Betsy Sugarman, a rising star in a biotech company, finds out that she is pregnant. This is good news for her, but bad timing for her career. She has been interviewing internally to take on a new role as the director of overseas operations, a position that requires a great deal of travel. Her prospective boss has all but offered her the job and is expecting a commitment from her within a week. She wants the job and feels she is prepared to do what it requires, but she's hesitant to disclose such personal information. Should she tell him about the pregnancy or not? With commentaries by Mary B. Cranston, the firm senior partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and Michael Hamilton, a partner at Ernst & Young.
Betsy Sugarman, a rising star in a biotech company, finds out that she is pregnant. This is good news for her, but bad timing for her career. She has been interviewing internally to take on a new role as the director of overseas operations, a position that requires a great deal of travel. Her prospective boss has all but offered her the job and is expecting a commitment from her within a week. She wants the job and feels she is prepared to do what it requires, but she's hesitant to disclose such personal information. Should she tell him about the pregnancy or not?
Betsy Sugarman, a rising star in a biotech company, finds out that she is pregnant. This is good news for her, but bad timing for her career. She has been interviewing internally to take on a new role as the director of overseas operations, a position that requires a great deal of travel. Her prospective boss has all but offered her the job and is expecting a commitment from her within a week. She wants the job and feels she is prepared to do what it requires, but she's hesitant to disclose such personal information. Should she tell him about the pregnancy or not? With commentaries by Mary B. Cranston, the firm senior partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and Michael Hamilton, a partner at Ernst & Young.
Teena Lerner, the CEO of Rx Capital, had a problem. Her three-year-old hedge fund was highly profitable, but in 2004, one of her four equities analysts lost a lot of money for the firm. If Lerner followed her existing compensation system, designed to reward teamwork, he would wind up significantly underpaying her other analysts, all of whom had performed well. Should she follow the compensation system or not? And what should be done about the underperforming analyst?
What does it take to build a successful career over time? Describes Amy Schulman's career progression and role as a star senior litigator and top executive at one of the world's largest law firms. It focuses on different stages in her career and what she did to be successful at each stage. The demands on her time--client development, casework, firm leadership responsibilities, mentoring her people, managing her team, spending time with her family--were changing over time. After being chosen to sit on the firm's Global Board as well as its Executive and Policy Committees, Amy Schulman feels that there are things that are being left undone. She must decide how to allocate her time.
Teena Lerner started her own hedge fund firm in 2001 after nearly 20 years as a star biotechnology analyst and hedge fund manager. After the start-up phase, her firm became highly profitable. In 2004, however, one of her four analysts lost a lot of money for the firm. If Lerner followed the existing compensation system, she would wind up significantly underpaying her other analysts, all of whom had performed well. Should she follow the compensation system or not? And what should be done about the underperforming analyst?
For the past 18 months, Mandy Cabot had worried that the shoe business she had built into a thriving operation with $90 million in annual revenue and over 110 employees might instead be a "house of cards." The management philosophy that had guided Dansko's growth, "home schooling"--taking young energetic employees with little business experience and mentoring them--seemed ill-suited for the next phase of growth. Equally as precarious was the fact that with few exceptions, none of the senior management team had any prior experience in the footwear industry. So when a well-respected industry leader asked to talk about a merger, Cabot had to admit that with her "crisis of confidence," it might just be time.
How do you go to market with a brand new product in a new industry? How does a business develop an opportunity and then adapt its strategy to ensure success? Who are the early adopters and how does a business work with them? Katherine Hays, chief operating office at Massive Inc., faced several options for guiding the development and launch of the Massive Ad Network. Massive had recognized that young males, ages 18 to 34, were becoming increasingly hard to reach through traditional means of advertising yet, at the same time, video game usage by this highly coveted market segment had skyrocketed and online game advertising provided a valuable revenue opportunity. To capitalize on the situation, Massive had built a product that enabled the dynamic delivery of advertising content into video games. Although the concept was simple, successful adoption of the new advertising medium required the enthusiastic buy-in from three distinct audiences: game publishers and developers, advertisers and their media buyer, and gamers. To be successful, Massive needed to continue to ask questions, experiment, and listen to each of these constituencies.
Michelle Levene discovers that she is pregnant a few days before receiving an offer for her dream job. The new position would require Levene to travel extensively, something she would not be able to do towards the end of the pregnancy and while caring for a newborn. Levene has been with biotech leader Genzyme Corp. for two years and cannot imagine a better professional opportunity than the new position at this stage in her career. Should she accept the job, telling her new manager that she is pregnant? Should she accept the job but wait a few months to discuss the pregnancy--after all, this is her first baby and who knows what might happen? Or should she meet with the new manager and tell him that under the circumstances, she would expect him to rescind the verbal offer?
Cyd Szymanski's cage-free egg business was threatened by large caged-hen companies that saw new profit potential in the industry she had helped build. Szymanski had based her company, Nest Fresh Eggs, on a strong personal belief that people deserved healthier alternatives for food and that animals deserved to be treated well. Not only had Szymanski remained true to her convictions, but she also saw financial success with what had begun as a very small family operation. Over time, more consumers understood the health and ethical benefits associated with cage-free eggs and were willing to pay a premium price to purchase them. But, during Nest Fresh's 14 years in business, the egg industry had undergone a number of changes. Large caged egg producers started to enter the cage-free market. Szymanski believed that these producers were motivated solely by profit. They were developing small cage-free production facilities side by side with their caged operations. They also had the financial clout to offer lower prices, something the small independent cage-free operators like Nest Fresh were far less able to do. Szymanski had to come up with alternatives, some of which might require back-pedaling on her convictions.
Only three short months into her new position as CEO of publicly traded golf apparel manufacturer Cutter & Buck, Fran Conley discovers accounting irregularities that call into question the reliability of this company's financial statements. Working closely with her board of directors, Conley must figure out what is really going on. She must also deal with the possibility of SEC sanctions, class action lawsuits, threat of NASDAQ delisting, loss of D&O insurance, departure of senior managers, and problems with access to credit. She is also trying to turn the company around after two years of poor performance.
Benaree Wiley, an African American, female HBS graduate (class of 1972), was appointed CEO and president in 1991 of The Partnership, a Boston-based nonprofit dedicated to developing leadership potential in professionals of color and in increasing their representation in area businesses and institutions. The organization suffered from a lack of unity among the board, an unclear mission, and financial challenges, including debt in excess of $100,000. Starting with only an administrative assistant, Wiley built the organization from the ground up, using her ability to develop and nurture relationships as the basis for growth. In December 2004, Wiley announced her impending retirement, leaving the organization with the strategic challenge of moving its programs and services to a level of greater impact (beyond the Boston community), without the leadership of its heralded CEO.
Jonathan King and Jim Stott, the founders of Stonewall Kitchen, started out in 1992 with a simple business selling jams and jellies at local farmers' markets. By 2004, they had grown the company into a $25 million organization with 250 employees. They expanded their range of services to include high-end specialty food manufacturing and wholesaling, as well as retailing through free-standing stores and catalogs. King, who serves as president and CEO, set an aggressive growth goal: to quadruple the business to $100 million within the next five years. Challenges students to consider product/market issues as well as organizational and cultural implications. Raises questions about the impact on the business and the founders of taking on new partners.
The Leveens started a high-end catalog business as a small home-based venture in 1987. It grew into a nationally recognized, $60 million company, offering products that ranged from unique pens and pencils to leather briefcases and fully furnished offices. In 1999, it reached saturation in the U.S. marketplace, and the owner-founders must consider new avenues of growth, including expansion of the catalog business into international markets; private labeling products for a large, national retailer; retailing in partnership with others; or retailing through company-owned, free-standing stores.
Mavens & Moguls is a "virtual" marketing-consulting firm of approximately 40 professionals. Examines the processes by which its founder, Paige Arnof-Fenn, learns the business, builds a power network of industry experts and potential customers, and uses this expertise to build a new company that fulfills her career and life goals and also provides a wide range of work options to the consultants. Drawing on her experience and her network, she creates a high-quality marketing consulting operation that offers her and her stable of consultants challenging work, rewarding income, personal autonomy, and flexibility. Because Arnof-Fenn is at the nexus of almost all the deals, rapid growth has the potential to challenge the business model and threaten the fundamental values of the organization.