Private equity firm Shore Capital Partners is at an inflection point, after 12 years of phenomenal growth and success. Now, as the partners consider options, should Shore remain micro-cap focused, or move into more mid-cap investments? Should Shore hold investments longer? Or should they remain micro-cap focused and instead expand their verticals and volume of deals? Each option will demand a particular organization. Which one is best?
In 2023, the co-CEOs of Team Liquid, one of the world's most prominent Esports organization, are deciding whether and how to evolve their business model to include (1) a greater focus on enterprise revenue; and (2) more direct-to-consumer activity. Team Liquid has one of the largest global fanbases in the world. The case is an exploration of how an organization can build a business that is anchored by its FANS, as opposed to customers per se. The learnings are applicable to any organization with a strong fanbase--including sports teams, social media influencers, and the like.
The OneTen case study examines the nonprofit organization's origin story. Its founding team includes a roster of corporate superstars-Ken Chenault (former CEO of American Express), Ken Frazier (former CEO of Merck), Charles Phillips (chair of Infor), Ginni Rometty (former CEO of IBM), and Kevin Sharer (former CEO and chair of Amgen). In May 2020, soon after the murder of George Floyd, this group came together to form a nonprofit that would partner with companies, talent developers, and Black talent, with the goal of hiring one million Black people in the U.S. into jobs with family-sustaining wages over the next 10 years. Equally important is an emphasis on the promotion of talented Black employees within existing companies. The case is set in late 2020, just after the hire of OneTen's first CEO, Maurice Jones; it explores how the organization was established, structured, and staffed, and how it has so far built its partnerships.
Dr. Zhang, CEO of Super Quantum, an AI-driven hedge fund, is considering an investor's request to withdraw their funds as the markets experience volatility. Should he pull the investor's funds?
Dr. Zhang, CEO of Super Quantum, an AI-driven hedge fund, is considering an investor's request to withdraw their funds as the markets experience volatility. Should he pull the investor's funds?
In September 2021, Apple decided to delay updates to iOS and iPadOS that included features to fight child sexual abuse. While many-including prominent privacy and security experts-praised Apple, others were opposed. They saw Apple introducing features that risked undermining the privacy of all Apple users-privacy that Apple had strongly championed. Shortly thereafter, prompted by security concerns related to the war in Ukraine and the spread of online child sexual abuse and pornography, legislation was proposed in the United Kingdom to give the government the right to demand the removal of encryption. In response, some tech companies with encrypted messaging apps contemplated pulling out of the U.K. Should Apple CEO Tim Cook do the same, reintroduce the updates to iOS and iPadOS, or something else?
Walmart's LBU program, which allowed its frontline employees and managers to attend college at Walmart's expense, had expanded and changed over the course of five years. How could Walmart better develop the program for its associates and use it to meet the company's own talent needs?
It is fall 2022, and open-source AI model company Hugging Face is considering its three areas of priorities: platform development, supporting the open-source community, and pursuing cutting-edge scientific research. As it expands services for enterprise clients, which services should it prioritize? Will these projects be in line with Hugging Face's volunteer community? Further, Hugging Face decided to remove a model uploaded by a contributor, due to the potential harm the leadership felt it could propagate. Was it the right decision?
CEO Francesco Starace is considering what is next for Enel SpA, one of world's largest energy companies. From 2014 to 2022, he has wrought a dramatic transformation at Enel, restructuring the company's business units; redeploying senior talent across functions and geographies; instigating a digital transformation; initiating a shift from Enel generating energy primarily sourced from thermal (or brown) sources (reliant on fossil fuels), to a leading provider of renewable energy. He has launched Enel X, an incubator for new products and services built on electrification, which is steadily overtaking Enel's own retail sales. He has introduced an Office of Innovability as a way to inject a culture of sustainable thinking across the company. Now he faces a possible third term as CEO. What is next for Enel and Starace?
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has organized the presidential and vice-presidential debates in the United States since 1988. In the spring of 2022, the Republican National Committee threatened to bar their nominees from participating in any CPD-sponsored debates in the upcoming election. The CPD must decide how to handle this challenge.