Suk Shah, the chief financial officer at Avant, needs to consider the marketplace lender's future relationship with traditional banks: might Avant and the banks be able to work together as complementors to offer loans to consumers, or must they always be competitors? The case describes Avant's operation, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages that marketplace lenders, and more generally fintechs, have relative to traditional financial institutions. Shah's decision must take into account the challenges marketplace lenders face in terms of customer acquisition costs as well as in terms of attracting investors to its platform. Avant faces competition from other marketplace lenders, like LendingClub, as well as competition from banks. Regulation also has an important effect on Avant's ability to directly compete with banks and its need to cooperate with them.

HBR asked top management thinkers to share what they were resolved to accomplish in 2011. Here are their answers: Joseph E. Stiglitz will be crafting a new postcrisis paradigm for macroeconomics whereby rational individuals interact with imperfect and asymmetric information. Herminia Ibarra will be looking for hard evidence of how "soft" leadership creates value. Eric Schmidt will be planning to scale mobile technology by developing fast networks and providing low-cost smartphones in the poorest parts of the world. Michael Porter will be using modern cost accounting to uncover-and lower-the real costs of health care. Vijay Govindarajan will be trying to prototype a $300 house to replace the world's poorest slums, provide healthy living, and foster education. Dan Ariely will be investigating consumers' distaste for genetically modified salmon, synthetic pharmaceuticals, and other products that aren't "natural." Laura D. Tyson will be promoting the establishment of a national infrastructure investment bank. Esther Duflo will be striving to increase full immunization in poor areas of India. Clay Shirky will be studying how to design internet platforms that foster civility. Klaus Schwab will be undertaking to create a Risk Response Network through which decision makers around the world can pool knowledge about the risks they face. Jack Ma will be working to instill a strong set of values in his 19,000 young employees and to help clean up China's environment. Thomas H. Davenport will be researching big judgment calls that turned out well and how organizations arrived at them. A.G. Lafley will be proselytizing to make company boards take leadership succession seriously. Eleven additional contributors to the Agenda, along with special audio and video features, can be found at hbr.org/2011-agenda.