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Raizen, the world's largest sugar and ethanol producer, strived to find ways to expand the second-generation ethanol (E2G) market, which it pioneered. The company planned to invest R$24 billion (around $4.6 billion) in 20 production plants, with a total capacity to make approximately 1.6 billion liters of E2G. Paula Kovarsky, the company's Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer, firmly believed that E2G was a readily available biofuel that could assist in the decarbonization of several industries, helping the world navigate the energy transitional and achieve its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. Ethanol had already transformed Brazil, where flex-fuel vehicles dominated the streets. Raizen sought to prove that second-generation ethanol, made from a byproduct of sugarcane, that did not compete with food production, could do the same for the world, especially in hard to decarbonize sectors, such as aviation and shipping.

Asia Symbol (Guangdong) was part of the Royal Golden Eagle Group (the RGE Group)'s China presence. RGE was a multinational conglomerate that spanned the forestry, pulp, papermaking, viscose fiber and gas industries. It mainly ran businesses in China, Brazil and Indonesia, with a clear business strategy to leverage its industry integration business model to gain the advantage of cost leadership. In an effort to replicate its successful experiences in other countries, it established Asia Symbol (Guangdong) and another pulp processing plant in Shandong province. The case describes how RGE saw China's potential in its global business layout and how it managed to grab over one-third of China's copy paper market share.

Many companies today face the need to embark on a dual transformation: Reinventing and sustaining their core business while concurrently creating new, future businesses. This case about Globe Telecom, Inc., in the Philippines presents the s.tory of just such a transformation The case is bookended by the CEO's 14-year tenure and describes successive waves of reviving and retooling the once-flagging telecom business. It is situated in a transient, highly competitive B2C landscape, continually susceptible to the forces of saturation and commodification. The thread connecting Globe's successive reinventions is the CEO's belief in the company's "unfair advantage" when building new businesses in telco space adjacencies. The project of building this advantage - and the attendant pursuit of new opportunities, sectors and partnerships - has had to be constantly balanced with the ongoing task of growing market share in the core mobile business. Underlying both sets of activities is the rediscovery, at regular intervals, of Globe's purpose as a corporation, a consumer player, an employer and an important stakeholder in the emerging and fast-growing domestic economy, as well a broader sense of being an agent of development for the nation. Managing these intricate processes requires not only foresight from the company's top leadership but also the presence of ambidextrous talent - a workforce that is up to the task of optimizing for today while transforming for tomorrow. Historically, organizations have separated these two tasks in terms of talent, budgets and reporting lines. The case showcases flesh-and-blood individual managers and their observations on the dual challenge of running this business at the same time as building the next businesses.

By May 2023, Boortmalt was the word's leading producer of malt, with a production capacity of 3 million tonnes, 15% of global market share, and 27 malting plants across five continents. It had recently acquired a major competitor and had sustained an EBITDA growth of 17% per annum over the past ten years. Despite this success, Yvan Schaepman, Boortmalt's charismatic and eco-conscious CEO, was aware of the rapidly evolving malting industry, marked by changing consumer preferences, technological advancements, and shifting climate dynamics. Schaepman was considering various strategies to sustain growth amidst these headwinds, including greenfield investments, exploring new acquisitions, and expanding into the food sector. This case study explores Boortmalt's growth trajectory, and assesses different strategies for sustaining and enhancing growth. Additionally, it dives into the unique world of malting, the company's culture and sustainability efforts, and the challenges and opportunities of acquiring a competitor.

21Seeds, a female-founded flavor-infused tequila startup launched in 2019, had made inroads into the alcoholic beverage industry by focusing on an underserved consumer segment in spirits-women, primarily in their 30s and 40s, many of whom were moms-and by following a non-traditional playbook of circumventing the traditional on-premise channel (bars and restaurants) and selling primarily to the off-premise channel (retail stores, such as supermarkets and liquor shops) where their target consumer shopped. The all-female founding team had no background in the alcohol industry, yet had grown annual sales to 66,000 cases within just three years-a highly unusual feat for a new spirits brand. Excited about the new "white space" opportunity that 21Seeds offered, Diageo, the multinational beverage company with a portfolio of other major tequila brands, including Don Julio, Casamigos, and DeLeón, acquired the fledgling brand in March 2022, retaining the co-founders as brand ambassadors. Diageo placed 21Seeds in its new Breakout Growth Brands Division, a select small group of brands to be nurtured for aggressive growth, with a goal of turning 21Seeds into a major player within the super-premium tequila segment. Diageo was considering several strategic initiatives for growing the brand, including product innovations, distribution opportunities, and marketing and branding approaches. 21Seeds had been successful to date by executing on a highly focused sales and marketing approach. Now, as the brand was under pressure to accelerate sales, its identity was being reassessed by Diageo. How important was it, at this stage in the lifecycle, that 21Seeds adhere closely to its founding brand story and brand positioning, or was now the time to evolve the brand en route to becoming a much bigger player in the market? The 21Seeds co-founders had views on how to grow the brand, but recognized that it was now part of a large portfolio of brands and ultimately under Diageo's control.

This is a background note that surveys part of the extensive literature on organizational learning. The focus is on learning from experiences, how those learnings get translated into organizational routines and processes, and how that can also lead to getting stuck in competency traps. There is discussion on the learning curve, how that led to forward pricing strategies, and brief discussions on improvement, biases, and organizational memory.

Moving the needle on meeting major sustainability goals â€" like cutting carbon emissions â€" requires setting objectives that are ambitious enough to reflect an organization’s vision and yet sufficiently realistic about business requirements so that early wins can be achieved and momentum can be built. The authors walk readers through a five-step process for identifying and setting sustainability goals, and for managing the tension between urgent needs for climate action and maintaining business health.

Organizational paradoxes are ultimately illusions. They are artificial constructs, sometimes of a system, many times of the mind. They fail to meet the definition of a paradox because they are not irreconcilable. Yet these illusionary obstacles persist as groups, and individuals protect themselves from the perceived challenges of addressing them. They demand engagement because the process of engagement reveals the illusion, develops a deeper sense of self, and builds an organization's capabilities.

As mandatory sustainability reporting gains ground, a focus on what investors want provides a useful lens for corporate planning. The transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy is creating new market conditions where sustainability builds resilience and increases the capacity for business growth. New reporting will reveal how leaders see the future, how they are planning to meet it, and what value they expect to be able to create for their companies.

Artificial intelligence models require large quantities of specialized hardware, data, and energy to be trained and run, all of which produce carbon emissions and e-waste. These large hidden environmental costs require solutions that can harness AI’s potential while mitigating its climate impact. This article outlines steps that AI leaders can take to make the technology more sustainable.

The Sackler family and their 100%-owned company, Purdue Pharma, produced OxyContin pills by the millions, amassing a vast family fortune in the process. Those painkillers were responsible for a devastating opioid epidemic in the United States. For a business family, the "Oxy-Sacklers" are distinguished by their greed and lack of moral compass. Their donations to cultural, academic and medical institutions (mainly in the US and the UK) named after the family, sparked controversy about the role of corporate philanthropy worldwide.

St. Gianna Healthcare (SGH) was a community health centre located in Kochi, in the southern state of Kerala, India, offering government-approved medical checkups and health certifications, specialist consulting services in obstetrics and gynecology, and dental care. SGH's medical administrator was concerned about service management issues at the clinic in recent months. While there had been a recent increase in patient numbers, she was concerned about customer experience. In particular, she was trying to assess whether patient waiting times and service turnaround were satisfactory, given the dependencies SGH had on capacity, scheduling, and overall service management at the clinic, and was considering her options for improvements.

In 2023, the fast-fashion industry found itself under attack on several fronts: a growing poor reputation regarding its significant negative social and environmental impacts; the increasing prevalence of online shopping and the entrance of many new competitors who were not burdened with expensive bricks-and-mortar retail networks; and the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in helping to identify future fashion trends. Industria de Diseño Textil SA (Inditex) and its flagship brand Zara had just come off a record 2022, with industry-leading sales, gross margins, and profits. They were also ahead of the industry with 25.8 per cent of sales through their online channels. However, the challenges the fast-fashion industry faced were significant for Zara and required a long-term strategic response.

Amid the global shift towards remote working, Brad Merchant of Triovest uses a systems thinking approach to examine the evolving dynamics of office spaces. As corporations debate remote work, the demand for physical offices is in question. Triovest, a Canadian commercial real estate firm, is strategizing with a working investment thesis, "The Future of the Office." This approach involves buying undervalued office properties, modernizing them, and reselling them. Merchant and his team need to predict the interplay between remote and communal workspaces in their investment decisions. Would Triovest's investment thesis affect these trends-or vice versa?

In early October 2022, the ASX-listed mineral exploration company Sheffield Resources announced its final investment decision to proceed with the Thunderbird mineral sands project, its only project under development. Olivia Montalbano's investment banking firm had decided to provide coverage of Sheffield's stock and asked her to determine a fair value estimate. The investor's bankable feasibility study (BFS) provided an estimate of $1.84 per share, but the stock price was only $0.47. What troubled Montalbano was that the BFS employed a real discount rate of 8%, which seemed low, given typical mining project risk. Montalbano's immediate task was to develop her own estimate of the project's cost of capital.

This technical note introduces convertible note financing for early-stage start-up companies. These unpriced securities offer significant advantages related to delayed valuation, greater speed, and lower cost of completion compared to venture capital financing. As a result, the number of early-stage companies raising capital through convertible notes over the past decade has greatly increased. The note discusses the most frequently used terms and arrangements of early-stage convertible notes, the estimation of noteholders' equity ownership from delayed valuation, and the costs and risks of this form of financing to both entrepreneurs and investors. It offers a number of numerical examples that walk students through calculations of convertible note payoffs under different success scenarios and different valuation caps. It also explores how convertible notes affect subsequent equity rounds' pricing. Finally, the note offers statistical data on the state of convertible note issuance. This note is a successor to an older note, ""Convertible Notes: A Form of Early-Stage Financing"" (UVA-F-1925). The cases ""Should udu a Convertible Note?"" (UVA-F-2025) and ""MedMetri

Yellow Corporation, one of the country's oldest and largest less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers, was nearing its 100th anniversary in 2024. Whether it would reach that milestone, however, was uncertain as the company was attempting to restructure its operations to become more competitive and refinance $1.3 billion of debt that was coming due in the next year. With just $100 million of cash on its balance sheet in June 2023, some kind of financial restructuring was needed to keep the company afloat. Unfortunately, the company's relationship with the Teamsters, the union that represented two-thirds of its 30,000 workers, was deteriorating rapidly. The situation became even worse after Yellow skipped a $50 million payment for worker benefits and pension obligations on July 15, prompting the Teamsters to threaten a strike at the end of the month. Having helped save the company from three "near death" experiences in the past 15 years, the union was in no mood to make further concessions. For Yellow CEO Darren Hawkins, the questions were whether and how he could convince union members to make further concessions, and what changes he needed to make to avoid bankruptcy one more time.

In January 2021, Sandeep Mathrani, Chief Executive Officer of the troubled real-estate firm WeWork, was evaluating a merger offer from the BowX Acquisition Corporation, a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) founded by Vivek Ranadivé of TIBCO Software. WeWork's financial position remained precarious after a failed initial public offering in September 2019. The BowX transaction offered a different route for WeWork to become a publicly listed company and could potentially ameliorate its financing problems. However, the SPAC transaction posed risks and challenges. Should WeWork accept the offer from BowX? If yes, what safeguards should it negotiate to mitigate the risks?

This case, a follow-up to "Light Rail in Denver?: The Private Sector and Infrastructure Development (A)" (UVA-GEM-0188) revisits Nwanneoma "Neena" Ngondai as she reflects on the work of the Denver Regional Transportation District and what actually happened after the proposed expansion of Denver's public transit system.

LINE Corporation was started in 2000 as a local company in Japan focused on developing a mobile communication application. It later expanded its reach to operate a wide range of products and services in various markets including retail, entertainment, financial technology, and artificial intelligence. LINE Corporation was operating in two global markets-Asia and North America-with its top four strategic business units. The LINE mobile messaging application was the cornerstone of the company, launched in Japan shortly after the Great East Japan earthquake in 2011 to allow individuals to connect with loved ones, participate in relief efforts, and express their feelings through emojis and stickers. LINE FRIENDS INC. was a standalone entity created to sell and distribute character-related merchandise featuring the popular animal characters Brown, Cony, and Sally. LINE PLAY Corporation, the company's popular avatar-building game, had over 75 million registered users, but some users saw it as merely a cash-grabbing game. LINE Next Inc. was a venture focused on developing and expanding the global non-fungible token ecosystem. In 2023, the main issue that LINE Corporation was facing was how best to allocate budget and resources to the two markets (Asia and North America) and to its top four strategic business units.