The Nuqul Group was established in 1952 by Elia Nuqul, a Palestinian refugee who fled his hometown in 1948 with his family to Jordan. He overcame many hardships in his initial years there, but subsequently started a trading business that grew to become one of Jordan's largest family businesses. Its flagship company, Fine Hygienic Holding (FHH), was a leader in hygienic paper products across the Middle East and North Africa. In March 2023, Ghassan Nuqul, a second-generation family member and chairman of FHH, was at a crossroads. Following his father's death in 2022, Ghassan and his three siblings decided to split the Group's assets among themselves so that each branch of the family could forge its own path. They were in discussions to finalize the details of the agreement. What would this mean for the future of the family? Would it make the family stronger, or would it weaken family ties?

Dena Almansoori, the first female and one of the youngest members of the United Arab Emirates-based e&'s leadership team, joined in 2020 just before e& began a strategic transition from being a regional telecommunications company to becoming a global technology company. As the group's chief HR officer, Almansoori had a key role to play in this transition. Her mandate was to build a culture that was a "magnet" for top global talent, such that e& would compete with the likes of Amazon and Google not only for customers, but employees too. Many deemed this to be a radically ambitious goal. When Almansoori entered, the company had never had a town hall meeting; e& did not have standardized benefits for employees; employees called their managers by titles not names and needed their approval to apply for internal jobs. However, in two short years, Almansoori and other leaders had made "seismic" changes to the 70,000-person organization's strategy, structure, talent profile, and people processes. Changing the "extremely hierarchical culture" that Almansoori saw as antithetical to being a tech company was a slower process. To speed it up, in a radical move for the organization and region, Almansoori rolled out a new internal mobility policy that encouraged employees to apply for internal jobs without asking their manager's permission. It was a symbolic gesture of "taking control away from leaders and putting it in the hands of employees" and a mechanism for altering manager-employee interactions-an area Almansoori could not directly control. In contrast, her other HR initiatives did not directly impact power dynamics inside e&.

Dena Almansoori, the first female and one of the youngest members of the United Arab Emirates-based e&'s leadership team, joined in 2020 just before e& began a strategic transition from being a regional telecommunications company to becoming a global technology company. As the group chief HR officer, Almansoori had a key role to play in this transition. Her mandate was to build a culture that was a "magnet" for top global talent, such that e& would compete with the likes of Amazon and Google not only for customers, but employees too. Many deemed this to be a radically ambitious goal. When Almansoori entered, the company had never had a town hall meeting; e& did not have standardized benefits for employees; employees called their managers by titles not names and needed their approval to apply for internal jobs. However, in two short years, Almansoori and other leaders had made "seismic" changes to the 70,000-person organization's strategy, structure, talent profile, and people processes. Changing the "extremely hierarchical culture" that Almansoori saw as antithetical to being a tech company was a slower process. To speed it up, in a radical move for the organization and region, Almansoori rolled out a new internal mobility policy that encouraged employees to apply for internal jobs without asking their manager's permission. It was a symbolic gesture of "taking control away from leaders and putting it in the hands of employees" and a mechanism for altering manager-employee interactions-an area Almansoori could not directly control. In contrast, her other HR initiatives did not directly impact power dynamics inside e&.

Spreadsheet supplement to 722357 In January 2021, Jalila Mezni, CEO of the SAH Group, was preparing to present the company's future growth plans to its board of directors. The Tunisian company was a leading producer and distributor of personal care and packaged hygiene products. In 2019, it expanded further by entering the detergents market. By 2020, the company employed over 4,500 people and had a presence in 20 African countries. The Lilas brand had become a household name in Tunisia, outperforming brands owned by global players like Procter and Gamble. In detergents, SAH was steadily gaining ground over multinational consumer goods companies like Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, and Henkel. As Mezni looked ahead, she had to carefully evaluate three growth opportunities: introducing a range of kitchen cleaners, vertically integrating operations in the detergents business, and opening a subsidiary in Kenya. Which of these, if any, would be the right way forward for the SAH Group at this juncture?

This case opens in June 2022, after Esas Group, one of Turkey's largest family-owned investment firms, implements a series of changes to professionalize the business and help transition family members from operators to responsible investors. In December 2019, the Group reorganized its structure. Measures were also taken to strengthen governance; for example, independent board members were brought in, and investment committees were formed. In January 2020, the founder, Şevket Sabancı, handed the chairmanship over to his son, Ali Sabancı. Şevket's daughter, Emine Sabancı Kamışlı, was still vice-chair of the Group, but she had stepped away from overseeing the company's day-to-day activities. By early 2022, Esas Group had a strong-performing product portfolio and it had started thinking about raising third-party capital. In June 2022, third-generation family member Fethi Kamışlı, who was heading Esas Ventures, received approval from the Esas Group's board of directors to move the venture capital business. Meanwhile, his cousin Kazım Köseoğlu, was pondering the future of the real estate business. He became managing partner and chairman of Esas Properties in late 2019 when the company hired a CEO to run the Turkish division of the real estate business. Can Köseoğlu and Kerem Kamışlı, two other members of the third generation, had become Esas Group board members, and both were living in London, each making their own private investments. As the younger generation was coming into wealth and managing their own choices, would the shareholders stay united and use Esas Group with the same level of commitment? What would the future of the holding company look like?

In January 2021, Jalila Mezni, cofounder and CEO of the SAH Group, was preparing to present the company's future growth plans to its board of directors. The Tunisian company was a leading producer and distributor of personal care and packaged hygiene products. In 2019, it expanded further by entering the detergents market. By 2020, the company employed over 4,500 people and had a presence in 20 African countries. The Lilas brand had become a household name in Tunisia, outperforming brands owned by global players like Procter and Gamble. In detergents, SAH was steadily gaining ground over multinational consumer goods companies like Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, and Henkel. As Mezni looked ahead, she had to carefully evaluate three growth opportunities: introducing a range of kitchen cleaners, vertically integrating operations in the detergents business, and opening a subsidiary in Kenya. Which of these, if any, would be the right way forward for the SAH Group at this juncture?

In mid-January 2022, Nadine Hachach-Haram, founder and CEO of Proximie, was thinking about the company's growth plans. Launched in 2016, Proximie was a platform that enabled clinicians, proctors, and medical device company personnel to be virtually present in operating rooms (OR) where they would use mixed reality and a suite of digital audio and visual tools to communicate with, mentor, assist, and observe those performing procedures. The goal was to improve patient outcomes. The company had grown quickly, opening offices in Beirut, London, and Boston, and had 135 employees. Proximie's technology had been used in tens of thousands of procedures in over 50 countries and 500 hospitals. It had raised close to $50 million in equity financing and was now entering strategic partnerships to broaden its reach. In deploying its platform, Proximie also digitized and structured formerly uncaptured data from ORs, making it possible to build a novel database of rich surgical data and prepare an infrastructure for both analytics and for curating insights from users. Hachach-Haram aspired for Proximie to become a platform that powered every OR in the world. To achieve these goals, Hachach-Haram had to navigate several challenges as she scaled the company. She needed to carefully think about the company's partnership and data strategies. Which formula would position the company best for the next stage of growth?

In January 2020, Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power, was reflecting on the company's sixteen-year record of success and thinking about its future growth plans. Founded in 2004, ACWA Power was a Saudi Arabian developer, owner, and operator of power and water desalination plants, was thinking about the company's future. Over the past 16 years, ACWA Power had grown its footprint with 56 assets across 11 countries, with a combined value of over $45 billion. ACWA Power had been studying the prospects of a non-carbon fuel, green hydrogen. To date, no large-scale green hydrogen plant had been attempted, predominantly because it was too costly to produce. However, with green hydrogen production costs declining and increasing commitment from countries and companies to decarbonization, projections for the hydrogen market were optimistic though highly varied. Padmanathan believed that ACWA Power with its low-cost business model and track record would be able to deliver green hydrogen at a competitive price and was keen to embark on the world's first large-scale green hydrogen project. He saw several challenges, including ACWA Power's lack of experience working with industrial gases and finding an attractive project site. The project would require partners with complementary expertise, and ACWA Power would need to determine how to structure the relationships. Padmanathan was excited about the possibilities, but was the timing right? Would being a first mover outweigh the pioneering costs? If so, what would be the best way forward?

Founded in 2001 by the Sawiris family, one of the wealthiest families in Egypt, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) invested in human capital and provision of basic social services for the most marginalized Egyptians. In 2015, Noura Selim's (MBA 2013) arrival triggered a series of changes related to the Foundation's direct-grantmaking efforts, how SFSD evaluated the success of its programs, and the number and nature of partnerships it had with development finance institutions, the private sector, and the government. By June 2021, under Selim's leadership, SFSD achieved success across several fronts. Selim nevertheless felt that the Foundation still had a long way to go in terms of fulfilling its goal to elevate Egypt's education system. Comprised predominantly of public schools, the system delivered low quality education, and resulted in poor learning outcomes, which translated into high youth unemployment. She was in the process of crystalizing SFSD's five-year strategy and wondered how she should balance the allocation of the Foundation's time and financial resources to drive as much change in the education sector as possible.

In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and profitability. Founded in 2015, the company was the first major SVOD player in the region providing high quality and affordable Hollywood content. STARZPLAY rapidly grew its subscriber base through a business model sensitive to the varied tastes and payment preferences of households in the region and was able to maintain leadership even after global players like Netflix and well-funded homegrown companies entered the market. At the time of the case, several U.S. major studios, including the likes of Disney, Paramount, and HBO, were in talks with local operators about potential partnerships. Sheikh needed to prepare an appealing proposal, knowing full well that other regional players were likely doing the same and that these studios might decide to enter independently. He had to think carefully about the company's brand position and its plans regarding content, pricing and payment options, and marketing spend in order to fuel continued growth, while managing the increasing pressure from investors to drive the business toward profitability. Sheikh and his management team had big ambitions for STARZPLAY. What would be the plan that ensured the company continued to prosper despite the mounting competition?

This case explores how a family business builds a board that includes independent directors that helps to professionalize and strengthen governance in the company. The case relates to One Family Textiles, an Abu Dhabi-headquartered manufacturer of garments. The company was founded in 1975 by Adnan Kalam and his elder brother Ali Kalam; two Kenyan nationals with Indian roots. The company enjoyed impressive growth, and by the early 1980s had several factories in the South-Asian sub-continent and sold to businesses in Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Europe. By the mid-1990s, members of the second generation joined the family business and pushed Adnan to further professionalize the company and strengthen its governance practices. Accordingly, the family sought the help of consultants and hired experienced senior executives, two of whom (first in 2014, and then in 2018) were appointed as the first independent directors of the advisory board. Over the next two years, the board focused on helping revamp operations and instilling sound governance measures. By January 2020, Adnan had stepped back from day-to-day operations and bought out his brother's stake in the company, making him the sole owner of the business. His eldest son was the group CEO and felt it was time for an IPO. The board was divided on this decision; significant improvements in professionalization and governance had been made, but the independent directors foresaw more work to be done. What should Adnan do?

Founded in 2015, Guild Education is an education marketplace that connects employers and universities to provide employees with 'education as a benefit.' The Denver-based company is transforming traditional tuition assistance programs by facilitating direct payment by the employer to the academic institution and by supporting students with coaching and advising. By October 2020, Guild had gained market traction and demonstrated impressive results. Rachel Carlson, CEO and cofounder of Guild, must decide how to manage the company's future growth. She believes there is great potential within its core education marketplace to expand the network of academic institutions and portfolio of company partners. Carlson also envisions extending the business model and entering the career placement market. To successfully do that, she needs to find the same incentive alignment in these new businesses as in Guild's core education platform. Would it be possible to find a solution that would result in a win-win outcome for all?

Lebanese entrepreneur Hind Hobeika was just 21 years old when she launched her startup, Instabeat, which had developed the first real-time bio-feedback device for swimmers to monitor and improve their performance. It had been an extremely testing 10-year journey to bring the Instabeat product to market due to numerous manufacturing challenges that had caused Hobeika to almost shut down the business in 2016. However, with help from the co-founder of Jawbone, Hobeika raised additional capital and restarted Instabeat, moving its headquarters from Lebanon to San Francisco. Hobeika used the new funding to move quickly ¾ expanding her team, finding a new manufacturing partner, and re-starting conversations with the Michael Phelps Organization. However, her COO believed she should take the opposite approach - slow down and focus on getting a shippable product.<br/> In 2017 her manufacturing struggles resurfaced and Hobeika found herself once again seeking a new manufacturer. After an extensive search, she selected a manufacturer based in China, but found it difficult to manage the process from San Francisco. Ultimately Hobeika decided she needed to move to China to keep the manufacturing on track. What started out as a plan to be in China for one or two months, turned into nine months. Hobeika weathered many personal challenges of living in China, but was determined to bring the product across the finish line. By May 2019 Hobeika had returned to San Francisco with a finished product and was preparing for launch when a new, well-funded competitor introduced its own "smart" swimming goggles. Hobeika needed to decide how to proceed.

This case illustrates the challenges that retailers face when they aggressively pursue geographical growth by expanding both their physical store network and their online presence. It features Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Retail, a franchisee of Carrefour hypermarkets in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, a company that strived to strike the right balance of offline and online for each of the markets it served. MAF Retail had a strong presence in the Middle East, particularly in its home market, the United Arab Emirates, and it had been building its presence in Egypt, Pakistan, Kenya, Georgia, and most recently in Uganda. There were also opportunities to open hundreds more stores in each of these markets and expand into 15 other countries in Asia and Africa where it had a license. But the retail environment was changing across the globe, owing to a shift in consumer behaviors that accompanied the rise of the online-only players. CEO Hani Weiss had been driving a digital transformation within the company, building the necessary technology and online capabilities to provide a seamless experience to its customers. The company also partnered with online-only players to increase its reach to customers in countries where MAF Retail had a presence and to provide an online offer to customers where it had no online store. Going forward, Weiss faced hard choices in deciding which markets to prioritize. He also had to determine the right balance of offline and online for each market. Should he invest his resources in opening new stores, or in building online capabilities-or both? How would his strategy differ in the key markets?

In March 2016, Bahrain Development Bank's existing board term came to an end and Khalid Al Rumaihi was appointed the new chairman. Determining a need for change, he immediately overhauled the board and replaced the Bank's long-standing CEO. The new board quickly concluded that the Bank needed to refocus on its core business of lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and selected an experienced Bahraini corporate banker to implement this strategy. However, within six months, the new CEO resigned and the board had to once again look for a replacement. Expanding their search globally, they found Sanjeev Paul, a Singaporean with immense experience in SME lending, who was appointed CEO of BDB in May 2018. Over the next 20 months, with the board's support, Paul headed an organization-wide revamp aimed at enabling the bank to refocus and achieve its mandate of supporting SMEs. By December 2019, the changes started to pay off; after three years of losses, BDB turned its first profit. However, Paul and the board recognized their work was far from over. The Bank's cost structure was higher than that of competition, they paid below-market salaries, and had an outdated core banking system. As Al Rumaihi looked ahead to his second term as chair, he wondered how the board could help Paul and his management team in addressing these challenges.

Jordanian entrepreneur, Nour Al Hassan, founded Tarjama in 2008, tapping into an underserved and high demand need: Arabic translation service. Its lean model comprised of hiring full-time employees, mainly women, who worked from home. It steadily grew over the following decade to become a three-office, 140-employee company. In January 2017, Al Hassan launched a second business, Ureed.com, which encompassed a scalable, competitively priced online model. It was a linguistics marketplace, bringing companies and freelancers together. By October 2018, Ureed.com had significantly grown, having over 14,000 freelancers using the platform. As Al Hassan looked ahead at the ambitious growth plan they had in place, which included geographic expansion, diversifying the language offering, and monetizing Ureed.com's proprietary training and language tools, the main challenge she foresaw was maintaining the quality of the work performed by the freelancers while ensuring they remained motivated and loyal to the platform. Was the company ready for this growth plan or was it too ambitious for a company relying almost exclusively on freelancers? Would the training tools and technology add-ons suffice to sustain quality levels as the number of clients and freelancers grew? How could Al Hassan continue to create loyalty with an ever-growing number of freelancers? What were the other imminent challenges of adding new offices and languages simultaneously with only a small team of full-time employees?

After 15 years of steady growth and expansion, Edita, a leading Egyptian snack producer, faced a series of challenges in the wake of the Arab Spring. In January 2011, the Egyptian Revolution sparked political and economic turmoil that reflected the waves of protest and violence already spreading throughout North Africa and parts of the Middle East. Hani Berzi, CEO of Edita, managed to navigate the company through this period, though the severe devaluation of the Egyptian pound in November 2016 meant yet another period of crisis for the country's economy and, with it, the snack food industry. Hani was faced with a series of hard decisions that would determine Edita's future. He held a crisis management meeting with his executive team and on the agenda were two key decisions. Should they increase their prices as a short-term strategy to survive the turbulent period at the risk of losing market share? Should Edita aim to diversify risk by tapping into underserved rural areas in Egypt or rather by expanding its presence in regional markets? Or, should the company adopt some combination of both strategies, or neither, and instead devise another course for addressing the crisis?

This case describes how Ambareen Musa, Founder and CEO of Souqalmal, a Dubai-based online comparison aggregator of banking and insurance products launched her business in 2011 and rapidly grew it over next couple of years. However, by 2017, the Mauritian entrepreneur observed the emergence of other aggregators in the market and wanted to be ready for the price war that could ensue. To date, Musa had grown Souqalmal's business by focusing on driving positive unit economics and had refrained from entering a price war. However, she wondered whether she now needed to switch gears and focus on defending her market share by counter discounting. Souqalmal had almost run through the $1.5 million it had raised in seed and series A fundraising from U.K.-based Hummingbird Ventures and angel investors, and was seeking to raise $10 million in a series B round later in the year to fuel geographic growth and team expansion. Musa imminently needed to prepare a forecast for prospective investors, which would be dependent on the retaliation strategy she chose. What should Musa do?

This case describes how Ali Sabancı and his sister Emine Sabancı Kamışlı, shareholders of Esas Group, one of Turkey's largest family-owned investment firms, worked to grow and professionalize the business. While their father Şevket Sabancı, played an instrumental role in launching the group in 2000, he soon stepped back and let his children drive the business forward. In 2009, the first of the third generation of family members entered the business, prompting Ali and Emine to start putting formal processes in place for the onboarding and integration of the next generation. By 2019, the family office had several billion dollars of assets under management, diversified across various asset classes, both inside and outside Turkey. Emine's two sons had recently entered the business. Ali and Emine's biggest priority was establishing strong governance for the family office. They were taking several steps to professionalize the group and bring in more nonfamily members. Ali and Emine recognized that these actions would mean relinquishing certain privileges and freedom, somewhat shifting from their underlying ethos, which focused on protecting shareholders' individual rights. Shareholders had been offered liquidity and treated like customers, having the option to invest elsewhere if they so desired. To date, the family members had kept their capital within the group. Would this continue to be the case in the future? How could they keep the family together and make sure everyone was financially satisfied? How could they ensure to continue growing the net worth of their assets?