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This case study follows the career of world-renowned orchestra conductor Marin Alsop. As a gay woman in a blatantly male-dominated (and often sexist) field, Alsop faced significant challenges in her rise to the top of the profession. At virtually every turning point on her unconventional path, Alsop received the message that she should not or could not advance - and yet she did, relying on a nuanced mix of perseverance, self-awareness, and willingness to upend the status quo.

This case study follows the evolution of plant-based meat alternatives industry, focusing specifically on the major competitors namely Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. It provides a good snapshot of the way in which the new industry has evolved and the manner in which key industry forces have begun to shape the competitiveness and profitability of this nascent industry. It builds on an analysis of the industry to explore the fortunes of the rising stars in the business and concludes with several key questions about the potential future trajectory of the Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods in the face of new competitors and the defensive strategies deployed by the established meat producers. The case sets up the backdrop for a spirited debate relating to the viability of the strategies of the established rivals versus the emerging new players in the midst of unclear consumer trends and preferences.

In 2019, an investment analyst for a hedge fund firm based in the Bahamas was tasked with evaluating his firm's exposure to the automotive industry. The hedge fund firm held various large positions in the automotive segment, most notably in two equities-Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. and Ford Motor Company. The analyst decided to focus on these global industry giants as a proxy for the broader automotive segment. His manager expected an assessment of the industry's prospects, so the analyst had to decide if the past stock performance of the two companies was a fair indicator of each company's and the industry's future. He also had to consider why one company would lose almost twice as much value as the other in one specific period. And why did the stock of the more diversified company experience the steeper decline? The analyst was eager to answer these and other questions, both for his own and his manager's interest.

This case highlights the multifaceted challenges of sustainability and survivability face by Singapore. Being a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), much of Singapore development is concentrated in a very small area. High population density that is expected to increase puts Singapore in a vulnerable position for sea-level rise. Adding to the woe of small land size, most of the Singapore's land lies only 15 metres above Singapore's Height Datum. To address this complex issue, Singapore must create a new path that balances the triple bottom line (TBL). Tensions between the three bottom lines in managing this sustainable development for Singapore are real. The question is how to manage the scenario of rising sea levels with so many different permutations and considerations. Which reality do you foresee for this little red dot by 2065? How to manage the triple bottom line? How will you evaluate the impacts of measures adopted? What are the measures that Singapore need to carry out to fight against the rising sea level?

Info Edge is the first Indian Internet company to list on the Indian stock markets (in 2006). It is a widely successful company with many lines of business - it operates a jobs classified (naukri.com), a real estate classifieds (99acres.com), a matrimonial classifieds (jeevansaathi.com) and a higher education classifieds (shiksha.com). Info Edge also has a very successful corporate VC arm, which at different points owned ~50% of Zomato (restaurant listings and food delivery) and Policy Bazaar (insurance comparison shopping). We have related Info Edge's 30-year journey across two cases - Naukri.com (A): the Business of Internet in India and Naukri.com (B): Corporate Venture Capital in India. Both cases have separate teaching notes and are designed to be used either independent of each other in 90-minute sessions, or to be used one after the other in two 90-minute sessions This case examines Naukri.com's fight for relevance in a world that is increasingly being dominated by the three largest Internet aggregators - Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft). It touches upon strategic aspects involving Internet marketplaces and social media networks, which are hotly debated topics in business media and various discussion forums as of 2022, and hence, you should expect strong participation from a typical MBA or executive MBA class

Much like the famous philosophical thought experiment, impact investing raises questions about perception, observation, and reality. What is our sense that an investment results in social, environmental, and financial return? What changes can we observe taking place? What is the state of the situation as it exists (perhaps by measurement)? This case study applies this framework to our analysis of the social, environmental, and financial impact of forestry and timberland investment.

At 824 million, Pinduoduo had the most customers in global e-commerce as of March 2021. It had also expanded aggressively into grocery shopping with Duo Duo Grocery, riding on the demands that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and set its sights on becoming the world's grocer. Despite its formidable progress, the e-commerce platform remained in the red, recording a loss of more than US$443 million in the first quarter of 2021. Its closest rivals, Alibaba and JD, remained hot on its heels, matching its forays into its stronghold of the lower-tier cities in the country. The year 2021 also marked a year of leadership renewal for Pinduoduo. Colin Zheng Huang, its founding CEO and Chairman, had passed the baton of leadership to Lei Chen, a fellow co-founder. Huang's decision to step aside was to focus on figuring out the future of Pinduoduo. He believed research on food and life sciences would remake agriculture in China. How should investors see these moves and achievements by Pinduoduo? Are farming and smart logistics its 'end game'?

In 2016, BlewMinds Consulting LLP was launched as a storytelling consulting start-up with the vision of touching and transforming five billion lives by 2030. One of the two co-founders was already well-known on the LinkedIn social network platform, with more than 600,000 followers. He was also recognized as one of the 25 Top Voices in India by LinkedIn for 2019. The company transformed 725,000 lives directly and 200 million readers indirectly through social media stories, one-on-one training, group coaching sessions, webinars, and speaking engagements, driven mainly by the co-founder's extensive LinkedIn follower base. However, to realize the company's vision, several questions remained: How could the co-founders create a community of storytellers within the organization who could effectively establish trust through communication and contribute collectively to the company's growth? How could they engage a wider audience by effectively leveraging the co-founder's strategic influencer communication on social media? Should the company continue its bootstrapped business model or should investors be sought?

In 2015, HiteVision Tech Co. Ltd., a leading Chinese enterprise in the research and development and manufacturing of interactive educational flat-panel displays (IFPDs), faced a developmental bottleneck. The general manager of the commercial product department turned his attention from the educational to the commercial IFPD market. In early 2018, during the process of entering the commercial IFPD market, the company encountered a series of channel conflicts, which were resolved by adopting a multibrand strategy. However, after achieving initial success in the commercial IFPD market, the company encountered new channel conflicts. In early 2019, the company was facing a distribution problem and an e-business channel issue. The general manager again needed to find a solution.

In 2020, the movie business was turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the closure of theatres. Unable to open their doors, exhibitors had little to no revenue to cover costs, and market analysts predicted that the future for theatre chains, particularly AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), looked bleak. Then in early 2021, a large number of small retail investors bought shares in AMC. By the July 4th weekend, AMC stock was worth more than 25 times what it had been worth at the beginning of the year. In a post-pandemic environment, could AMC's chief executive officer, Adam Aron, objectively weigh strategic options to decide what should be the appropriate size and scope of the firm going forward, without being overly influenced by shareholders with shorter time horizons?

Increasingly in the 2010s, corporations turned to divestitures and spinoffs to streamline their operations. Over the course of one week in November 2021, conglomerates General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and Toshiba announced plans for separation. The news reflected the broader shift toward divestitures as a means to focus on core competencies and achieve growth. By that time, more than three-quarters of companies (78%) believed that they should have divested assets sooner, as opposed to just 41% of companies in 2016. Further, 76% of companies anticipated that the Covid-19 pandemic would increase divestment plan momentum. This case explores the rationales for and against spinoffs, and provides recent examples of companies that followed their spinoffs with consolidations (and vice versa).

In 2016, India passed a new bankruptcy law (IBC) to counter a brewing bank crisis and increased corporate distress. Homebuilder Jaypee Infratech, one of India largest distressed companies (the "dirty dozen") began restructuring under the IBC in 2017. Two years later, the situation remains unresolved, the Supreme Court is involved, there are two interested bidders for the company, and a creditor group that includes Indian banks and local homebuyers. Should York Capital bid to purchase some of Jaypee's secured debt and at what price?

In May 2021, the chief executive officer of Telkom SA SOC Limited (Telkom) in South Africa was facing a dilemma. Fifth generation (5G) technology was about to be introduced to the country's communications industry. While Telkom had fared well during the COVID-19 global pandemic, even managing to gain market share from its much larger competitors, the anticipated release of additional coverage spectrum for the new 5G technology was going to put pressure on Telkom's finances and business model. The chief executive officer, appointed in 2013, had helped transform the company's business model from a struggling state-owned enterprise with a monopoly and unhappy customers to a thriving business in open competition with complementary strategic business units. However, with continuous evolution in the industry, Telkom was forced to innovate again and possibly reposition its strategic business units.

In April 2020, Rudra Industries and Services Private Ltd., a diesel generator product and service provider in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in northern India, was facing a dilemma. Diesel generators (DGs) were heavily used by telecommunication companies to provide uninterrupted power supply to their towers, despite frequent power outages. However, consolidation in India's telecommunication industry had led to stagnation in the company's core business. To maintain a continuous flow of income, the company was considering a business expansion to leasing diesel generators to clients. The company was asked to prepare a bid proposal for leasing 100 DG sets to a local bank with numerous branches across the state. What factors would influence the pricing estimates in the bid? How should the company finance the purchase of generators that will be leased out to the client? How could the pricing estimate be calculated to ensure the project would be profitable? Should the company even consider entering the leasing sector, considering recent reductions in power outages and increasing diesel prices?

Divami Design Labs is a company that specializes in user experience (UX) strategy, UX design, and user interface (UI) development services across web and mobile platforms. The company-based in Hyderabad, India-works with several clients in designing their software products and solutions. The company had recently won a large contract that involved redesigning a software product for a client in the employee life cycle management business. The client, Paysoft, had recently undergone a redesign process using internal resources. While the new product was well received initially, several complaints started to emerge about product rigidity and the lack of customer centricity. In a crucial board meeting, Paysoft decided to bring in an external specialist to help make the product more user-friendly. Divami won the contract after a long competitive process. As the Divami team began implementation, it ran into resistance from Paysoft's internal software development team, which had managed the initial product build. The Divami team had the challenge of justifying the role of design specialists in the product development process. It needed to convince the Paysoft internal team of the value it could add and how the design process does not replace but strengthens the development process. The Divami team also needed to showcase the design process with an illustration.

The case, set in April 2019, follows the managing director of an investment firm that is deliberating whether to invest in Jet Airways. It is the day after the airline halted their operations, and our protagonist, Surjit Trivedi, Managing Director of a Mumbai-based private equity firm, the Agile Group, is headed for a meeting where his team of analysts and strategists are presenting their evaluation of Jet Airways. Trivedi must decide whether to invest in the airline or not as he is due to present the proposal to the board of the private equity firm he works for. He does not want to make a wrong investment and jeopardize the firm's future and his forthcoming promotion. The case follows the rise and fall of Jet Airways. Civil aviation in India has changed tremendously over the past 20 years, both from the consumer and service provider standpoints. This change was due to factors such as globalization, the higher disposable income of Indians, government initiatives, travel enthusiasm among millennials, and so on. With India expected to become third-biggest aviation market by the year 2025, the number of players in the market increased, with both indigenous and global competitors in the fray. Despite positive industry indicators, two major airlines were forced to halt operations in the last decade, Jet Airways being one of them. The case can be used to scrutinize the reasons for Jet Airways' downfall such as their acquisitions and alliances, the decisions of their founder Naresh Goyal, and Jet Airways' response to the challenge posed by low-cost carriers (LCCs) in India. Moreover, the case can be utilized to analyze how the consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) handled the Jet Airways crisis.

The Hatsu brand of tea beverages and healthy food products emerged from the idea of two Colombian entrepreneurs in 2010 and evolved, in just over five years, to capture the interest of the leading company in the Colombian beverage market, Postobón SA (Postobón), which acquired it. In this context, Hatsu faced the challenge of consolidating itself in the tea beverage market while also venturing into other product categories (e.g., cereal bars, nuts, infusions, and sodas) and multiplying its sales without losing the lifestyle concept on which it was built and through which it had succeeded. By late 2020, Postobón's premium business unit director needed to determine how Hatsu could be turned into a megabrand without losing its essence.

Established in 2015 in Shanghai, China, Shanghai Kmind Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. was a strategy consulting firm that specialized in helping enterprises overcome market competition through the provision of its consulting services. It not only provided strategy consulting reports to clients but also acted as a business partner in assisting clients in implementing the reports. Among its many clients, nine leading enterprises had achieved rapid growth, and five had reached revenue of ¥10 billion. However, behind its success, the firm was facing a shortage of consultants. Although its clients had increased in number since the firm's founding, it had had to turn away many high-quality clients because of the consultant shortage. The firm's chairman had to consider how to rapidly improve the firm's service capability.

In May 2021, a recent graduate from the master of business administration program at Ivey Business School noticed a news article about one of his investments, the leading athletic apparel company Under Armour, Inc. The article stated that Under Armour, Inc. was fined US$9 Million by the US Security and Exchange Commission. The charges were a result of concerns over the company's revenue reporting practices, but the company's share price dropped only very slightly following the announcement. The investor was considering his options regarding his investment. However, he was still curious and eager to learn more about the circumstances behind the US Security and Exchange Commission's charge and potential consequences for the company. The investor decided to examine Under Armour, Inc.'s revenue reporting practices, financial reporting practices, and corporate governance issues.

The case documents the efforts by Lone Stubberup, Global Director of Quality, Health, Safety and Environment (QHSE), to convert her employer to the highest sustainability standards through all its activities. In this way, Jupiter Bach, a Denmark-based producer of nacelles and spinner covers for wind turbines could differentiate itself in a highly competitive, cost-driven industry. Deeply committed to the need of address issues such as material recycling and CO2 emissions, Lone set out to convince the executive board and the firm's VC investors to push sustainability to top of the agenda. A surprising feature of the case is the realization that the wind turbine industry, a much-acclaimed key player in the anticipated energy transition, has been operating as if exonerated from doing its part thanks to the very nature of its activities. Wind turbine producers have been lambasted for their poor sustainability footprint and their disregard for most social and environmental impacts. Cost has been the single focus, in a mad drive to reduce the cost of energy production to levels that competed with other energy sources. Lone knew from the outset she was in for a rough ride, but she was committed to making the case for sustainability at Jupiter Bach. In her mind, this was in line with the firm's leading status in its field and a legitimate value addition that would set the company up for further success. She spent months working on a solid sustainability strategy showing a clear path forward, at a pace the company could handle, that was aligned with the firm's core value of "We Care." She received the necessary support, but reality intruded in 2020 with the COVID-19 crisis, when most clients reverted to a purely cost-driven agenda. Jupiter Bach initially lost significant business because of its higher costs, testing its resolve to put societal benefits near the top of its agenda. Keeping sustainability to the fore was going to be a challenge, but one Lone felt she could