Strategy; AI and Machine Learning; Africa; Madagascar; Europe; France; United States

Seth Neel

Seth Neel is an Assistant Professor housed in the Department of Technology and Operations Management (TOM) at HBS, and a Faculty Affiliate in Computer Science at SEAS. He is Principal Investigator of the Trustworthy AI Lab in Harvard's new View Details

19 Aug 2011
News

NYC Program Means Real Public School Choice for Students

19 Feb 2015
Video

Eric Paley, venture capitalist, managing partner at the Founder Collective

Video

Vimal Shah

Vimal Shah, Co-Founder and Chairman of Kenya-based Bidco Africa, outlines his focus on fast-moving consumer goods, emphasizing the importance of adapting to consumer demands and a growing population, while leveraging technologies such as fintech to support sustainable... View Details

Video

Vimal Shah

Vimal Shah, Co-Founder and Chairman of Kenya-based Bidco Africa, explains the ethical and economic basis for the group’s commitment to waste minimization, rejecting what he refers to as superficial Corporate Social Responsibility to instead foster opportunities across... View Details

Video

Madhav Chavan & Rukmini Banerji

Dr. Madhav Chavan, Co-Founder and President of Pratham Education Foundation, describes his views on the opportunities for technology in education, giving the example of PraDigi – a digital initiative that provides tablets pre-loaded with educational content to children... View Details

Karim R. Lakhani

Karim R. Lakhani is the Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He specializes in technology management, innovation, digital transformation and artificial... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; communications; computer; health care; high technology; information technology industry; internet; pharmaceuticals; software; video games

28 Jun 2021
Video

Ouided Bouchamaoui

Ouided Bouchamaoui, the Nobel Prize winning co-founder of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet and CEO of Hédi Bouchamaoui Group, discusses the challenges faced by business in Tunisia under the presidency of Ben Ali (1987-2011) and subsequent challenges of... View Details

Victoria Ivashina

Victoria Ivashina is the Lovett-Learned Professor of Finance and Head of the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School. She also serves as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy... View Details

Keywords: banking; federal government; financial services; investment banking industry; private equity (LBO funds); private equity (other)

054: Christine Exley on the Economics of Volunteering, Market Failure in the Homeless Dog Market and Wagaroo

Frank Conway, host of Economic Rockstar, interviews Christine Exley about why she co-founded Wagaroo to help save dogs, how a trip to Honduras changed Christine’s academic path from mathematics to economics, and her work on what factors influence volunteer and... View Details

Video

Vimal Shah

Vimal Shah, Co-Founder and Chairman of Bidco Africa, discusses the group’s strategic approach to marketing soap products in Kenya, targeting the bottom of the pyramid market with multiple brands at different price points to compete with large multinationals such as... View Details

March 2022 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Emeritus: Achieving Impact, Providing Access (A)

By: Ashish Nanda and Zack Kurtovich

In June 2019, Emeritus cofounders Ashwin Damera (HBS MBA 2005) and Chaitanya Kalipatnapu were thrilled with the rapid growth of Emeritus. Damera and Kalipatnapu believed that Emeritus, established in July 2015 to offer online executive education, was only in the early... View Details

Keywords: Education Technology; Professional Service Firm; Startup; Digital Strategy; Global Business; Global Firm; Platform Business; Business Startups; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Executive Education; Strategy; Education Industry; India