In 1985, pop music superstar Michael Jackson instructed his attorney, John Branca, to bid for the Northern Songs music catalog, which contained the songs of the Beatles. In a challenging negotiation, Branca secured the rights to the collection. Over the next three decades, first as Jackson’s attorney and later as the executor of his estate, Branca undertook numerous complex negotiations to secure and expand Jackson’s music publishing empire until it became the largest music publishing company in...
Nov 26, 2024•31 min•Ep. 244
With operations in 70 countries and 20,000 employees, Pernod Ricard is a leader in premium international spirits. The company had achieved its leadership position in the market largely through strategic acquisition and an ability to build and grow its brand over time. But pressure to continually expand its extensive brand portfolio in order to meet customer demand meant that its traditional analog processes were not allowing the company to effectively manage its huge portfolio of products. In re...
Nov 12, 2024•30 min•Ep. 243
Katie Holyfield and Taylor Matkins founded Lucky Ones Coffee in 2017, a coffee shop with a mission to create jobs in Park City, Utah, for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The company quickly earned strong support from the local community, and by early 2023, Holyfield and Matkins employed 17 people across two coffee shops. The two entrepreneurs must now decide how to grow their business to create more jobs and how to structure the business to ensure that it remains a susta...
Oct 29, 2024•28 min•Ep. 242
Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 1972, grew to become one of the most storied venture capital firms in the world. The firm’s investment track record includes the names of some of the largest global companies. But the venture capital industry began facing new challenges in 2022, and investors were increasingly cautious. At that time Sequoia also began restructuring the firm and made other changes to their core identity. What would all of this mean for the future of Sequoia, and ...
Oct 15, 2024•29 min•Ep. 241
Early in her career Brooke Boyarsky Pratt (MBA 2013) enjoyed considerable success in roles at McKinsey and Berkadia, a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio company. But a routine visit to the doctor in 2020, where she experienced weight stigma yet again, led her to address the problem of obesity care. Boyarsky Pratt had struggled with her weight since she was young. So when she started knownwell, an integrated weight and primary care provider that was designed to support people with obesity, it was a hu...
Oct 01, 2024•33 min•Ep. 240
In 2017 Fawn Weaver launched a premium American whiskey brand, Uncle Nearest. It became the fastest growing and most awarded whiskey brand in America, despite the challenges Weaver faced as a Black woman and outsider to the spirits industry, which is capital-intensive, highly regulated, competitive, and male-dominated. In October 2023, Weaver announced plans to expand into cognac with the goal of building the next major alcoholic beverages conglomerate. But the company was still heavily reliant ...
Sep 17, 2024•25 min•Ep. 239
In February 2023, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was deciding whether or not to sign off on a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for $39 billion in direct semiconductor manufacturing incentives. But this NOFO had several unconventional provisions: a pre-application (pre-app) to the actual application, upside sharing provisions to align incentives, and funding milestones so that only awardees making progress would receive additional funds. The funding had been made available through the ...
Sep 03, 2024•29 min•Ep. 238
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) was founded in 2020 by venture capitalist Kara Nortman, entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, and actor and activist Natalie Portman. As outsiders to professional sports, the all-female founding team had rewritten the playbook for how to build a sports franchise by applying lessons from the tech and entertainment industries. Unlike typical sports franchises that built their teams and track records over many years before extending their brand beyond a local base, ACFC had inv...
Aug 20, 2024•31 min•Ep. 237
In early 2023, Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, started developing the EdTech firm’s strategy for incorporating generative AI into their offerings. He asked his teams to focus on value to the firm and cost of implementation, and they identified four key projects: powering translations and modifying content format and delivery, personalized coaching, an automatic course-building tool, and building out new GenAI-related academic content. By early 2024, the firm had made significant progress in ...
Aug 06, 2024•29 min•Ep. 236
In 2019, Nadine Vogel , founder and CEO of Springboard Consulting, needed to decide the best path forward to grow her small consulting firm. Springboard works with Fortune 500 companies on issues related to disability and workforce. Should Vogel expand the topics she works on with her current clients, or should she explore the possibility of moving into a new market of smaller businesses? Vogel joins Harvard Business School professor Lakshmi Ramarajan and Harvard Kennedy School professor Hannah ...
Jul 23, 2024•28 min•Ep. 235
Ten years ago, Robin Kovitz became President & CEO of Baskits—now one of Canada’s leading gift services companies—by purchasing the company from its two retiring founders. Baskits was an acquisition that had many of the qualities that lead to success for first-time CEOs, including recurring customers and a record showing years of profitable operations. But it was also a seasonal business, which is a potential red flag. This episode is an exclusive introduction to a new podcast from Harvard B...
Jul 16, 2024•36 min•Ep. 234
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which allow individuals to own their digital assets and move them from place to place, are changing the interaction between consumers and digital goods, brands, and platforms. Harvard Business School professor Scott Duke Kominers and tech entrepreneur Steve Kaczynski discuss the case, “Bored Ape Yacht Club: Navigating the NFT World,” and the related book they co-authored, The Everything Token: How NFTs and Web3 Will Transform The Way We Buy, Sell, And Create . They fo...
Jul 09, 2024•29 min•Ep. 234
In 2018, artisanal Italian vineyard Frank Cornelissen was one of the world’s leading producers of natural wine. But when weather-related conditions damaged that year’s grapes, founder Frank Cornelissen had to decide between staying true to the tenets of natural wine making, or breaking with his public beliefs to save that year’s grapes by adding sulfites. Harvard Business School assistant professor Tiona Zuzul discusses the importance of staying true to your company’s principles while remaining ...
Jun 18, 2024•21 min•Ep. 233
The Insurtech firm Hippo was facing two big challenges related to climate change: major loss ratios and rate hikes. The company used technologically empowered services to create its competitive edge, along with providing smart home packages, targeting risk-friendly customers, and using data-driven pricing. But now CEO and president Rick McCathron needed to determine how the firm’s underwriting model could account for the effects of high-intensity weather events. Harvard Business School professor...
Jun 04, 2024•32 min•Ep. 232
In March 2020, Twiddy & Company, a family-owned vacation rental company known for hospitality rooted in personal interactions, needed to adjust to contactless, remote customer service. With the upcoming vacation season thrown into chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic, president Clark Twiddy had a responsibility to the company’s network of homeowners who rented their homes through the company, to guests who had booked vacations, and to employees who had been recruited by Twiddy’s reputation for tre...
May 21, 2024•27 min•Ep. 231
Ferran Adrià, chef at legendary Barcelona-based restaurant elBulli, was facing two related decisions. First, he and his team must continue to develop new and different dishes for elBulli to guarantee a continuous stream of innovation, the cornerstone of the restaurant’s success. But they also need to focus on growing the restaurant’s business. Can the team balance both objectives? Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton discusses the connections between creativity, emotions, rituals, an...
May 07, 2024•26 min•Ep. 230
In 2020, Amazon built a shelter for women and families experiencing houselessness on its campus in Seattle, Washington. The shelter was operated in partnership with a nonprofit organization known as Mary’s Place and was designed to address what had become an urgent problem for Seattle and many other wealthy American cities, where communities were being displaced by a lack of affordable housing. Amazon’s partnership with Mary’s Place was an experiment in addressing this problem at its core, using...
Apr 23, 2024•24 min•Ep. 229
Özyeğin Social Investments was founded by Hüsnü Özyeğin, one of Turkey’s most successful entrepreneurs, with a focus on education, health, gender equality, rural development, and disaster relief in Turkey. The company and the Özyeğin family have spent decades serving and improving communities in need. Their efforts led to the creation of one of Turkey’s top universities, the establishment of schools and rehabilitation centers, post 2023 earthquake humanitarian shelter and facilities, nationwide ...
Apr 09, 2024•29 min•Ep. 228
In the spring of 2021, Raymond Jefferson (MBA 2000) applied for a job in President Joseph Biden’s administration. Ten years earlier, false allegations had been used to force him to resign from his prior U.S. government position as assistant secretary of labor for veterans’ employment and training in the U.S. Department of Labor. Jefferson filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government to clear his name and used his entire life savings to pursue the case for eight years. Why, after such a tr...
Mar 26, 2024•26 min•Ep. 227
Paul English is one of the most imaginative and successful innovators of his generation. He cofounded several companies, including Kayak, before starting Boston Venture Studio, where he is currently a partner. This multimedia case, “ Bringing Ideas to Life: The Story of Paul English ,” explores his process of creative idea generation, examining how he was able to bring so many ideas to market. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei and English discuss how to tell the dif...
Mar 12, 2024•28 min•Ep. 226
Harvard University aims to be fossil-fuel neutral by 2026 and totally free of fossil fuels by 2050. As part of this goal, the university is trying to decarbonize its supply chain and considers replacing cement with a low-carbon substitute called Pozzotive®, made with post-consumer recycled glass. A successful pilot project could jump start Harvard’s initiative to reduce embodied carbon emissions, but it first needs credible information about the magnitude and validity of potential carbon reducti...
Feb 27, 2024•26 min•Ep. 225
In 2015, Apple debuted the iPhone 6S, which employed a default encryption system preventing both Apple and government authorities from accessing data stored on the device. Then, in 2016, a federal judge ordered Apple to provide technical assistance to unlock the iPhone used by one of the mass shooters in San Bernardino, California. Apple refused to comply. Years later, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe in 2020, Apple and Google partnered to develop a contact tracing application tha...
Feb 13, 2024•28 min•Ep. 224
Raízen, a bioenergy company headquartered in São Paulo, is Brazil’s leader in sugar and ethanol production and the world’s leading ethanol trader. Since its creation in 2011, the company had primarily produced first-generation ethanol (E1G) from sugarcane, a crop that can also be used to produce sugar. In 2015, Raízen also started to produce second-generation ethanol (E2G), a biofuel derived from residual and waste materials, such as cane bagasse and straw – which don’t compete with food product...
Jan 30, 2024•27 min•Ep. 223
In December of 2020, SolarWinds learned that they had fallen victim to hackers. Unknown actors had inserted malware called SUNBURST into a software update, potentially granting hackers access to thousands of its customers’ data, including government agencies across the globe and the US military. General Counsel Jason Bliss needed to orchestrate the company’s response without knowing how many of its 300,000 customers had been affected, or how severely. What’s more, the existing CEO was scheduled ...
Jan 16, 2024•29 min•Ep. 222
Should businesses take a stand for or against particular societal issues? And how should leaders determine when and how to engage on these sensitive matters? Harvard Business School senior lecturer Hubert Joly , who led the electronics retailer Best Buy for almost a decade, discusses examples of corporate leaders who had to determine whether and how to engage with humanitarian crises, geopolitical conflict, racial justice, climate change, and more in the case, “ Deciding When to Engage on Societ...
Jan 02, 2024•23 min•Ep. 221
When Ferrari, the Italian luxury sports car manufacturer, committed to achieving carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet, investors and employees applauded the new strategy. But among the company’s suppliers, the reaction was mixed. Many were nervous about how this shift would affect their bottom lines. Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun and Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna discuss how Ferrari collaborated with suppliers to work toward achieving the company’...
Dec 12, 2023•31 min•Ep. 220
Which sales candidate is a startup’s ideal first hire? What marketing channels are best to invest in? How aggressively should an executive team align sales with customer success? Harvard Business School senior lecturer Mark Roberge discusses how early-stage founders, sales leaders, and marketing executives can address these challenges as they grow their ventures in the case, “ Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing Vignettes .”...
Dec 05, 2023•19 min•Ep. 219
In 2017, Tommy Hilfiger launched its adaptive fashion line to provide fashion apparel that aims to make dressing easier. By 2020, it was still a relatively unknown line in the U.S. and the Tommy Hilfiger team was continuing to learn more about how to serve these new customers. Should the team make adaptive clothing available beyond the U.S., or is a global expansion premature? Harvard Business School assistant professor Elizabeth Keenan discusses the opportunities and challenges that accompanied...
Nov 28, 2023•19 min•Ep. 219
In December 2020, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian and his leadership team were reviewing the decision to join the OneTen coalition, where he and 36 other CEOs committed to recruiting, hiring, training, and advancing one million Black Americans over the next ten years into family-sustaining jobs. But, how do you ensure everyone has equal access to opportunity within an organization? Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill discusses Delta’s decision and its progress in embedding a culture of d...
Nov 21, 2023•29 min•Ep. 218
Julie Owono is executive director of Internet Sans Frontières and a member of the Oversight Board, an outside entity with the authority to make binding decisions on tricky moderation questions for Meta’s companies, including Facebook and Instagram. Harvard Business School visiting professor Jesse Shapiro and Owono break down how the Board governs Meta’s social and political power to ensure that it’s used responsibly, and discuss the Board’s impact, as an alternative to government regulation, in ...
Nov 07, 2023•25 min•Ep. 217
