Raymond Jetson, an inner-city pastor, former Louisiana state legislator, and 2010 Harvard University Advanced Leadership Fellow, has embarked on a new career as a social entrepreneur. The case charts Jetson's career in public life and the ministry, his experience as an Advanced Leadership Fellow, and his efforts to establish and grow a nonprofit organization, MetroMorphosis, with a mission "to develop and mobilize a critical mass of citizens in inner-city neighborhoods to design and implement sustainable solutions to persistent community challenges." As he approaches 60 and contemplates his future and that of his organization, Jetson must consider how to position MetroMorphosis for maximum impact now and over the long term.

Since its founding in 1908, Harvard Business School's mission has been to perform a much-needed service for American society by turning business management into a profession. One of the most important factors in the founding of HBS and the nation's other new business schools was the demand for managers created by the rise of the modern business corporation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Additionally, in the years just after the turn of the century business careers were becoming increasingly attractive to young men who would have previously entered one of the older, more traditional professions: law, medicine, education, and the ministry. The process of formulating "business principles" that would put the study of management on a scientific basis was a crucial part of what the founders had set out to achieve in creating the HBS curriculum and building a faculty. By discovering business principles, HBS would also help lay the foundation of the new profession of business. The HBS founders also believed there was another dimension to professionalism in business--one that involved not just the expertise that students acquired but also the attitudes they held and their contribution to society.