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In June 2017, Barry Callebaut, the largest B2B cocoa and chocolate company in the world renewed its revolving credit facility (RCF) introducing a novel feature suggested by the Dutch bank ING: the margin on the RCF would be tied to the company's ESG score from Sustainalytics, a leading sustainability agency, as a way to "make sustainability truly pay". A year later, Barry Callebaut has made progress towards the ambitious environmental and social goals of its Forever Chocolate programme, yet its ESG score has fallen almost to the level where the margin on the RCF will increase.

This case provides students with an opportunity to analyze and define a desired positioning for Procter & Gamble's (P&G's) US employer brand. In addition to enabling students to actively engage in assessing and creating a brand positioning, this case gives students a rare opportunity to analyze the type of brand image data that brand managers use. Considered highly confidential, few cases enable students to see and interpret such data. Finally, this case provides insight into a type of branding-employer branding-for which there is little public information as it has only recently come into vogue.

Derrick and Desmon Lewis were both successful professionals in the consulting and banking industries. They were born and raised in The Bronx, New York City's poorest borough. The Lewis brothers had always wanted to give back to the community. In 2016 they launched a community foundation-The Bronx Community Foundation-dedicated to improving the lives of Bronxites. While a lot of good had been happening in The Bronx, Derrick and Desmon believed that a community foundation would help to bring the systemic and institutional change to the borough; change they felt was necessary to bring economic, health, educational, etc., equality to The Bronx. Yet, nearly four years later, they had managed to raise little from donors; headwinds included those in the community who did not support the idea of a community foundation. When COVID-19 struck New York City in March 2020, the Lewises saw an opportunity to demonstrate the need for a place-based convener organization, such as a community foundation, in The Bronx. A relief effort was launched with a host of partners, which raised $10 million to help people of The Bronx who were impacted by COVID-19. Now in late July, the Lewises wanted to build on the momentum of the relief fund to finally get support and traction for the community foundation. They had much to decide: How to raise money for the foundation, which would need to come primarily from outside of the borough; who should lead the foundation; and what should be the foundation's operating model. The Lewises believed there was a window of opportunity that they needed to seize to turn their dream of a community foundation for The Bronx into a reality. The case provides an overview of community foundations in the U.S., an overview of The Bronx, The Bronx Community Relief Effort, and the Lewis brothers' early days and their efforts to start a community foundation, the opportunity, and the challenges.

This case describes Visa Inc's (Visa) challenges in light of the growing influence of financial technology companies (fintech) in the payments space. In 2018, Visa had firmly established its leadership in the industry with its ubiquitous network of merchants, customers, and financial institutions in 200 countries. However, the rise of fintech over the past two decades had led to an explosion of new competitors and new methods of payment. While Visa found it easier to collaborate with the big tech (e.g. apple) and payment ecosystem (e.g. Paypal) companies in adopting new technologies and offering new payment solutions, it found it challenging to partner with emerging fintech's (e.g. TransferWise and Paytm) fast evolving business models. In less-mature markets, the emerging fintech's low go-to-market cost often bypassed the need for expensive physical payments infrastructure. And, in mature markets, new technologies leapfrogged the traditional card payment infrastructure by building direct connections with merchants and customers through alternate networks. How should Visa proceed vis-à-vis these start-ups that were seeking to redefine the payments industry? Should it preserve its legacy position by competing against these fintechs or should it seek collaborations with them to avail of mutually beneficial market opportunities? Or should it take the lead as a facilitator, actively invest in the start-ups, partner with them, and drive innovation in the payments industry?

In April 2020, Scott Einsenberg, the Head of Credit at the private equity firm Francisco Partners, is deciding whether to go ahead with extending a private lending agreement to Eventbrite, Inc. (NYSE: EB), a leading global event management and online ticketing technology platform that has been severely impacted by the cancellation of events in the face of the global coronavirus pandemic. These would be one of the first investments the recently raised Francisco Partners Credit Opportunity Fund ("FP Credit") would make. The case provide students with opportunities to explore private debt markets, the structure, strategy, and management of private credit funds, the evolution of credit and private credit in recent years, the structure and pricing of private credit agreements, the risk and return of private credit as an investment, and the analysis of a specific investing opportunity in this area.

In 2018 the majority ownership of publicly owned Wilderness Safaris, the leading high-end ecotourism company in Africa with safari operations in eight countries, was acquired by The Rise Fund, one of the world's largest private social impact investing funds, and by FS Investors, a private equity investment firm. This is a follow-on case to "Wilderness Safaris: Ecotourism Entrepreneurship," (HBS No. 9-318-040) which focuses on the company's origins, growth, and distinctive 4C business model based on Commerce, Conservation, Community, and Culture. The two cases can be used sequentially or independently. The current case provides an opportunity to examine the investment rationale of the impact funds and their methodology for measuring and assessing nonfinancial impact variables, such as avoided deforestation and the social cost and pricing of averted carbon emissions. Changes and effects in governance resulting from the buy-out and the subsequent taking the firm private are presented. The case poses strategic investment decisions in Rwanda and Angola, which is the source of the Okavango Delta and the second largest forested region of the world. Questions of business decision making based on the preservation of natural capital and the management of the region's protected areas are reviewed. It ends with the challenges from the emergence of the COVID 19 pandemic in March 2020.

Over the last decade, experimentation has become integral to the research and development processes of technology companies-including Yelp-for understanding customer preferences and mitigating innovation risks. The case describes Yelp's journey with experimentation, from running a few experiments across various teams to building a centralized experimentation platform that standardized and improved the experimentation process. Concurrently, the case describes a pivotal experiment to evaluate the impact of geographically constrained adverts on user experience and revenue. The results of the experiment are not included in the case but are part of supplementary data (courseware no. 621-703); instructors can either provide the data to the students or give the results in a table as part of the assignment questions. Based on the results, the protagonist must determine an appropriate course of action, carefully managing the various trade-offs.

In 2017, the chief executive officer of Rawayeti Foods, a Pakistani company dedicated to ensuring the purity and quality of its spices and pulses, was considering the future of his family-owned business. The company had experienced great success since its inception in 2011, but Rawayeti Foods was planning to expand its operations into other parts of the company. Formalized management practices, job descriptions, and performance management systems were not in place, but the chief executive officer and his sons knew expansion would be successful only if the company formalized its human resources management policies and practices for consistent country-wide implementation. Had the time come to shift focus from operational matters to management and human resources concerns? Could Rawayeti Foods gain buy-in from its employees and introduce a new performance management system that was seen as fair, equitable, and motivating?

This case describes the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by the Walt Disney Company and the subsequent launch by Disney of three streaming channels to compete with Netflix.

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?

During the early 1980s, young gay men in urban centers such as San Francisco and New York City began contracting a mysterious illness that would come to be known as HIV/AIDS. A diagnosis meant almost certain death, with a less than 1% survival rate. Conflicting priorities and agendas within a range of institutions-such as federal and local governments, the medical bureaucracy, incentive structures, and religious convictions-resulted in a failure to mitigate the outbreak. HIV/AIDS infections grew to pandemic proportions leading to one of the largest public health crises in American history.

In 1985, pop music superstar Michael Jackson instructed his attorney, John Branca, to make a bid for the Northern Songs music catalog, which contained the songs of the Beatles. In a challenging negotiation with Australian media baron Robert Holmes à Court, Branca secured the rights to the collection. Over the next three decades, first as Jackson's attorney and later as the executor of his estate, Branca undertook numerous complex negotiations to secure and expand Jackson's music publishing empire until it became the largest music publishing company in the world.

This case uses Apple Inc. (Apple) and its Mac line of personal computers (PCs) to allow for an analysis of competitive positioning and the building of sustainable competitive advantage. In spring 2020, as Apple evolves its various product offerings, a product manager at Apple must think about how the Mac fits into its broader product portfolio. What is the future for desktops and laptops broadly and the Mac specifically? The case facilitates an exploration of Apple's underlying capabilities and broader market dynamics, in the face of uncertainty over the industry's future direction, and it highlights the way in which Apple made deliberate strategic choices for the Mac that have worked to alleviate the typical competitive pressures of the laptop industry. The case provides a historical summary and an overview of the current forces in the PC industry, including market-share trends, mobile computing, cloud computing services, the Mac portfolio of products, and competitors. The case offers the opportunity to conduct a five forces analysis as well as explore to competitive advantage and market position. Crucially, the case highlights the possibility of carving out a valuable competitive position even in an industry with difficult competitive dynamics. This case is used at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business in "Strategic Thinking and Action," a required course in the first-year core curriculum of the MBA and EMBA programs, and the students' introduction to the discipline of strategic management. This case can be used to introduce or build upon the five forces framework and connect theory with action.

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) was founded in 2010 to develop a common set of sustainability standards for the apparel, footwear, and home textile industries. The organization was an example of pre-competitive collaboration, a strategy in which companies within an industry band together to tackle shared challenges. The SAC created the Higg Index to help companies, organizations, and consumers better evaluate and track value chain and product sustainability performance for both environmental and social issues. By providing visibility and transparency across apparel industry value chains, the tool allowed companies to benchmark their performance with peers and identify areas for improvement. However, companies using the Higg Index were not allowed to publicly publish their Higg ratings before a fully developed third-party verification program was established, delaying the very transparency that the tool intended to promote and opening the SAC up to criticism. The case opens with Sean Cady, the newly appointed chairman of the SAC board of directors, pondering how to respond to requests for greater Higg Index transparency from Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization.

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.

In March 2020, as COVID-19 spreads rapidly across the U.S., Everlywell founder Julia Cheek considers how to respond as a small start-up specializing in at-home lab testing. After making dramatic budget cuts, she decides to pivot the organization to address the country's testing shortage. But after a hectic few weeks building capacity at her partner labs to 30,000 COVID daily tests, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) releases a statement warning the public that it has not granted approval for at-home tests. Cheek must decide whether to return to her core business or persist in focusing her nascent organization on COVID-19 tests, an opportunity whose commercial merit is unclear.

Spencer's Retail, a fast-moving consumer goods retail chain in India, had been perceived as an expensive retailer exclusively for high-end consumers. A new sector head took over in 2013 and shifted the store from a positioning statement of "Taste the World" to "Make Fine Living Affordable." Within five years, Spencer's was making a profit. However, traditional grocery stores continued to dominate the Indian retail scene and were more heavily frequented by Indian shoppers. To maintain a sustainable profit, Spencer's had to expand the business by opening more retail outlets and increasing same-store sales growth by increasing footfalls and basket size. What store format and combination of private label and national label products would help Spencer's reach this goal?

Jonathan Lachowitz founded a start-up venture in the Financial Planning industry called White Lighthouse Investment Management in 2006. He targeted a niche segment (US citizens living abroad) that had a critical problem that was not addressed by existing companies (e.g. US Tax Reporting). The organization has grown slowly and consistently. In 2015 the current form of organization is stretched to a maximum. There are several decisions Jonathan needs to make, he needs to decide whether or not to hire new employees or partners and he needs to come up with a strategy on what type of clients he should accept.

Philip Morris International (PMI) CEO André Calantzopoulos announced in 2016 a radical pivot in the Marlboro cigarette manufacturer's strategy: the company would shift to "smoke-free" products in more than 180 countries around the world. One of these products was IQOS, a new "heat-not-burn" (HNB) device aimed at providing the world's over 1 billion "adult smokers with better options." The innovation of the products which, PMI claimed, were less harmful than cigarettes was welcomed by many investors and PMI. Calantzopoulos and PMI's Board of Directors believed that its sustainability strategy was critical to the company's long-term success. Nevertheless, convincing important stakeholders that a tobacco company could be part of the solution to rid the world of cigarettes by offering better alternatives was a different matter. The United Nations, World Health Organization (WHO), regulators, public health advocates, and some sustainable investors said that there was no safe level of use and no opportunity for effective engagement with tobacco companies. After a two-year wait, the US FDA issued an order authorizing the sale of IQOS in the US market of 40 million smokers. The FDA found that IQOS was "appropriate for the protection of health." PMI organized the 2020 Stakeholder Engagement Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland to convene key stakeholders to engage with PMI's smoke-free business transformation.