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In 2010, amid a flurry of new discoveries, Cynthia Bamdad, founder and CEO of Minerva Biotechnologies Corporation (Minerva), raised $6.6 million to test her new cancer drugs in mice. It had been more than 6 years since she had announced that she and her small team at Minerva had identified the mechanism that caused 96% of all breast cancers and had discovered a number of small molecule drugs and antibodies to block it. Funding the next stage of development had proven very difficult, but, undeterred, Bamdad had raised enough to keep her laboratory open and continue her research work. In the process, she made the startling discovery that the "cancer" mechanism she had discovered was an integral part of the production of all human embryonic stem cells, and that cancer was a result of this mechanism going awry. As a result, Minerva developed the ability to produce high-quality stem cells, which opened up a whole range of new commercial opportunities for the company, including advanced therapeutics and processes for growing and replacing human cells of all types. However, resources were limited. Where should she focus her efforts?

In March 2020, Dr. Cynthia Bamdad, founder and CEO of Minerva Biotechnologies Inc. (Minerva), was reviewing the first results of human clinical trials for the company's novel CAR-T drug therapeutic, one of the first ever to target solid cancer tumors. The results looked promising. CAR-T therapeutics were a new field attracting a lot of scientific interest. They involved genetically re-engineering a patient's T-cells, a key element of the human immune system, to attack the cancer. The first CAR-T treatments for cancer were developed for the relatively small field of blood cancers, 7% of all cancers. For instance, early pioneer Kite Pharma Inc. (Kite) developed a treatment for a special type of lymphoma that only affected 7,500 patients a year. Still, the financial interest was huge, and Kite was acquired by Gilead Sciences Inc. in August 2017 for $11.9 billion. Similarly, Juno Therapeutics Inc. was acquired by Celgene Corporation for $9 billion in January 2018. Minerva's therapeutics targeted 96% of all breast cancers and 46% of prostate cancers, a market that was orders of magnitude larger. After 21 years, Bamdad believed that Minerva was on the threshold of something really big. Should Bamdad sell the business and work within a larger organization? Or should she IPO and continue to develop the company's long-term pipeline of therapeutics and diagnostics?

In June 2020, GreenFire Energy Inc. (GreenFire) presented its report to the California Energy Commission indicating that its proof of concept project to demonstrate its new geothermal electricity generation technology, ECO2Gâ„¢, had been a success. While conventional geothermal electricity only supplied 0.5% of US demand, the new technology promised to increase this to 25% by drilling much deeper. Moreover, it was a closed-loop system which didn't involve fracking like conventional geothermal and promised to be much more cost effective. Unlike other renewables, ECO2G could also provide baseload power 24 hours a day and be adjusted quickly to match demand. CEO Joseph Scherer likened it to the beginning of the oil rush. "When the oil industry first started, prospectors focused on places where oil was seeping out of the ground. Now, they drill for it in deep oceans. Same with geothermal, but geothermal is much easier to find, and there is a lot more of it!" Now Scherer and John Muir, brother of founder Mark Muir, had to choose how they would commercialize the technology. They had many choices.

Tulsa Remote sought to attract a diverse group of remote workers to the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma-and was willing to put its money where its mouth was, offering $10,000 and a range of wraparound services for its program participants. After a successful pilot year, which saw the program select 100 participants out of more than 10,000 applicants, Tulsa Remote was excited to begin its second round of applications. However, the program faced an ongoing challenge attracting Black men to participate in the program. The team wondered what they could do to make their program-and their community-feel more welcoming. Meanwhile, as the second group of remote workers began making plans to move to Tulsa, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. How would the program deal with the effects of the pandemic, both on the local economy and on remote work in general?

In this fictional case, Alex, a real estate developer, is at a crossroads in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. His company is a year away from completing a 700,000-square-foot commercial office complex in downtown Moscow, but construction has paused, and the economic future is uncertain. One of his partners, who's with a Russian company, proposes that they cut their losses and sell to a company in Kazakhstan. The other, a managing director with a large investment portfolio, thinks they can ride out the crisis. Alex has put six years into this project; now he must decide how to proceed. This fictional case study by Cody Evans and Chris Mahowald features expert commentary by Sheila Botting and Brian Patterson.

In this fictional case, Alex, a real estate developer, is at a crossroads in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. His company is a year away from completing a 700,000-square-foot commercial office complex in downtown Moscow, but construction has paused, and the economic future is uncertain. One of his partners, who's with a Russian company, proposes that they cut their losses and sell to a company in Kazakhstan. The other, a managing director with a large investment portfolio, thinks they can ride out the crisis. Alex has put six years into this project; now he must decide how to proceed. This fictional case study by Cody Evans and Chris Mahowald features expert commentary by Sheila Botting and Brian Patterson.

In this fictional case, Alex, a real estate developer, is at a crossroads in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. His company is a year away from completing a 700,000-square-foot commercial office complex in downtown Moscow, but construction has paused, and the economic future is uncertain. One of his partners, who's with a Russian company, proposes that they cut their losses and sell to a company in Kazakhstan. The other, a managing director with a large investment portfolio, thinks they can ride out the crisis. Alex has put six years into this project; now he must decide how to proceed. This fictional case study by Cody Evans and Chris Mahowald features expert commentary by Sheila Botting and Brian Patterson.

In 2016, the general manager of Stone Rock Golf & Country Club (SRGCC) in Ainslie, Ontario, was considering an opportunity to grow the club's weddings and special events business. SRGCC, a popular 18-hole golf course in a small town, was owned and operated by four local families, who ran the business according to their family values and their sense of loyalty and pride in their community. Since the golf industry had recently experienced a significant decline, the manager believed that increased investment in the weddings and special events business would help to strengthen and diversify SRGCC's revenues. He was considering three different options, from modest to quite substantial: (1) focus on the immediate capital need of renovating the outdated maintenance facility; (2) make a large investment that included adding a new space for weddings and special events, expanded parking, and a new maintenance facility; or (3) do nothing and maintain the status quo. To complete the entire renovation, the club would require an investment of close to $1 million as well as approval from the four families. How could he build a case to increase SRGCC's revenues and convince both his banker and the board of directors to accept his choice?

The sole owner of the Gusto 54 Restaurant Group (Gusto 54), which owned and operated nine restaurant concepts in Toronto and Los Angeles, had grown the restaurant group into a huge success story. In a competitive, low-margin industry, Gusto 54 outperformed its peers and consistently achieved its desired profit margins. Gusto 54's strategy was grounded in innovative growth, the use of technology, and empowerment of all employees to take an entrepreneurial approach to their roles. The owner had grown the company strategically, making business decisions based on her belief that her most valuable resource was having the right employees. She focused on building culture, hiring employees who fit the culture, and investing in the employee experience to retain them. She also made efforts to keep the leadership team lean and to include all members in decision-making. While Gusto 54's strategy had fuelled its present growth, in 2020, the owner was concerned about the impacts of rapid expansion. She wondered how to balance growth plans with the need to hire and retain top talent and maintain an engaged, motivated workforce. How could she scale up without losing the family-style culture her employees valued?

Asocomún and Peacebuilders are two organizations that have made an oral and informal agreement to present a joint proposal to the European Union (henceforth the EU) about coexistence incubators in schools. Peacebuilders has been working on the technical and economic proposal for the last month and despite having had several meetings with Asocomún, they never defined how to distribute the budget between the two organizations. Both organizations worked on the premise that it was very important to carry out the project due to its social scope and therefore the economic issues became secondary, assuming, moreover, that it would be easy to reach an agreement. This, however, was not the case.

Green Monday began in 2012 in Hong Kong as a nonprofit organization advocating sustainability and a plant-based diet. After three years of consumer education, in 2015, the group set up a commercial branch, Green Common, as a retailer and wholesaler of plant-based groceries. In 2017, the group further diversified its business to set up an R&D company, which successfully formulated Asia's first plant-based minced meat, OmniPork, in April 2018. Two months later, it opened its first restaurant, Kind Kitchen. In November 2018, Green Monday Group officially launched in Singapore, its first international market, where it partners with a local distributor to sell plant-based products across the country. Currently, the Green Monday nonprofit movement is present in over 30 countries, while the Green Common commercial platform is available in 7 countries, with plans for China and the UK by the end of 2019. This growth was especially impressive in the pessimistic socioeconomic atmosphere in the second half of 2019, when both the local and global economy were doomed by political tensions. Green Monday Group is a "miracle" that performs strongly and surprisingly well in this negative climate. How does Green Monday Group commercialize a philanthropic idea with a sustainable business structure? What are the factors should it consider when it chooses its international market? What business model should it adopt in its overseas operations? How does it manage domestic and international supplier risk?

The Bridgestone case takes place in an increasingly tough landscape for the passenger car tire industry in Europe. Competitive pressure keeps increasing from Asian importers, the Retail channel is shrinking, end-consumers understand neither the product nor the development and technology behind it - they don't understand differences between brands and products and are not permeable to traditional marketing tools. Furthermore, the car market is aging and decreasing year after year. Bridgestone group is the world-leading tire manufacturer. In this thrilling and changing reality, several strategic decisions have to be made by the Bridgestone group in Spain in terms of where to invest (channel, product, brand, research, logistics etc.) and how to invest (price, advertising, consumer promotion, trade marketing). This case demonstrates the need to invest with an omnichannel mindset.

Nubank, a wholly-digital solution created to disrupt Brazilian banking, with 6 million clients and a $4 billion valuation after five years, must decide whether to expand to Mexico. The company was founded in São Paulo in 2013 by Colombian-born David Vélez to seize what he saw as the opportunity latent in a banking system long dominated by five large incumbents with what he considered low value products and deficient customer service. The answer for Vélez was through technology. Backed by foreign venture capitalists and recruiting a top team, Vélez launched a credit card available solely through a smartphone app, with quick approval and no annual fee, with credit and payments totally online and transparent, friendly customer service, completely up-ending the traditional terms of the market. Nubank's credit card became viral among the Brazilian urban middle-class and by the end of 2018, the company was the fifth credit card issuer in Brazil with over 6 million cardholders. A second product, a digital banking account, also changed market terms by offering services at no fees and yielding higher interest rates. By 2018, Nubank had $628.8 million in deposits. With success, a multitude of opportunities were now open and Nubank and its board must define strategic priorities. Within Brazil, Nubank's market share was still minor compared to the incumbents, and there were many other financial products that could be launched. In addition, 30% of Brazilians remained unbanked. Yet Vélez and his team were convinced that the whole of Latin America had the same banking pain points as Brazil and was ripe for Nubank products. For Vélez, the gateway to unlocking that potential was through Mexico.

This case explores the corporate finance issues arising from the suspension of HSBC Holdings plc's (HSBC, stock code: 5.HK) dividend payout in March 2020. Such abrupt change in pattern was immediately met with tremendous reverberation and discussion in the market. The case seeks to highlight the considerations of HSBC in deciding on a dividend policy, both from a corporate finance and behavioral finance perspective. Through the case, students will grapple with the practical questions of how a listed company should structure its dividend payout pattern. The pattern is structured in such a way to satisfy the operational and financial needs of itself while minimizing the negative impacts to shareholder relationships. There is a dilemma that a listed company's dividend policy, while constituting part of the current cost of capital, is a means to maintaining a stable share price and shareholder "clientele". As such, it is important for students to be aware when such dilemma arises, how to strike a healthy balance between satisfying the shareholders and adhering to Milton Friedman's "business of business is business" convention.

In January 2020, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Salt n Soap, an online retailer of food and groceries in Kolkata, India, was reviewing the company's strategy and business model. Salt n Soap had been in operation for six years, and now offered nearly 15,000 food and grocery (F&G) products of 1,000 distinct brands through its online retailing website. However, the Indian online F&G retail industry was highly competitive. Salt n Soap had a limited business footprint, mainly concentrated in Kolkata, India and unlike its competitors, it had not raised external equity funding. The CEO had to quickly reassess the current business model and strategy and prepare for the oncoming challenges from an increasingly competitive business environment. The decision had to be made before the end of the month so that any strategic changes could be implemented within the current financial year.

In 2019, after one year in the position, H. Lawrence Culp Jr., the first outsider chief executive officer (CEO) of General Electric Company (GE) was faced with the task of gaining the stock market's faith in his ability to turn GE around. During the tenure of his two predecessors (from 2001 to 2018), GE's stock price had declined significantly, and investors were concerned. The new CEO introduced the lean management philosophy and restructured divisions like GE Power to enhance free cash flow (FCF), a key concern of GE investors. By October 2019, analysts believed that strategies taken by him were not enough to improve GE's stock market performance. Could he, as an outsider, prove to be a better CEO than the insiders had been? How should he manage GE's business units? How could he increase FCF and the market valuation of GE? Should he continue with lean management?

In June 2019, the cofounders of BharatAgri, an Indian agritech (agricultural technology)-focused entrepreneurial venture, were reviewing their strategy. BharatAgri leveraged information technology to provide crop-management related advisory services to Indian farmers and provided data analytics-driven decision dashboards to organizations that worked with farmers. They had onboarded nearly 6,000 Indian farmer-customers and had raised ₹40 million (INR) of venture capital funding to date. Their target was to onboard 20,000 farmers as paying customers by 2021. Could they also generate revenues by selling farm-management related data to agriculture-related organizations? In the next meeting, they were expected to present a comprehensive and cogent strategy to their financiers.

In 2019, the co-founders of the Swedish medical start-up 1928 Diagnostics, CEO Dr. Kristina Lagerstedt and COO Dr. Susanne Staaf, had to pick the right business model to commercialize their novel technology to hospitals and health care providers. Developed in partnership with research hospitals to help fight the global antibiotic resistance crisis, the firm's cloud-based technology platform helped partners identify resistant genes and mutations in bacteria more quickly and accurately, allowing for easier outbreak cluster tracking in support of hospital infection control management, as well as better diagnostics and antibiotic selection. By 2019, they had raised $5 million, employed 16 people, and had their tool deployed at 24 partner sites in 10 different countries. Their decisions on which markets to focus on and with which business model would crucially impact the young firm's chances at successfully converting existing users and attracting new clients.

By 2020, Sangu Delle (MBA 2016) has already made significant progress towards his life-long goal of solving Africa's myriad and diverse challenges. At 33 years old, he is the founder and chairman of the for-profit Golden Palm Investments Corporation, CEO of Africa Health Holdings Limited, author of a book on entrepreneurship in Africa, founder of a nonprofit (Cleanacwa) that brings improved fresh water infrastructure to African towns and villages, and serves in numerous other volunteer and trustee roles. He believes that he needs to work at scale and across national borders in order to solve the problems that he has identified, but he cannot help but wonder: are his efforts simply too big and too broad? Would it make more sense for him to focus on just one (or a few) industries, causes, or geographies, and perhaps grow from there? Could he reasonably expect to have meaningful impact by going for scale right away?