Francoise Brougher was a high-powered technology executive in Silicon Valley. After successful stints at Google (where she rose to lead a $16 billion ad sales business) and Square (which she helped take public), she joined Pinterest as its first Chief Operating Officer in March 2018. As COO, Brougher increased the advertiser base eight-fold, expanded operations to 20 countries, and more than doubled Pinterest's revenue to $1.1 billion in less than two years. These achievements, among others, set Pinterest up for its successful IPO in April 2019. In the year after the IPO, however, Brougher was increasingly cut out of meetings with other leaders in the company and given little voice in critical decisions. When Pinterest's CEO and founder, Ben Silbermann, asked Brougher if they could connect, Brougher was ready to share her latest thoughts on the actions Pinterest could take to further grow and optimize its business. Ten minutes into their video call, however, Brougher realized she was being fired. Brougher pondered how her status as an outsider-a French woman-played into her treatment in the firm. Silbermann offered a severance package of six months' salary, suggested she tell her team she had decided to leave the company, and asked her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. What could Brougher do in response?
In November 2020, Henry Wilde, co-founder and CEO of Acelero, Inc., must decide whether to change his company's program model for delivering early childhood education to low-income children. One of the only for-profit Head Start providers in the United States, Acelero provided direct services through neighborhood childcare centers and operated a consulting arm to improve the services of other Head Start centers. The company had developed a reputation for excellence and was profitable, pleasing its investors. However, Senior Vice President of Family Engagement Lori Levine urged Wilde to change the company's process for interacting with parents. While Levine's preferred model had the potential to drive deeper social impact, it was not yet a proven success and did not have the potential to make Acelero's business more profitable. Further, if the new model failed, Wilde risked losing the credibility that he and his team had build in the early childhood education field over the company's 19-year history. Wilde and Levine had piloted the model at a single Acelero center, and the early results were promising. At the conclusion of the case, the CEO must decide whether to scale the program model to other centers, or whether to stay the course with his company's existing operations.
In May 2020, Juno co-founders Chris Abkarians and Nikhil Agarwal decided to hold the annual auction for their student loan assistance startup. Five lenders submitted bids, and the co-founders ultimately opted to select Eager Bank as their partner for the 2020-2021 academic year for fixed-rate loans. However, a significant portion of Juno's membership expressed interest in variable-rate loans, prompting them to seek out another partner for the variable-rate product. They secured a deal with a major private lender through an intermediary, but are forced to quickly adapt their strategy when the lender refuses to pay for Juno's loan volume. The case concludes with the co-founders considering whether Eager Bank might be a potential long-term partner, and once again wondering whether they should make changes to their auction-based strategy for the coming year.
In March 2020, Juno co-founders Chris Abkarians and Nikhil Agarwal decided to pitch banks in anticipation of their annual auction while negotiating directly with private lender Eager. Responses from the majority of private lenders-including Juno's 2019 partner-were not encouraging, yet Eager remained keenly interested in an exclusive partnership. The co-founders faced additional pressure following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the uncertainties of the pandemic and its economic impact, the co-founders gravitated towards the Eager partnership. However, they must decide whether to cancel the auction, and whether Eager has the stability to withstand the pandemic.
In March 2020, Chris Abkarians and Nikhil Agarwal were in the midst of preparing the annual auction for their student loan assistance startup, Juno. Both current MBA students at Harvard Business School, the duo founded Juno in 2018 to leverage student bargaining power to negotiate better student loan terms with private lenders. Their business model involved soliciting bids from banks through an annual auction; the lender who submitted the best terms then received the right to exclusively market their loan products to Juno's members. The co-founders held their first official auction in 2019, and anticipated receiving several competitive bids from large banks in 2020. However, several weeks before the auction was scheduled to begin, a new entrant to the private student loan market, Eager Bank, expressed a strong desire to become Juno's 2020 loan partner. Eager requested that Abkarians and Agarwal cancel the auction and negotiate directly with them. In exchange, Eager offered several attractive terms, such as involving Juno in the underwriting process. Abkarians and Agarwal must decide whether to partner with Eager, hold the auction as originally planned, or pursue both options simultaneously.
Leaders often view power as a purely personal quality, derived from their formal roles and titles, accreditations, skills, and experience; from the information they control and the reputation they've built; and from their charisma, resilience, and energy. But as most discover, effectively wielding power is rarely straightforward. Simply exercising control over others--the traditional concept of power--is often not the best strategy; it may not even be an option. Indeed, the most potent uses of power often involve no direct influence tactics at all. The authors have developed an approach to power that goes beyond exerting control and mobilizes others' energy and commitment. It focuses on three core dimensions: Situational power rests on the ability to align objectives, the environment, and bases of power. Relational power is about connections and coalitions: They can be a major source of support, advice, information, and resources--but if neglected or ignored, they can loom as potential points of resistance. Dynamic power involves continually adapting influence strategies to changes in organizational and social systems. The degree to which leaders draw on all three dimensions of power determines how effectively they get things done.
Chief is a New York-based peer network that provides mentorship, support, networking opportunities, and a sense of community to women executives. Co-founders Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan launched the company in January 2019, and just two months later, Chief has 400 members and a growing waiting list. Now, Childers and Kaplan must determine how aggressively to scale Chief's model to other cities. How much money should they raise in Chief's Series A, and when? Which cities should they expand to first? What are the potential risks of moving too fast, and how can they best mitigate them? For more background on Childers and Kaplan's decision to found Chief, please see "Chief: Role for Carolyn Childers" (HBS No. 920-019) and "Chief: Role for Lindsay Kaplan" (HBS No. 920-020).
In 2018, Lindsay Kaplan is preparing to meet with Carolyn Childers about the possibility of co-founding Chief, a New York-based peer network for women executives. Kaplan is currently the vice president of communications and brand engagement at a successful mattress company, and she is happy in her current role. However, she is excited by Childers's vision for a community of women executives and believes she could bring valuable expertise as Chief builds its brand experience. Should Kaplan join Chief as a co-founder? What do they need to discuss before teaming up?
"The Boss Has the Wrong Idea" is a two-person conversation exercise in which an MBA student seeks advice from a mentor in her field about how to handle an incident of workplace sexual harassment. The case consists of two confidential role materials: a role for the student, Julia, which describes her troubling experience with her boss during a summer internship, and a role for the senior mentor, Lee, which mentions that Julia is hoping to receive advice from him about a complicated situation. Julia's story presents a richly detailed, first-hand (fictionalized) account of a young woman's experience in a male-dominated, competitive firm. Her narrative provides a compelling representation of the nuances and challenges associated with experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace. Because it is written as a conversation exercise, the case provides students, faculty, and administrators with not only the opportunity to think about how to address (and prevent) sexual harassment within their own organizations, but also with the opportunity to engage in the difficult conversations that these issues demand. How can we best offer support and guidance? What are strategies for effective listening, question asking, and advice-giving in emotionally-charged and sensitive situations?
"The Boss Has the Wrong Idea" is a two-person conversation exercise in which an MBA student seeks advice from a mentor in her field about how to handle an incident of workplace sexual harassment. The case consists of two confidential role materials: a role for the student, Julia, which describes her troubling experience with her boss during a summer internship, and a role for the senior mentor, Lee, which mentions that Julia is hoping to receive advice from him about a complicated situation. Julia's story presents a richly detailed, first-hand (fictionalized) account of a young woman's experience in a male-dominated, competitive firm. Her narrative provides a compelling representation of the nuances and challenges associated with experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace. Because it is written as a conversation exercise, the case provides students, faculty, and administrators with not only the opportunity to think about how to address (and prevent) sexual harassment within their own organizations, but also with the opportunity to engage in the difficult conversations that these issues demand. How can we best offer support and guidance? What are strategies for effective listening, question asking, and advice-giving in emotionally-charged and sensitive situations?
This case follows the co-founder and president, Marla Felcher, of The Philanthropy Connection (TPC). TPC is a nonprofit organization that centers around collective giving: members of TPC make an annual contribution that is then distributed to select nonprofit organizations via grants. As Felcher works to maximize how much money they can give out via grants, this case allows for a deep dive into the motives for giving and how the organizational structure and processes can tap into why people give. As this case begins with Felcher's founding of TPC and concludes with Felcher desiring to step down from her role as president, this case also allows for a rich discussion around if and when a nonprofit founder should step aside to let the next round of leaders takeover.