At EY, Jeff Wong served as chief innovation officer beginning in 2015. In this role, he was responsible for driving innovation and inoculating EY against potential threats to its $45 billion revenue global business. Wong's role advanced and grew with his success in launching initiatives for EY around artificial intelligence, blockchain, Web3, and automation among others. Through it all, Wong built the Global Innovation team at EY from a $5 million budget to hundreds of millions of dollars, returning $5 to $6 to EY for every $1 invested-within a year from when the investment was made.

Eve Burton founded HearstLab in 2015 to support female entrepreneurs and cultivate a new entrepreneurial mindset within Hearst Corporation. Since the Lab's inception in 2015, the Lab team had reviewed over 6,000 companies and made investments in 48 of them, deploying nearly $50 million of capital. Now Burton was ready to take the Lab to the next level with "Lab 2.0" and "Lab 3.0." In each of these phases, the Lab would write bigger checks and look for ways to integrate female-founded startups into the fabric of existing Hearst businesses. In doing so, Burton hoped to solidify her legacy as a leader who relentlessly supported women entrepreneurs.

The OpenGov: Bringing the Cloud to Government case presents the example of OpenGov founder and CEO Zachary Bookman, who creates and scales a high growth venture to serve government. Bookman demonstrates the mindset and skill set required of entrepreneurial leaders able to drive change across legacy institutions. The case unfolds as Bookman exhibits six skills that propel OpenGov to success. It starts with Bookman's ability to "Find the Gap" and spot an opportunity that others don't see. Soon Bookman and his team "Drive for Daylight" by outlining the long term vision for what they seek to accomplish. Through quick decision making and multiple iterations, they "Fly the OODA Loop." Bookman and his team Observe, Orient, Decide and Act to propel OpenGov's growth. Of course, they don't always get it right. They "Fail Wisely" by learning through setbacks and testing ideas through experiments to make failure cheap. At every stage of growth, Bookman and his team "Network Minds" to harness diverse points of view in order to solve problems in novel ways. Bookman is determined to build a culture in which employees "Gift Small Goods" by generously supporting each other. Throughout the case the skills are presented in the context of the entrepreneurial leadership challenge Bookman must deliver on in order to build a thriving business working with the legacy institution of government.

In 2014, Walmart was at an inflection point. The world's largest company wasn't sure how to evolve and innovate to win over the next 30 years. In a leadership change that year, Doug McMillon rose to become Walmart's new CEO. Soon after, he hired Lori Flees, a Bain & Company partner, to lead Walmart's Corporate Strategy and drive innovation at scale. Flees led Walmart's acquisition of Jet.com for $3.3 billion and together with Jet founder Marc Lore stood up Walmart's internal incubation arm called Store No. 8. With an internal venture-capital style approach, Store No. 8 focuses on developing technologies that are at least 3 to 5 years out. All Store No. 8 companies operate as independent entities with CEOs, boards, and business metrics. Store No. 8, however, is not Walmart's only weapon to drive innovation at scale. Flees moves to lead the Next Generation Retail team structuring symbiotic partnerships with other powerful industry players through a variety of tools. Then she transitions again to bring "everyday low prices" to health care.

In 2019, Eve Burton, Chairwoman of HearstLab and Chief Legal Officer at Hearst Corporation, knew that HearstLab was at a key inflection point for growth-with opportunities to take on additional capital and expand internationally. HearstLab is an incubator focused on early-stage, women-led start-ups innovating across media, business information, and technology, HearstLab provided capital, office space in New York City's Hearst Tower, and access to Hearst's resources, while taking an equity interest in the companies. The Lab was started in 2015 with the goals of increasing visibility and opportunity for women both inside and outside of Hearst, create value from investing in women-led start-ups, and continuing to bring innovation to Hearst.

The case describes the management style of Philipp Schindler, Google's Chief Business Officer, and the programs and organizational structures he implemented to promote innovation within Google's business organization.