In 1997, Patrick Awuah had a dream: to bring liberal arts education to Ghana. Amid the country's declining economy and pervasive corruption problems, Awuah saw education as an opportunity to reverse its fortunes by investing in the next generation of African leaders. Five years later, he and his team established Ashesi University, which differentiated itself from Ghana's traditional educational model by remaining privately funded (and therefore independent from Ghana's public school system), religiously unaffiliated, and - in service of its mission of developing future leaders - operative under an honor code that allowed students to take exams without supervision, an unprecedented practice in Ghana. This case follows Awuah's efforts to establish and grow Ashesi University and provides insight into the role that leadership can play in operationalizing purpose, especially in entrepreneurial ventures.
This case documents the origin and development of Together for Sustainability (TfS), a chemical industry initiative dedicated to raising sustainability standards throughout the industry's supply chains. In 2011, six Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) from some of the world's biggest chemical companies collaborated on a solution that would enable their companies to jointly advance supply chain sustainability-namely, eliminating adverse environmental, human rights, and labor impacts by suppliers. Towards this end, the six CPOs would build Together for Sustainability, a standalone non-profit organization that would coordinate the measurement of member companies and their suppliers' sustainability performance. Over the next decade, TfS scaled from 6 to 50 member companies. TfS has transformed the chemical industry by creating a template for collective action and setting new sustainability standards for supply chains. It must now decide what lies ahead and how it might go about achieving those goals. In 2024, TfS was at a critical juncture in its development. While TfS had earned a reputation as a leader in sustainability both within and outside the chemical industry, representatives from TfS member companies were now immersed in vigorous debates as to how to scale their initiative-and their impact-even further. Members were divided as to whether to expand their initiative into other industries or to remain focused on the chemical industry. Moreover, others were beginning to question whether TfS's non-profit model was truly the best medium for scale, or if a for-profit model would potentially be better suited to maximizing impact. What aspects of their initiative were specific to the chemical industry? What might translate to other industries?
In December 2023, the 60-year-old weight management industry stalwart WeightWatchers announced the launch of WeightWatchers Clinic, which incorporated GLP-1s , a new class of prescription weight-loss medications, into the company's portfolio of products and mobile app experience. The company's embrace of prescription medications for weight loss represented a bold strategic evolution. Since its inception, WeightWatchers had promoted peer-to-peer support coupled with science-based behavior modifications for weight loss, rooted in the idea that weight management was fundamentally about establishing healthy diet and exercise habits. While the company's core business would continue to center on behavior modification, WeightWatcher's new CEO Sima Sistani believed an expanded "toolkit" could be a game-changer for people for whom the company's traditional weight-loss program was inadequate and who required other kinds of support. Sistani, a Silicon Valley veteran, had stepped into the CEO role at a critical moment for the company. Revenue had been declining for years due to slowing member subscriptions, a lackluster digital app, and increasing competition from a host of players. Now, a year and a half into her tenure, revenues continued to trend downward. As she looked ahead, Sistani pondered how to strike the right balance between investing in the "core" business and growing the nascent clinical offering. She recognized that, for the iconic company, there was a delicate balance to be struck between ramping up new products and services and winding down legacy offerings such as weekly in-person meetings, while also fortifying the digital app. She wondered if there were synergies that might offer new avenues for growth in a dynamic market.
Over a history of more than 240 years, the United States Marine Corps has forged a distinct culture and institutional identity centered on its "warrior ethos." In the wars of American history, Marines fought with uncommon valor, rising to international prominence for their bravery on the battlefields of Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Chosin, Khe Sahn, Fallujah, and Marjah. However, the Corps has found its distinct institutional character threatened with extinction on more than one occasion. Political maneuvers, tight defense budgets, shifting geopolitical priorities, and the evolution of the character of warfare has forced the Corps into a delicate balancing act across the decades, adapting its institutional character on the one hand while retaining its core cultural ethos on the other. With one of the highest turnover rates among the U.S. military services, the Corps relies heavily on a robust training program to inculcate its warrior ethos in generation after generation of new Marines. Historically, this program placed a heavy emphasis on infantry skills, on deconstructing the individual and cultivating intense habits of teamwork, and on centering new Marines on the historical legacy and core values of the Corps. The consistent output has been "Marines with Marine training"-a force that can fight and win "in any clime and place." Yet as new geopolitical challenges in the 2020s forced the United States to redefine its national security strategy, questions arose regarding the Corps' continuing relevance and its need to adapt yet again.
Singapore-based bank DBS went through three waves of purpose-driven transformation, overhauling the bank's systems, upgrading employee skills, and re-centering its customer focus, with the bank's purpose growing bolder with each key milestone achieved. Find out how the board, CEO Piyush Gupta and his management committee steered the bank through the waves of change, and the challenges they had to overcome along the way.
This B case, set in summer 2022, was designed as a companion to "Netflix: A Creative Approach to Culture and Agility," a case set in 2018. The purpose of this brief document is to unlock a discussion around how the Netflix culture can be used to weather new challenges facing the company: rising competition, economic contraction, and declining subscribers.
Bühler Group, a Swiss multinational processing technology provider, started by selling machines for processing grains and later transitioned into selling food processing solutions. A family-owned business in the fifth generation, Bühler's high-end milling, grinding, sorting, and die-casting machines and its process engineering and services expertise were respected by the world's largest players in the food, feed, and automotive industries. The firm's purpose was formalized in 2010 under the slogan 'Innovations for a Better World.' With the establishment of its purpose, the firm began to transform itself from a quiet technology leader to a vocal advocate for innovation, education, and sustainability in its industry, a substantial challenge for a privately held Swiss company with CHF 3 billion ($3.2 bn) revenue. Though Bühler had nurtured its long-term partnerships with customers, the firm struggled to bring about a deeper embrace of sustainability across its customers' value chains, which it considered necessary. In 2016, the firm introduced the Bühler Networking Days conference as a platform to facilitate a dialogue on innovation, sustainability, and education in the industry. The event aimed to change the firm's one-on-one interactions with customers into a public and multilateral engagement. While planning the Networking Days 2022 conference, the firm's leadership wondered how they could use the forum to inspire others in the industry to commit to concrete outcomes. Besides, had Bühler done enough to embed sustainability in its internal and external innovation ecosystem? How should the firm measure impact and see whether the efforts made so far were simply incremental or collectively enough for Bühler to be a truly purpose-led firm?
When seasoned entrepreneur Glen Tullman founded the chronic health care startup Livongo in 2014, it was personal. His son lived with diabetes, and Tullman knew firsthand how taxing it could be to manage such an unrelenting disease. Livongo set out to empower people with chronic conditions to take control of their health through better behaviors, and in the process save money for themselves, their employers, and healthcare providers. In the years to follow, he and a motivated team of technologists and medical professionals built a purpose-driven organization that in turn created an easy-to-use mobile experience that was medically sound to deliver on that promise. "Members" (the individuals Livongo served) loved the product, and by 2020, Livongo had contracted to provide its services to nearly a third of the Fortune 500, and the company was doubling in size annually and went public. But as Livongo grew, leadership recognized that Members also needed virtual access to medical professionals, or telehealth. After an intensive search, the company confronted a major new opportunity: whether to merge with telehealth behemoth Teladoc, with the prospect of becoming one of the largest digital health companies in history. But despite the strategic appeal, Livongo and Teladoc were very different companies. This divergence raised important questions for Tullman and Livongo's leadership: could Livongo live up to its potential, and retain its distinctive and passionate culture, if it joined with Teladoc?
Fynd is a fast-growing venture that in 7 years since its founding has become India's largest omnichannel retail company with real-time access to over 9,000 stores' offline inventory. It started as a B2B business supporting retailers who didn't have an online business, but pivoted to a B2C platform that allowed customers to shop directly from nearby retail stores through its website and app. Over time, Fynd continued with its B2C platform, scaled up its organization, and added new B2B platforms. But funding this was difficult, with investors raising questions about the business model and growth. In its next phase of growth it sought and failed to receive funding from venture capitalists. In 2018, the founders took a strategic investment from Google. But the subsequent departure of their sponsor from Google meant they needed to look at other avenues for funding. As they were poised for their next phase of growth, the founders were faced with a series of decisions about the pace of scaling, the business model, and how to fund the expansion. In 2019, Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of one of India's largest private conglomerates, and one of their key customers offered to invest $42 million for an 87% stake in the company, and is willing to negotiate terms of the deal. Should the founders accept the offer? What should the terms of the agreement be? How will this impact their business model, their growth trajectory, and also the future of the founders at the firm?
It is spring 1995, and the CFM partnership-a joint venture between GE Aviation and France's jet engine manufacturer Snecma-is facing difficult challenges. The parent companies must decide whether and how to renew their nascent partnership agreement, in the face of global and national economic turbulence in an industry undergoing dramatic change. The JV's careful attention to an equitable split across both partners is suddenly jeopardized as conditions in the market have changed and new leadership at the parent companies brings different aspirations for each side. Now the partners must decide how to move ahead.
On the verge of failure, BlackBerry brought in John Chen as CEO in 2013 to orchestrate a bold turnaround of the company. Once an iconic leader in the smartphone market, BlackBerry was best known for its tactile QWERTY keyboard, strong security, and a focus on business users. By 2009 it had come to dominate the North American and global smart phone markets. But Apple and Android entered the market with a strong consumer focus and an extensive suite of apps. BlackBerry's subsequent efforts to emulate their competitors was too little and too late. With few options left, the board brought in Chen. Under Chen's leadership, Blackberry executed a full pivot from a hardware company to a software company, focused on the cyber security market. Leveraging their expertise in security, and funding it by monetizing their extensive real estate holdings and library of intellectual property, Chen led the successful transformation of the company into a software enterprise. Along the way came many challenges including how to delicately manage the ramp down of its hardware business as it ramped up its software business. By 2020, BlackBerry had $1 billion in software revenues, with strong gross margins, and positive operating cash flow. However, BlackBerry was at a crossroads. The stock price had stubbornly plateaued as investors waited for signs of significant growth. Yet in order to grow, BlackBerry might have to sacrifice profitability to gain market share as it competed against both deep-pocketed, large players and agile startups. The decision to invest heavily in growth would have far-reaching implications on BlackBerry's go-to-market strategy, pricing, and distribution. Focusing on market share would violate the model that Chen had worked so hard to put in place. Was this the right strategy? Were there other options the company should pursue?
India headquartered Mahindra Group is a multibillion-dollar federation of companies operating across the globe. It is ahead of its time in articulating its purpose and mapping its values, something it had first done at inception and then refreshed yet again as 'Rise' in 2011. Over the past decade, it has cascaded the essence of 'Rise' as a purpose through the organization. The idea was to "challenge conventional thinking and innovatively use all their resources to drive positive change in the lives of stakeholders and communities across the world to enable them to Rise." As its senior leadership team contemplate Mahindra's future, they wonder how they should balance the 'Rise' philosophy with a focus on financial returns that is critical for the group, especially in the aftermath of the health and economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and a leadership transition at the group.
Etsy, the online seller of handmade goods, was founded in 2005 on an almost utopian ideal-a responsible, caring company that offered individual crafters a place to sell their wares, a wholesome alternative to companies that sold mass-manufactured products. The company grew substantially-though unprofitably-under the freewheeling leadership of two early CEOs. In 2015, Etsy went public and was forced into a new arena, beholden to new stakeholders who demanded financial success and accountability. Unable to contain costs, the company teetered on the precipice of being bought out by private equity firms. In came a new leader-Josh Silverman-with a mission: to save the company financially and, in the process, save its soul. This case examines the strategic, financial, organizational, and purpose-driven turnaround Silverman and his team led at Etsy. The turnaround not only greatly bolstered Etsy's finances, but also improved its social and environmental impact and helped the organization truly live up to its ideals. This case examines the circumstances that led Etsy to require a turnaround, how the turnaround was executed, and what challenges still remain.
Pete Carroll, the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, is the American football world's anomaly. His leadership style is the opposite of the traditional one, a more humanistic approach, based on developing and nurturing strong connections with his players on an interpersonal level and on celebrating, and not suppressing, their individuality. It is anchored by psychology and mindfulness, with Grit author Angela Duckworth noting that Carroll is tapping into something universal about human performance and potential. Carroll believes that to elevate your game you need to start with a strong sense of purpose that is anchored in a clear personal philosophy. As a leader he is committed to the idea that caring personally about each player and his unique needs, background and aspirations is fundamental to his success as a coach. His style is seen by some as overly positive, "touchy feely" and lacking the top-down edge expected of successful coaches. But what casual observers miss is the rigor, discipline, intense spirit of competition and a passion for winning that underpin his approach. His leadership has enabled a distinctive culture that has become a magnet for highly talented players, especially those who are known as gifted and value their individualism. His results provide clear evidence that his model works. Carroll is among the most successful football coaches of the last 50 years, achieving a remarkable level of consistently competing at the highest levels, including winning both a Super Bowl and multiple collegiate national titles. Carroll has influenced numerous championship-winning coaches in football and basketball, including the NBA's Golden State Warriors and the NCAA's LSU Tigers. And the increasing embrace of Carroll's leadership practices by CEO's including Microsoft's Satya Nadella demonstrate that his caring and humanistic form of leadership may help deliver exceptional results far beyond the football field.
Novartis' Genesis Labs program, launched in 2016 as part of Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR), hosted pitch competitions where teams of NIBR scientists proposed ideas to explore that aimed to revolutionize drug discovery. The goal was to break down barriers between functions and regions that slow innovation. After advancing to the pitch stage, a panel selected a handful of winning proposals. Winning teams left their roles for 18 months and received the resources and laboratory space to pursue their ideas. By 2018, two cohorts of winners had been selected-one almost at the end of its 18-month tenure and the other soon to begin. Genesis Labs had already overcome several hurdles-for example, scientists at first worried that stepping out of their ordinary role or pitching ideas that were not chosen could end their careers at Novartis. Though the Genesis Labs program ultimately succeeded in attracting many candidates, the company wondered how to further refine it to foster greater agility in Novartis R&D. Should they expand the call for entries? Did it encourage true shoot-the-moon ideas? How often should the program run, and how disruptive should it be to existing teams? What was the best way to reintegrate scientists to prior roles after their 18-month stint as part of Genesis Labs was over? Finally, could such contests be adapted and rolled out in other functions in the organization?
By 2018, Netflix had been credited for revolutionizing how viewers consumed entertainment-shifting from ad-fueled linear network programming to a highly personalized, on-demand, all-you-can-consume, ad-free model. The company was riding a long wave of revenue and subscriber growth as it expanded internationally and into original production. From its earliest days, Netflix leadership had fostered a workplace characterized by such values as excellence, maturity, transparency, accountability, candor, and autonomy. The Culture Deck, later dubbed the Culture Memo, documented how Netflix's culture had evolved and enabled the organization to repeatedly innovate, disrupt, and pivot. The case examines the company's history and delves into ways leadership continues to nurture its unique culture through an emphasis on concepts such as "freedom and responsibility," "context, not control," and "highly aligned, loosely coupled." The case allows students to assess CEO Reed Hastings' view that the culture is capable of further scaling even as headcount surges and the company continues its expansion into new geographies and even more content production.
In 2012, Nalin Jain, then head of GE aviation for South Asia, was given the added responsibility for GE's transportation business in India, including bidding for a $2.5 billion contract to manufacture, service and maintain 1,000 diesel locomotives for state owned Indian Railways (IR). The deal, which would have been "the largest deal on the planet" for the transportation business, had been under discussion for six years, and many within GE had given up hope that it would materialize, but Jain persisted. In February 2015, when IR requested companies to submit a financial bid in six months, Jain quickly built an autonomous team, sequestered from the rest of GE, with people from multiple businesses and functions. His team overcame internal resistance from people at headquarters and stiff competition to help GE win the deal by a narrow margin. Jain was then tasked with executing the deal. As many of his earlier team members had moved on, Jain hired new people and built a new diverse yet integrated team for execution, with members able to put aside their many differences, look beyond their functional silos, and focus on the project deliverables. However, 2017 brought a series of challenges. GE changed India's organization structure, making India business leaders report only to their respective global business leaders instead of reporting to both their business leaders and the India country leader. Jain's mandate was expanded to include the entire international operations of GE's transportation business. And, sub-optimal company performance forced GE to announce cost cuts of $2 billion. In the face of this turmoil, Jain wonders, "Have I created an agile team that can succeed in GE's matrix environment and deal with the internal challenges? Do the team members have the maturity and motivation required for the project to succeed?"
In 2012, Nalin Jain, then head of GE aviation for South Asia, was given the added responsibility for GE's transportation business in India, including bidding for a $2.5 billion contract to manufacture, service and maintain 1,000 diesel locomotives for state owned Indian Railways (IR). The deal, which would have been "the largest deal on the planet" for the transportation business, had been under discussion for six years, and many within GE had given up hope that it would materialize, but Jain persisted. In February 2015, when IR requested companies to submit a financial bid in six months, Jain quickly built an autonomous team, sequestered from the rest of GE, with people from multiple businesses and functions. His team overcame internal resistance from people at headquarters and stiff competition to help GE win the deal by a narrow margin. Jain was then tasked with executing the deal. As many of his earlier team members had moved on, Jain hired new people and built a new diverse yet integrated team for execution, with members able to put aside their many differences, look beyond their functional silos, and focus on the project deliverables. However, 2017 brought a series of challenges. GE changed India's organization structure, making India business leaders report only to their respective global business leaders instead of reporting to both their business leaders and the India country leader. Jain's mandate was expanded to include the entire international operations of GE's transportation business. And, sub-optimal company performance forced GE to announce cost cuts of $2 billion. In the face of this turmoil, Jain wonders, "Have I created an agile team that can succeed in GE's matrix environment and deal with the internal challenges? Do the team members have the maturity and motivation required for the project to succeed?"