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The case is about a company in one of the so-called sin industries that has committed to phase out cigarettes - the origin of its sins - in favor of a smoke-free future based on reduced-risk products. In early 2020, Huub Savelkouls, Chief Sustainability Officer at Philip Morris International (PMI) and Jennifer Motles Svigilsky, PMI's Director of Social Impact & Sustainability, were working on the company's first ever integrated report due for publication in June 2020. Motles, perceived skepticism and mistrust about PMI's strategy and, specifically, serious doubts about the health effects of IQOS. In 2017, the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, in conjunction with Tobacco Free Portfolios, had called for a Tobacco-Free Finance Pledge. By 2020, the pledge had 141 signatories and 41 supporters. Some environmental, social and governance (ESG) investors still seemed interested in PMI's strategy, but not many were ready to engage publicly. In January 2020, they met with Professor Robert G. Eccles (PMI's advisor on matters regarding sustainability, social impact and investor engagement since May 2019). They were ready to build and validate PMI's materiality matrix and try to align stakeholders' demands with PMI's priorities. They needed to look at PMI's value proposition in more depth in light of the feedback received from stakeholders and the significance of PMI's impact on society and the environment. And they needed to do this in the context of a blanket exclusion of the tobacco industry by ESG investors, mistrust from stakeholders and reputational liabilities. Motles stressed the importance of validating the sustainability materiality matrix because she thought that materiality was a foundational concept in integrated reporting. The case ends with Motles feeling the challenge (a make-or-break moment for her career) and how much was at stake; the sustainability team could not let their stakeholders down and destroy the rapport they were trying to build.

Will Cohen, the case protagonist, has recently been promoted to Bank of America's market sales executive for the mid-Atlantic region. In this position, he finds himself struggling with some of the conversations, personal interactions, and general dynamics he has had with his direct reports. Cohen had had a wildly successful decade-plus experience in wealth and investment advising for several large companies, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase & Co.. He had then been recruited to lead the Bank of America private bank team in Charlottesville, Virginia, where, again, he and his team had been enormously successful and effective, leading to his position with the mid-Atlantic region. However, in this position, Cohen had been somewhat disheartened by the workplace ethic, which included lethargy and complacency. He often wondered about his leadership skills, which was a totally new concern for him. After a recent difficult conversation with a team member, Cohen worried about how he was handling the challenges of his new position. His goal was to drive performance while at the same time encouraging the growth of his team members and creating a culture of teamwork, collective ownership, trust, and creativity. He just was not sure he was executing these goals successfully.

In 2017, Tarana Burke, founder of the movement against sexual violence known as Me Too was unexpectedly catapulted to international fame. The phrase she had coined to promote a sisterhood of survivors, "Me Too," had become a viral social media hashtag. Within days, Burke went from being a grassroots community organizer to a national icon and the movement she had nurtured for more than a decade in Church basements and school classrooms, erupted into a global rallying cry that brought down the careers of dozens of powerful men accused of sexual misconduct, including Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and many others in more than 80 countries. Soon, she was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people and was awarded the prestigious Ridenhour Prize for Courage, which she shares with luminaries such as John Lewis. To Burke, a reckoning on sexual violence on such a large scale was long overdue, but neither her newfound celebrity nor the growing notoriety of the Me Too movement had ever been part of the plan. This case provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of Burke as a leader from her early days as a community organizer to the years after she had become a household name. Burke's refreshingly honest account of her internal and external dilemmas as she created and sustained a movement to empower survivors of sexual violence, against considerable odds-and despite significant backlash from many quarters-offers important lessons for students of leadership everywhere.

Set in 2016 in Hyderabad, India, the case follows Puvvala Yugandhar, Senior Vice President at Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (DRL), as he decides what to do about an underperforming production policy at their plants. Adopted a decade earlier, the policy, called Replenish to Consumption -Pooled (RTC-P), had not delivered the expected results. Specifically, the plants had been seeing an increase in production switchovers and creeping buffer levels for certain products, which had led to higher holding costs and lost sales for certain products. A senior consultant had suggested that DRL switch to a demand estimation-based policy called Replenish to Anticipation (RTA), which attempted to address the above concerns by segregating production capacity and updating buffer levels using demand estimates. However, Yugandhar, well aware of the challenges of changing production policies, wanted to explore a variant of RTC-P called Replenish to Consumption -Dedicated (RTC-D), which followed the same buffer update rules as RTC-P but maintained dedicated capacities for a subset of products.

Ukrainian founder Aleksandr Stepura wants to grow his civilian drone-manufacturing startup Skyeton. Thanks to a local pool of aeronautical expertise inherited from the Soviet period, Stepura rapidly reached product excellence, technically on par with global powerhouses such as Boeing and other manufacturers coming from the military Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) space. Coming from a market approach focused solely on addressing the needs of governmental entities (police, border patrol, coast guards...), Stepura wants to expand the activities to regular B2B sales, for which the sales cycle is much shorter and less dependent on political connections. But moving from B2G to B2B was no easy feat operationally. The startup also had to make other decisions: selling products (drones, as flying platforms or complete systems) or services? Where to re-locate the company? What business model to pursue? How much financing was required? What needs to change in the management team to go from startup to scaleup effectively?

In 2017, the chief executive officer (CEO) and chair of the board for DSM Industrial (DSM), a family-owned business in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, was considering his retirement. The company had been started by his father in 1964, and the CEO had worked there since he was 20 years old. Now he was planning on retiring within the next few years. However, he needed someone to take over the top-level management of his family's commercial and residential construction business along with his roles as CEO and board chair. The company had many highly capable senior people with unique skills and vision-some were members of his family and others were long-time senior staff. If he chose an outside successor, would morale at the firm be affected? Would long-time employees leave? His successor needed technical skills to lead the company and maintain the culture. The decision was complicated by changes in the construction industry, the differing visions of senior management for the future of the company, the need to placate the needs of other family members, and the recent interest from outside parties in the possible purchase of DSM's related companies. How would his family react to a sale, and how would the culture that he had invested so much time and effort in creating fare in the face of new ownership? Did his two positions need to operate separately? How would they interplay with one another? How could he solve his succession dilemma?

Google was once considered a dream place to work at for people in the technology industry. However, the company has faced fierce criticism in recent years for its attempts to suppress the voice of its employees. The past few years have been tumultuous for the company, which has had to grapple with employee protests over the mishandling of sexual harassment claims, retaliation for expression of their disagreement with company policies, and ethic crises related to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For a long time, workers at Google have enjoyed what has become known as the legendary standards of a democratic workplace and corporate perks. Recently, however, they have taken to the streets to protest the destructive work culture of the company. Some discontented employees left the company; others were allegedly fired in retaliation for their actions. Google had historically been characterized as "least bad" among technology giants in terms of the freedom of expression allowed to employees. Is this changing? Why were Google's employees discouraged from voicing their challenges? What approach should company adopt to maintain the trust of employees in channels provided for freedom of expression of its employees? Could the termination of vocal employees be treated as unlawful retaliation? Has Google been struggling to handle workplace harassment complaints? Would alleged improper handling of workplace sexual harassment attract a legal action against the company? How Google should handle workplace harassment complaints in future to avoid legal battles?

The owner of All Women Recycling, a small manufacturing business in South Africa, is perplexed after the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic. She wonders how she should structure business operations to ensure the safety of her staff and meet business goals. She debates between a remote staffing model and a limited staffing model. There will be compensation changes in either approach. The entrepreneur wonders how she should manage employee concerns while continuing to run a profitable business.

In 2018, Vince Wong, the founder and chief operating officer of Toronto-based artificial intelligence firm Dessa, faced the challenge of developing a diverse workforce and a culture supportive of diversity through his hiring practices at the rapidly growing start-up. Until now, Wong had handled all of the hiring at the 30-person firm himself. However, as he expected the firm to double in size within the next year, Wong had hired an internal recruiter and was considering how to formalize and transition hiring in a way that supported expanding diversity within the firm. Wong's main focus was on determining how to support diversity through hiring and inclusion via the development of a staffing system that aligned with his desire to develop a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

When Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) acquired Celgene Corporation in November 2019, Celgene shareholders received cash, BMS stock, and a contingent value right (CVRs) that would pay $9 if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved three of Celgene's late stage drugs by March 31, 2021. Akari Tanaka, a portfolio manager at Kendall Square Advisors, held 400,000 CVRs in her $1.2 billion Health Science Opportunities Fund, and must decide what to do with this holding given the rising concerns about the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. The tradable CVR's peaked at $3.70 in mid-February, fell to a low of $2.15 in mid-March, and were currently trading at just under $3.00 in late March. As part of her decision, Tanaka must value the CVRs using discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis which required an estimate of the expected cash flow and a risk-adjusted discount rate. Given this analysis, she must then decide what to do with her holding-should she sell the CVRs, hold them, or buy more?

The Indian jewellery market is highly fragmented and ruled over by local players. Many unethical practices exist in the jewellery market, like the undercaratage of gold, misrepresentation of quality, etc. Tanishq, part of the Tata Group, is known for maintaining high ethical standards and delivering value to its customers through fair and transparent practices. It has a 6% share in the Indian jewellery retail market. With the festive and wedding season approaching, Ameya Kamat, the Area Business Manager (ABM) at Tanishq in Ahmedabad, had to develop the right mix of pricing approaches to stay ahead of competitors. This case revolves around forming the appropriate strategy for pricing, discounts and salesforce management practices that will drive sales during the festive season for Kamat in Ahmedabad. The crux of the case is how Tanishq, the jewellery business arm of Titan Company Ltd., forms and implements a pricing strategy in a highly unorganised and competitive market at a time of the year when a substantial portion of the annual sales is expected to take place.

In December 2018, Kevin Ryan and Wendy Tsu faced an important decision - to finalize the CEO candidate for Truebird, an innovative, automated coffee café concept. Like many of AlleyCorp and Ryan's companies, Truebird started with the observation of an unmet need - an inability to get good coffee at a reasonable price without a wait. Ryan's track record as a serial entrepreneur included companies such as MongoDB, Gilt Groupe, Zola, and Business Insider. The commonality across AlleyCorp's diverse businesses was a systematic process to ideation, led by Wendy Tsu, and an emphasis on the early Co-founder/CEO. Over the years, Ryan had refined his process of identifying the most appropriate person to serve as CEO. Two strong candidates had been shortlisted for the CEO position at Truebird. Unlike traditional approaches that used the reference check as a safety net, Ryan and Tsu considered reference check interviews as a stronger indicator of on-the-job performance. How should they structure a reference check process that would allow a complete understanding of each candidate? What questions should they ask when they found people who had worked with, or for, each of the candidates?

Zipline established the world's largest logistics network in Rwanda and Ghana by delivering medical supplies to hospitals via automated drones. The company is now looking to expand in the U.S. and partnered with Walmart to expand into home delivery. Zipline must navigate the U.S. regulatory space while prioritizing its growth opportunities domestically and abroad.

Goldman Sachs runs an annual internship for over 3,000 participants, spread across dozens of the firm's global offices. In 2020, the team brought all its resources to bear to transform the internship program into a fully virtual format in just a few short weeks. The new all-virtual internship faced challenges, but also benefited from unexpected opportunities. As the program ended, the team reflected on what worked, what they would change, and what the future of the internship program at Goldman Sachs could look like in 2021 and beyond.

Before CVTE becomes a listed company, people rarely know its idiosyncratic management structure and process. None of the founders has ever served as CEO or Chair of the company, and none has ever been a majority shareholder. They have no need to clock in or out; they are accommodated in nearby apartments provided by the company; they have free canteen facilities; their children have access to high-quality company-run education; there is an internal medical center providing services not only to the employees, but to their families too. These amenities have been provided since the company began, even in the digital age and an era in which competition in the IT industry has been fierce. The key member of the founding team, Sun Yonghui, expresses the company philosophy thus: "We are committed to helping people around us succeed in their career and live a happy life..." It is this commitment that has shaped the unique management and organization of CVTE. The key positions are filled from a shortlist of candidates following a selection process in which all CVTE employees are involved to some extent and at some point. The company's unusual approach extends into product development and business development, growth and expansion. CVTE operates an internal incubation mechanism, under which more and more new businesses have emerged or developed. After the company's listing, the senior management team came under increasing pressure to sustain rapid growth. Given the limited growth space for traditional businesses, CVTE pursued new growth by continuously incubating new businesses, which placed higher demands on human capital. However, due to the uncertainty of profitability, new businesses often struggled to attract talent-specially sales personnel-unlike traditional businesses which had secured stable markets and enjoyed steady growth. Moreover, despite substantial initial investments, new businesses struggled to be profitable in the early stages. In addition, larger investment

LakeDiamond is a company founded in 2015 in Yverdon, close to Geneva, in Switzerland. Its goal was to leverage an industrialized method of producing high-purity diamonds through a process called "micro-wave chemical vapor deposition" (CVD). Such diamonds are much purer than diamonds obtained through mining, allowing for novel industrial uses for diamonds, such as in watchmaking or in developing military applications. An initial funding round allowed LakeDiamond to demonstrate its ability to grow such diamonds in an industrial reactor. In 2017, LakeDiamond's founder Pascal Gallo started seeking new funding to scale up the operation. At the same time, the hype around blockchains had started to drive a surge in startup funding through Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). As Gallo was reluctant to dilute his ownership and control over the venture, he decided to raise the money needed for LakeDiamond's expansion through an ICO. Despite significant press coverage regarding blockchains, ICOs remained at the time relatively niche investments. Therefore, to target a wider base of investors, Gallo partnered with Swissquote, a prominent Swiss online bank that was at the forefront in offering to layman investors access to crypto-currencies. The ICO did raise sufficient funds for new reactors to be purchases and production to start. However, LakeDiamond's sales never really picked up afterwards and by early 2020 the company was filing for bankruptcy. Framed from the perspective of a small investor assessing the opportunity of investing in LakeDiamond's ICO, the case is based on publicly released information by the company, and especially on its ICO. Extensive interviews with ICO experts who assessed the LakeDiamond fundraising at the time were also conducted.

The case tells the story of Dell Technologies and its efforts to revitalize its value proposition and escape a commodity trap by acquiring EMC for $67 billion-the largest tech acquisition in history. It also shows the deeply intertwined connections between a company's business strategy and its go-to-market operations. Michael Dell founded Dell Inc. in 1984 to assemble PCs. The company quickly became the market share leader by the end of the century. By 2008 (before the recession), Dell had expanded into servers, networking and storage, as well as services. Still, the hardware market was beginning to commoditize, with the trend accelerating after the recession. EMC, founded in 1979, had a similar story. It became the dominant player in data storage through early 2000 only to find that new technologies and nimble competitors were putting its business under severe commodity pressure by the turn of the century. Thus in 2015, when Dell made a $67 billion acquisition of EMC, many knowledgeable IT industry observers found it hard to comprehend the logic of two commodity/hardware players coming together. By then, most enterprises, large and small, were eyeing digital transformation. Cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud seemed to be serving their needs. Thus Michael Dell had to carefully construct a strategic position for the newly constituted Dell company in the rapidly evolving IT market space. In addition, Dell and EMC also had to decide how to merge their Go-to-Market operations to gain the synergies promised by the merger. Dell had over 365,000 customers and EMC nearly 430,000. Dell had 17,000 salespeople and EMC, 7,000. Each had over 10,000 channel partners. Adding a wrinkle to the merger was a third actor, VMware, an independently listed cloud software company, 80% owned by the new Dell Technologies entity. Integrating their software capability would be an exciting opportunity and a challenge.

In January 2020, India-based KhataBook, a digital ledger app for small businesses, is led by CEO Ravish Naresh, as his team faces a series of dilemmas regarding where to focus next.

Daily Table is a case about a grocery chain with two outposts in Boston neighborhoods Dorchester and Roxbury. Its mission is to provide healthy food at lower prices to people in lower-income neighborhoods. The case explores Daily Table's responsibility to its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic amid a series of changes to wages.