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This case follows Kaycee, who had just returned two weeks ago from a 27-month stay in prison, as she discovers that she is the victim of identity theft. To find out what steps to take, Kaycee reaches out for advice to Marisa Berryman, a mentor at the residential facility that housed Kaycee for three months following her incarceration before she returned home. The goal of this case is to educate students about the risks of identity theft, teach them how best to protect themselves, and inform them how to react if their identity has been stolen. The case is designed to be taught in a financial literacy course for non-MBA audiences.

This case describes the development of ALLVP, a Mexico-based venture capital firm, from founding to Fund III. It discusses how Federico Antoni and Fernando Lelo de Larrea, ALLVP's founders, positioned the firm to address unmet funding needs in Mexico's nascent entrepreneurial market. The case also examines venture capital more broadly throughout Latin America, including the dominance of VC in Brazil, international investment, and structural barriers to exits.

The mutual aspiration of addressing the housing shortage and improving real estate market efficiency led Daniel and Phillip to co-found Seso Global in 2017. Seso Global developed a unique integrated platform to streamline and rationalize the process of acquiring and financing a home in Nigeria. In particular, the Seso team aimed to create a blockchain-enabled ledger of land titles to address a key challenge of Nigerian real estate and mortgages market: ensuring rightful ownership of properties. Their platform combined a land registry management and query portal, a property and mortgage marketplace, and a land service provider marketplace. However, VC investors had been grilling them on their business and revenue model. On the other hand, the impact investors they had talked to were focused on whether their activity would have an effect at the bottom of the pyramid. Pondering on the comments made by the VC, Daniel and Phillip were discussing which part of the platform to prioritize. What should be the focus of their business model? Who should be their main clients? Answers to these questions would be key to win over investors and scale up their operations.

Founded in 2015 by Dan Gilbert, Josh Luber, and Greg Schwartz, StockX was an online platform where users could buy and sell unworn luxury and limited-edition sneakers. Sneaker resale prices often fluctuated over time based on supply and demand, creating a robust secondary market that bore similarities to the stock market. Inspired by these similarities, StockX's co-founders created a secondary platform that tracked sneaker resale prices over time and that emphasized authenticity, anonymity, and transparency. In 2017, StockX began to experiment with ways to expand from the secondary market into the primary market, using a new type of online auction known as an initial product offering (IPO). Based on the results of its first IPOs, was StockX on the right track with its strategy to expand into the primary market?

Spreadsheet supplement to case 620062

ZÅ«m Services, Inc., a children-focused transportation company, was looking to expand into Coronado, an island community near San Diego. The company's initial model in the San Francisco Bay area was to offer families trusted transportation options for their children, but ZÅ«m had since expanded in several U.S. markets by contracting directly with school districts to provide supplemental or alternative transportation for students. By 2019, ZÅ«m operated in more than 140 school districts, and had transported more than 750,000 students. Bidding for a contract with the Coronado Unified School District, ZÅ«m found itself in competition with Care A Van, which had been the district's sole transport provider for special needs students. The next step was to convince the School Board to sign a contract with ZÅ«m. The case invites in-depth discussion of strategies to convince local officials, and asks business students to consider the strategy ZÅ«m and Care A Van should pursue in dealing with the local school board, which will make a determination.

Bill Riddick employs the charrette process to help black and white community leaders overcome differences and desegregate local schools in Durham, NC.

On August 11, 2016, the chairman of Aditya Birla Group (ABG) announced that ABG would merge Aditya Birla Nuvo Limited (ABNL) with Grasim Industries Limited (Grasim). ABG's board also proposed to demerge Aditya Birla Financial Services Limited, a subsidiary of ABNL, from the newly merged Grasim. Financial analysts speculated that the merger was planned to fund ABNL's telecommunication business before an upcoming spectrum sale and the launch of a strong, competing telecommunication company. The investor community, particularly minority shareholders, were concerned about the merger and felt that ABG's main motive for the merger was to increase its stake in Grasim. What were the rationales for the merger? Would the promoter's holding increase after the merger, as the shareholders perceived? Was the share swap ratio between ABNL and Grasim justified? Would there be a post-merger synergy creation, and which of the two companies would transfer wealth to the other? Should the shareholders vote in favour of the merger?

The owner of Manipal Power Laundry asked his nephew, an MBA student, for advice on the business. The company's operational inefficiencies had led to high operating costs over time. Coupled with regulatory price caps, the situation made the business unsustainable. The owner asked his nephew to provide a solution that would benefit the company both in the short term and over the long term. After observing the various processes, collecting data, and interviewing employees, the nephew decided to use process flow analysis to help the company optimize its operations.

Nashwork was founded in July 2013 in Beijing and developed into the largest co-working space company in China by focusing on rapid expansion and internal growth. Nashwork received A-round financing, which was followed by B-round financing one year later, before a series of problems surfaced in the basic operations of the company. By 2017, after three rough years building its customer base and occupancy, the main problem facing Nashwork was its dated and incompatible internal operations system. The company had to resolve issues with the company's organizational structure, staff, and skill sets to support the company's strategic transformation.

In August 2018, the founder and chief executive officer of JD.com, one of China's largest e-commerce sites, was accused of sexual assault and was arrested. He denied wrongdoing and was released less than a day later. One week after his return to China, JD.com's share value hit a 19-month low. In November 2018, the company announced that its customer base had shrunk for the first time since 2014. The impact from the investigation into the alleged assault was unclear. However, the incident took place against the backdrop of the Me Too movement, a time when both traditional and social media were used to publicly launch accusations of sexual harassment and abuse, often against powerful celebrities. The sexual assault accusation complicated the almost singular level of power the founder had over his organization. According to JD.com's corporate bylaws, no board meetings could take place without his presence. What options did the company have to regain market confidence? What strategies could JD.com adopt to minimize impact from the incident? With the founder at the centre of an international scandal, who was responsible to oversee crisis management at JD.com?

This note describes what leader character is, how leader character differs from leaders' personality traits and universal values, and how leader character relates to an organization's culture. Using Schein's classic definition of organizational culture, the note explains how leaders' strength of character can help to shape a culture of excellence. The note also follows Galbraith's model of organizational design to relate leaders' character to organizational-level constructs, such as strategy, structure, people, rewards, and processes.

This case tracks a woman named Jodi as she dreams of going back to school in her early 30s to become a nurse. Jodi had put off higher education for 15 years after she became pregnant with her son as a junior in high school. But now, with her son only a few years away from leaving the house for college himself, Jodi wants to improve both her future and the $30,000 income she currently earns as an administrative assistant at a small health clinic. Jodi calls her friend Tameka, a cashier at a local supermarket who had recently gone back to school to become a pharmacist. Tameka suggests that Jodi meet with a college adviser to learn more about her options. This case is best used in a non-MBA course on financial literacy, or in other educational settings wherein learners are exploring resilience, especially navigating returning to the educational system as an adult.

This case describes 23andMe CEO and cofounder Anne Wojcicki's founding story and her recent attempts to scale the company's direct-to-consumer genetic testing franchise while simultaneously expanding its pharmaceutical development aspirations.

In 2017, Darren Walker, the President of the Ford Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the world, was preparing to meet with his board of directors to discuss beginning a mission related investments (MRI) program. Walker hoped to devote $1 billion of the Ford Foundation's $13 billion endowment to the MRI program. The case explores the reasoning behind the program, design choices that were made in its development, and potential problems or tradeoffs to implementing such a program.

In 2017, Darren Walker, the President of the Ford Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the world, was preparing to meet with his board of directors to discuss beginning a mission related investments (MRI) program. Walker hoped to devote $1 billion of the Ford Foundation's $13 billion endowment to the MRI program. The case explores the reasoning behind the program, design choices that were made in its development, and potential problems or tradeoffs to implementing such a program.

Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to crowdsourcing - in which crowds without directly relevant knowledge are asked to address problems they're poorly suited to solve - is the cause of many crowdsourcing failures. Research suggests that three distinct types of crowdsourcing can be used to solve problems of differing scope and complexity and generate opportunities for innovation.

It is June 2019, and Lillian Lim of Mackor Consultancy, a third-party consultancy in Singapore, is at the newest warehouse of her client, KYY Group, a major third-party logistics provider. Headquartered in Singapore, KYY's business activities span Asia. In 2013, the company started construction of a US$200 million logistics hub. With two million square feet of warehouse space and a million square feet of office space, it would house the KYY Group's headquarters, as well as its research and warehousing facilities. The new logistics hub was due to open in late 2019, and would comprise the latest supply-chain and logistics automation technology. Lim's company was hired to do a study on the improvements that could be made to increase the profitability of KYY's warehouse operations at the hub. To do this, she needs to understand the expected pattern of supply and demand for goods at the warehouse, and the current process of storage and retrieval of inventory. She has to make a presentation on her preliminary findings in two weeks' time to KYY Group's senior management.

It is June 2019, and Lillian Lim of Mackor Consultancy, a third-party consultancy in Singapore, is at the newest warehouse of her client, KYY Group, a major third-party logistics provider. Headquartered in Singapore, KYY's business activities span Asia. In 2013, the company started construction of a US$200 million logistics hub. With two million square feet of warehouse space and a million square feet of office space, it would house the KYY Group's headquarters, as well as its research and warehousing facilities. The new logistics hub was due to open in late 2019, and would comprise the latest supply-chain and logistics automation technology. Lim's company was hired to do a study on the improvements that could be made to increase the profitability of KYY's warehouse operations at the hub. To do this, she needs to understand the expected pattern of supply and demand for goods at the warehouse, and the current process of storage and retrieval of inventory. She has to make a presentation on her preliminary findings in two weeks' time to KYY Group's senior management.

Spreadsheet supplement for case SMU562.