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For years, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz - a small, New York City law firm - has consistently boasted the highest profits per partner and one of the highest "prestige" ratings among U.S.-based law firms. The firm has remained loyal to a distinctive strategy ever since its founding in 1965. Whereas most law firms have multiple offices, seek long-term retainer relationships with clients, operate across multiple services, and bill by the hour, Wachtell Lipton operates from a single location, offers legal services on a matter-by-matter basis, focuses on transactional work (primarily M&A advisory), and value bills for its services. Despite its extraordinary success, as the legal services market evolves and the firm's name partners, 87-year-old Herbert Wachtell and 88-year-old Marty Lipton, approach retirement, questions arise about whether Wachtell Lipton's magic formula will continue to yield extraordinary results in coming years.

In the summer of 2019, Mike Klingensmith, CEO of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Twin Cities metro region's largest newspaper, reviewed subscription trends and plans for future experimentation. The newspaper industry across the U.S. had suffered a steep decline for the previous several decades as digital offerings supplanted print subscriptions. Under Klingensmith's leadership, the Star Tribune had fared better than many papers, emerging from bankruptcy with a robust newsroom and with print profitable and digital growing. But given ongoing shifts in consumer media habits, flat EBITDA was still the best-case scenario that the Tribune could reach for. To meet this goal, Klingensmith and his team had put in place new digital offerings and had developed a number of creative additions to the print paper to offset subscription declines and print ad losses. Klingensmith believed that the plans they had put in place would allow the paper to survive in the new news landscape of the 21st century, but as he prepared to meet with the paper's owner, a local, family-owned holding company, he wondered how confident he could be in his forecasts.

This case, set in May 2019, details the launch strategy of the German automobile company AUDI AG (Audi) for its model A8 sedan, the world's first Level 3 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) conditional automated vehicle. A Level 3 vehicle uses technology and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms derived from advanced programming to control itself under specific conditions, enabling the human driver to take their eyes off the road and their hands off the steering wheel. Given the fast-paced nature of technology development and the emerging status of the autonomous vehicle industry, this case provides several class discussion points, including first-mover advantage and influencing technological standards in an emerging industry, the ethical implications of technology development and the programming of autonomous vehicles to make decisions, and the role of government regulations and customers in autonomous vehicle programming. Further discussions could address the development of smart cities and related technology, the data privacy issues of autonomous vehicles, the decisions of an established company to develop a risky technology, and future international market entries with these vehicles.

La Maison Simons was a successful 178-year-old, family-run fashion retailer with 15 locations across Canada and over CA$500 million in sales in 2018. On September 6, 2018, the president and chief executive officer (CEO), supported and approved the launch of a new marketing campaign featuring brassieres named after historic Canadian women. One of those women was the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin. Within hours of the launch of the marketing campaign, La Maison Simons's social media feed erupted with comments from angry users who viewed the campaign as objectifying and sexualizing iconic Canadian women. McLachlin was also upset, the company having named one of the bras after her with her permission. Following a phone conversation with McLachlin, the CEO issued a formal apology and destroyed all materials related to the campaign. At McLachlin's request, the company also became involved with fundraising for a women's shelter. The CEO, who was embarrassed by the marketing campaign and quickly took responsibility for his mistake, was concerned that he had tarnished the company's brand. Had he done enough to redeem it? What more could he do in the short and long term to improve the company's reputation? What had he learned from this disastrous marketing campaign?

Mindtree Limited (Mindtree) was promoted by a group of first generation entrepreneurs and had established itself as a successful digital business company. Larsen & Toubro Limited (L&T), a successful conglomerate primarily in the business domains of construction and engineering, was looking to increase its footprint in information technology services. In 2019, L&T acquired more than 20 per cent stake in Mindtree and sought to increase its stake to 66 per cent by acquiring shares in the open market and making open offers to shareholders. Though Mindtree's management and promoters were very much opposed to this takeover attempt, the company's ability to keep a determined acquirer with deep pockets at bay would not come easy. The promoters of Mindtree, who had nurtured the company for the last two decades, faced the real threat of losing management control to L&T, the large and aggressive corporate group.

Ronds Science & Technology Incorporated Company (Ronds) was a leading smart solutions provider in China's machine condition monitoring market. Since its establishment, 10 years earlier, the high-tech company's monitoring and diagnostic solutions have been implemented across various industries, with the strongest foothold in the wind energy industry. However, the co-founder and chairman of Ronds observed that most Chinese industrial enterprises were slow in adopting technology in the area of maintenance and repair, and long sales cycles had led to Ronds missing its 2016 sales target. News of the Chinese central government's plans to redistribute wind energy projects across China to new provinces also followed. Given Ronds's weak profitability performance and the recent change in government policies, the company had to consider whether it should focus on further penetrating the wind energy market or expand to other industries. As either approach had its own challenges, the cofounder and his senior management looked to identify the best growth strategy for Ronds to remain competitive in the industry 4.0 era.

This case is part of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum. To see other material in the GVV curriculum, please visit http://store.darden.virginia.edu/giving-voice-to-values. After joining an international environmental consultancy firm, Ma Jun, a journalist in the People's Republic of China, was increasingly interested in environmental issues. Wanting to do more than report on these issues, he started to consider founding a nongovernmental organization (NGO) focusing on environmental protection and relying on public participation to keep companies accountable. This idea became the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE). In the course of establishing the IPE, Ma encountered so many crucial problems and challenges that he wondered if he could still go on, and how he could do so effectively.

Can a "set your own salary" system boost employee happiness and motivation? Spiber made synthetic silk built from proteins mimicking the proteins found in spider silk, the world's toughest known material by weight. Kazuhide Sekiyama and Junichi Sugahara established Spiber to create protein materials that would eventually compete effectively with petrochemical-based materials widely used in apparel, auto parts, and airplane components, among many other applications. From the beginning, they envisioned a team built on mutual respect and a common purpose. The executive team wanted the company's compensation system to match the organization's values. Thus, the company had implemented a unique salary-setting process designed to inspire autonomy and responsibility among employees: each employee retained the ultimate authority to choose his or her own salary. The members of the executive team were excited about the "set your own salary" system, but was it having the intended effect?

In May 2018, Malaysia's 14th General Election saw a change of power that many thought they would never witness in their lifetimes. The political party that had ruled Malaysia for 60 year was kicked out of office by a 92 year-old challenger, Mahathir Mohamed, who had also been its leader and longest serving prime minister. These surprising events seemed to involve a financial scandal of historic proportions. The ousted Prime Minister, known as Najib, was associated with a sovereign wealth fund, 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), that had, with the aid of Goldman Sachs, borrowed 7 billion USD in global capital markets, all of which was squandered and some in remarkable fashion. An unknown young Malaysian of Chinese descent, Jho Low, had siphoned billions into his personal accounts, throwing parties for celebrities from Bangkok to LA. Was the Malaysian experience an idiosyncratic event in the trajectory of global capital markets or were its lessons more generalizable? The case explores illiberal actors in global financial markets and the dynamics of accountability in sovereign borrowing.

Voi Technology, a fast-growing start-up out of Sweden, is competing in the highly contested European e-scooter sharing market. With a presence in nearly 40 cities in Europe by February 2020, the firm is working hard to improve its unit economics to reach profitability. In the meantime, Voi must also edge out its rivals to claim market share. As cities begin to regulate the space, Voi's leaders hope their strong relationships with government regulators will allow them to secure the few permits cities are expected to grant.

In late 2017, Kate Ryder, the founder and CEO of digital women's health telemedicine company Maven Clinic, faced an important decision. Maven offered both a direct to consumer (D2C) product that anyone could use to book virtual appointments with health practitioners across a range of services and specialties for a fee, and an enterprise product-the Maven Family Benefits platform-which it sold to large employers as an employee benefit. Since founding Maven in 2014, Ryder had believed that the way to achieve true impact and scale is to work within that system, but the most effective strategy for pursuing enterprise customers was an open question. She considered her options.

Brazilian factions so fiercely opposed one another that for a century and a half they had contested not just state policies but the rules and structure of the state itself. Was this politics, so unlike the Western political ideal, sign of an immature or failing democracy? Or was it a viable approach to governance, given the fact of fierce and unsettled social dispute?

An examination of the strategic marketing challenges facing Thinx as it tries to grow in the face of menstruation taboos and competition from large incumbents.

On September 24, 2018, two analysts were asked by the pension fund they worked for to evaluate the prospects of long-term investing in India's banking sector. They set off to identify and select a bank stock that was fundamentally strong and should be included in an equity portfolio. For their research, the two analysts used the CAMELS analysis framework, a model that examined six factors-capital adequacy, asset quality, management quality, earning ability, liquidity, and sensitivity to market risk. The two analysts narrowed their research down to HDFC Bank Ltd. stock for valuation and tried to determine the intrinsic price of the bank shares. The objective of the HDFC Bank Ltd. stock valuation was to identify a banking stock that would make a strong potential long-term investment for the pension fund's equity portfolio.

The case describes the management style of Philipp Schindler, Google's Chief Business Officer, and the programs and organizational structures he implemented to promote innovation within Google's business organization.

A young social entrepreneur must decide whether to stick with her struggling start-up--a tomato paste company based entirely in Nigeria--or go to work for an investment group that funds small businesses in Africa. Where would she have the most impact? This fictional case study by Sophus A. Reinert features expert commentary by Acha Leke and Mira Mehta.

A young social entrepreneur must decide whether to stick with her struggling start-up--a tomato paste company based entirely in Nigeria--or go to work for an investment group that funds small businesses in Africa. Where would she have the most impact? This fictional case study by Sophus A. Reinert features expert commentary by Acha Leke and Mira Mehta.

A young social entrepreneur must decide whether to stick with her struggling start-up--a tomato paste company based entirely in Nigeria--or go to work for an investment group that funds small businesses in Africa. Where would she have the most impact? This fictional case study by Sophus A. Reinert features expert commentary by Acha Leke and Mira Mehta.

Just four months after entering the U.S. market, Pro-G Sports Management, a small U.K.-based agency representing professional golfers, faced a major crisis caused in part by the recent hiring of a U.S. agent. Some of the conditions the U.S. agent had unilaterally agreed upon with prospective clients could have had disastrous consequences for the agency, but reneging on those agreements could have damaged the agency's reputation and put its U.S. venture at risk. Pro-G's partners, who did not yet fully understand the U.S. market, had conflicting views on how to resolve this problem. To complicate matters, Pro-G then began to lose some of its best European Tour clients, who felt the agency had begun to focus too heavily on the U.S. market at the expense of its European interests. How should Pro-G manage this tricky situation to the satisfaction of both its U.S. and its European clients?