João M. P. De Mello and his team at the Central Bank of Brazil are preparing a move that would seek to tilt the scales in favor of financial inclusion for the entire country. The innovation at hand is the unprecedented nation-wide instant payment scheme: Pix. The fruit of years of planning and patience in the face of a banking industry refusing to change, De Mello seeks to kick start a wave of pro-consumer FinTech advancements for a sector whose growth has been relatively halted. While the success of similar wide-spread payment structures using mobile technology have drawn a clear roadmap in other countries, no other central bank has ever dared to undertake the task itself, preferring instead to let the private sector push ahead and regulate later. Pix would be the first instance of a government taking such massive upskilling into its own hands. At the same time, the risks De Mello and his team face will be entirely new as well. Will Pix be the highway to modernity so many imagine? Or will its challenges prove insurmountable, tarnishing growth and turning the country away from trusting the BCB at such a scale ever again?

After climbing the ranks among Kenya's financial institutions from 66th to 1st, and toppling a quarter of the market share held by mobile money giant Safaricom, CEO James Mwangi must now guide Equity Bank into its next stage of development beyond "Equity 3.0." Should he continue to chip away at the substantial hold Safaricom still has over the industry, or should he branch out into completely new areas that the company has never dealt with before? The former would mean a long and grueling fight, but the latter could spell disaster if fresh ventures go awry. Is the company's innovative approach on its homefield evidence of a deeper penchant for ingenuity overall, or was Mwangi simply in the right place at the right time with its landmark MVNO Equitel?

André Hoffmann is a leader of one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. His exceptional tenure in philanthropy over the past several decades, including being president of the WWF and the vice-president of the MAVA Foundation, has allowed him access to a far broader scope of the field than most philanthropists can have in a lifetime. Through these experiences, he has indicated a set of key factors that cause philanthropy and social impact efforts to fail, both consistently and silently, and that threaten the future of the planet in the wake of such time-sensitive global issues as climate change, resource overuse, and ecological destruction. His plan to fix the system involved a fundamental restructuring of not only philanthropy, but of the broader business landscape itself, including a dramatic reframing of how we understand cash flows and profits across industries. The measures cannot come from one body alone, and will require immense cooperation of enterprises if the world is meant to ever stand a chance.

Vivian Yuan seeks to bolster the Tsinghua University Education Foundation's fundraising efforts and investment goals in a new era of Chinese higher education. Competing with elite members of China's C9 League of top universities, she must develop a set of incentives and deliverables for alumni and non-affiliated donors which can bridge the gaps in their own investment and philanthropic prospects. To do so, she must specify what makes the university unique as a donation opportunity, and highlight the things TUEF can accomplish that no one else can.

Litigation finance-also referred to as third party litigation funding-was in its relative infancy as an asset class when Jay Greenberg and Max Volsky made a platform-play in the space. Seven years later, the market was far from "mainstream," but nonetheless had grown significantly, as had the litigation financing platform they founded, LexShares. They faced a cross-roads on what came next for LexShares-whether 1) to continue on with a focus to grow its platform marketplace for legal cases that outside investors could invest in; or 2) put a relatively larger focus on building their own asset management arm that sourced, chose, and invested in hand-picked cases for outside investors in a fund capacity. Greenberg knew that (2) might seriously encroach on (1), and was fraught with missteps shown through past unsuccessful platform transitions-but the potential upside provided by (2) had the potential to be nothing short of company-changing.

Lidya CEO Tunde Kehinde must size up options for the expansion of his novel lending practices that drastically reduce the credit cycle in his developing Nigeria, and determine if expansion into Eastern Europe will prove successful or disastrous.

Equity Bank and CEO Dr. James Mwangi must find a way to advance from their hard-fought ascension to second largest bank in Kenya by toppling financial giant Safaricom. Doing so means developing a new strategy and tackling technological frontiers no institution in the country has yet faced.

Bairong CEO Felix Zhang, in launching his credit scoring start-up that incorporates 74,000 variables per individual, found strong initial success. However, the shifting regulatory environment, growing breadth of competitors, difficulties in retaining top talent, and uncertainty around the accumulation and protection of data that fuels the company all threaten the company's stability during its IPO. Defining exactly how his firm will make its mark, and remain indispensable amongst a massive and ever sharpening FinTech landscape, will test Zhang's abilities at the helm and make or break his corner of the industry.

Alice Anane is the member of a large, wealthy family that collectively operates a multi-pronged family business in Israel. Upon discovering partway into her pregnancy that the rapidly degenerative brain disease her father succumbed to now threatens her and potentially every member of her family, she must decide how to incorporate a comprehensive plan for handling genetic disease into her family's charter. Each aspect of the document must be carefully weighed, as the differing priorities must somehow come together into a system that works. With an uncertain clock ticking in the background, can she ensure that the measure passes with enough votes among her siblings and mother? Will she be able to ensure a lasting legacy for the family and its businesses that touch so many lives?

Headquartered in Mumbai, India, FinTech startup Nearby Technologies has seen its flagship brand, PayNearby, rapidly flourish across most of its target market within just four years. The unprecedented success of its payment app, which allows users to access banking services and send money throughout the country from the comfort of their local grocer, has meant success not just for CEO Anand Kumar Bajaj. It has given the massively underbanked population a new lease on financial inclusion. However, as the company celebrates the milestone of covering six times as many locations as brick-and-mortar bank branches in the country, Bajaj looks on to the company's growing obstacles beyond 2020. PayNearby's wide spread means that the company lives and dies on a mere five basis points, and their competitors now number over 200. If Bajaj is to continue the success of his young company, and to continue serving the people who have come to depend on his service for their livelihoods, he will have to see that the thin "pizza-dough" strategy he has implemented can rise with a suite of new services. Failing to do so will spell the eventual demise of his vision. What will those services will be? How will Bajaj be able to secure his company's long-term niche against the hordes of competitors who are now rising at the hands of the same type of innovation his own company had employed?