Hear an update on the Dean’s key priorities, which will strengthen and accelerate the School’s impact in the world.

Fueled by a series of recent political events and actors, anti-globalization has been growing. From the rise of political platforms pinning blame on openness to imports and immigration to the public’s exposure to explicitly anti-global rhetoric and fast but not always research-methods-based online information, political actors have succeeded in giving voice to this set of economic grievances. In this session, we will review online surveys on attitudes towards globalization and economic policy to answer the question: Does the information that the public is exposed to online influence their views on trade policy? And by how much?

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When we think of leaders, we often imagine lone, inspirational figures lauded for their attributes, behaviors, and personal decisions. However, leader success depends not only on their ability to make good decisions but also on their ability to help others make wise choices. The approach can also foster more cohesive, empowered organizational culture. In this session, learn how organizations can be viewed as “decision factories,” in which effective leaders are “decision architects,” enabling those around them to make wise, ethical choices consistent with their own interests and the organization’s highest values.

Talent markets are shifting. Until recently, job seekers focused mainly on what organizations would hire them to do: organizations posted jobs, and people applied for them. For many of us, however, the pandemic has brought back into focus the critical job we "hire" employers to do for us—make progress in our lives and careers—and how divorced that progress has become from the progression organizations offer. Participants will leave this "working on material" session (as comedians would call it) with a sneak peek into how we are reconceptualizing career development post-pandemic and the implications for us and our organizations.

People commit systematic errors when making decisions. Fortunately, behavioral economics offers tools to help people reach better outcomes. By changing the environment in which choices are made, for example by changing the process used to select options from a menu, we can address barriers to wise decision-making. In this session, Professor Beshears will lead a mini case discussion that serves as a launching pad for a presentation illustrating the power of the “choice architecture” approach for influencing the behavior of customers and employees. Participants will walk away with a framework for designing choice architecture in their own organizations.

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Conventional wisdom suggests that the more contact an operation has with its customers, the less efficiently it will run. But when customers are partitioned away from the operation, they are less likely to fully appreciate the work going on behind the scenes, causing them to place a lower value on the product or service being offered. To address this problem, leaders should experiment with operational transparency—the deliberate design of windows into and out of the organization’s operations—to help customers understand the value being added and to allow employees to see the impact of their work.

In this session, we will explore pitfalls of succession and legacy planning from some of the largest and most storied families across the globe.

This session will explore the state of public education in America and how instruction, funding, and outcomes have evolved in recent decades. We will then engage in an interactive case discussion focused on a subset of New York City schools that are delivering vastly superior outcomes for more than 20,000 students. We will assess whether this success is real, replicable, and scalable, and what lessons it offers for instructors, politicians, and parents.

Participants will leave this session with a deeper understanding of the differences in how men and women describe their performance. This knowledge will prove particularly important to managers and executives who make hiring and promotion decisions. Rather than following a structure of a case discussion, this presentation will focus on insights from experiments with ample time for questions.

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Can one be a fiduciary and invest sustainably? Are these roles at odds with one another other? What does it mean to be an ESG investor? In this session, we will use a case study on JP Morgan Private Bank to learn about and debate these issues and consider the future of the ESG investing.

E.O. Wilson observed that the “real problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.” We will examine 5 recently developed “godlike technologies” that have passed commercial viability and are on track to change the foundations of business and society by 2032—AI, blockchain, ubiquitous networks, synthetic biology, and brain-computer interfaces—and examine their impact on who we are as individuals and as a species. What does it take to live a purposeful life in an age where everything can change and where existential threats are real?

One of the toughest challenges leaders face is managing diverse perspectives. At the same time, productive disagreement and engagement with opposing views are crucial to high-functioning teams and organizations. Drawing from my research I will discuss how leaders can approach disagreements productively and help employees at all levels do so. Tactics include training that defuses fears of disagreeing; encourages people to cultivate a receptive mindset; teaches people to choose words carefully, hedge claims, and emphasize areas of agreement; and fosters a culture of tolerance. Honing these skills can decrease frustration and negativity and is well worth the effort.

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Over the past decade, researchers at Harvard Business School, through the Behavioral Finance and Financial Stability Project, have made tremendous strides in predicting financial market crashes, panics, and crises. Participants will leave this session understanding the state of the art in identifying financial market bubbles, and how predictable are crises.

Digital technologies have dramatically changed consumer behavior and allowed many new entrants to challenge established firms. How should incumbents respond, and more broadly, what should be their roadmap for digital transformation? In this session, we will address these questions. In the first half of the session, we will discuss the case of Olay, which is facing declining sales. In the second half, we will expand our discussion to explore how firms should think about their digital journey.

Amidst calls to increase consumerism in health care, large tech companies and retailers are making bold moves into the industry. These health care “entrants” aim to leverage their general skills in serving consumers to address barriers in health care delivery. Will these new entrants be competitors or partners with respect to existing health care players? Drawing upon examples of entrant moves into health care—at Walmart, Best Buy, and Amazon—this session will help participants understand the landscape of current efforts to embrace consumerism in health care and the significant challenges that remain in realizing its full potential.

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Today, American institutions dominate every major ranking of global universities. Yet in historical terms, America’s preeminence is relatively new, and there is no reason to assume that US schools will continue to lead the world a century from now. Indeed, America’s supremacy in higher education is under great stress, particularly at its public universities. Forty years ago, Chinese institutions were reopening after the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution; today they are some of the most innovative educational centers in the world. Will China threaten American primacy? Participants will explore these questions through case studies and ask: what does this mean for Harvard?

Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) have made an abundance of data and technological tools available to companies. Firms are increasingly personalizing their offerings to increase the effectiveness of their interventions and benefits consumers who now receive communications that are more relevant to them. However, algorithmic personalization poses risks for firms, consumers, and society. One risk is to underserve customers from protected or underrepresented groups, even if the firm does not intend to discriminate based on those characteristics. In this session we will discuss ways in which algorithmic bias occurs in practice, and present practical solutions to overcome those biases.

Slides

In this session, we will consider the implications of living in a permanent state of elevated turbulence. COVID has been an object lesson in having to continuously reassess changing conditions and adapt both strategy and operations to the emerging environment. But there is further turbulence ahead. We will look at an example—a company that is optimized to operate in a differentially turbulent environment and is thriving in part by virtue of its ability to handle elevated levels of risk. We will then consider other ideas about how firms can operate more effectively in the increasingly volatile world we all inhabit.

Slides

This talk examines three strategies tackling the challenges of evaluating early-stage ideas: Flagship Pioneering, an integrated life sciences innovator that, while financially structured as a conventional venture capital fund, creates two-thirds of its portfolio startups in-house; the Black List, a highly anticipated annual publication in Hollywood that ranks the year’s unproduced scripts based on nominations from hundreds of film executives in the industry; and Creative Destruction Lab, a startup accelerator focusing on science-based startups. The framework and insights distilled from these strategies provide a helpful perspective that many organizations can use to better navigate the landscape of early-stage ideas.

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Over the last decade, firms have begun to recognize the power of gender diversity and have worked to actively hire and retain more women. While we see improved diversity at junior levels, industries such as finance (“PE bros”) and tech (“tech bros”) still struggle to translate hiring into thriving at senior levels. What does gender research tell us about why this is happening and what firms and individuals might do to help? Participants will leave this session with a better understanding of the obstacles at play and some strategies they can employ to build organizations where top talent of any gender can thrive.

Slides

One of the toughest challenges leaders face is managing diverse perspectives. At the same time, productive disagreement and engagement with opposing views are crucial to high-functioning teams and organizations. Drawing from my research I will discuss how leaders can approach disagreements productively and help employees at all levels do so. Tactics include training that defuses fears of disagreeing; encourages people to cultivate a receptive mindset; teaches people to choose words carefully, hedge claims, and emphasize areas of agreement; and fosters a culture of tolerance. Honing these skills can decrease frustration and negativity and is well worth the effort.

Today’s assistant and associate professors will help keep HBS at the forefront of management education with their innovative ideas and tools, groundbreaking research, and rigorous scholarship. Select assistant professors were invited to present their research to the entire HBS faculty this semester, and here will reprise those 7-minute talks. Join to learn from and engage with the next generation of HBS faculty, including Samuel Antill, Jill Jordan, Himabindu Lakkaraju, James Riley, Jonathan Wallen, Yuan Zou, and Shunyuan Zhang.

Slides

The world has a seemingly infinite supply of problems. Fortunately, entrepreneurs view problems as opportunities. In this talk, I will focus on entrepreneurs trying to deliver better health and education outcomes at lower cost and in less time. I will also discuss the role of ventures in addressing climate change. Some of the popular solutions to these challenges (e.g., Medicare for All, free community college, and elimination of fossil fuels) seem unlikely to work as currently envisioned. I will also address the current preoccupation in the media and politics with what is wrong, rather than how to fix problems at scale.

The last 200 years have seen a remarkable explosion in the use of energy, allowing the growth of the industrial revolution and a transition in some countries to a post-industrial economy. At the same time, there has been a growing realization that the world’s energy technologies have led to a series of environmental challenges, leading many to call for an energy transition to new technologies, including renewable sources such as wind and solar. In this talk, I will discuss different strategies for meeting the world’s energy needs and preserving economic prosperity and security, while protecting human and natural systems from climate impacts.

How did global supply chains become such a mess, and how does an understanding of the Beer Game and the “National Cranberry” case help me sort this out? Participants will leave this session with a reminder of how what they learned during their first-semester RC applies to everyday problems.

This session will explore how 21st-century biology could inform a new era in early childhood investment driven by peer-reviewed science, a diversity of lived experiences, and a culture of innovation. Particular attention will be focused on elucidating causal mechanisms that explain how early experiences and exposures are built into the developing brain and other biological systems. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how the frontiers of scientific discovery could catalyze more effective strategies for addressing the early origins of disparities in educational achievement, economic productivity, and lifelong health that are associated with poverty, racism, and other structural inequities.

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In the session, Professors Fubini and Srinivasan will discuss some of the key drivers of risk and opportunity for professional services firms (PSFs) today. We will address questions such as: How are big global events like the pandemic, the Russia/Ukraine war, rise in inflation, affecting the functioning of PSFs? How is the changing work environment and DEI environment shaping the consulting workforce of the future? How to scale growth and the challenges surrounding that in today’s world? What are the key drivers of innovation that PSFs should embrace to prepare for the marketplace? What are some of the key sources of risk facing PCFs today and how to practice risk mitigation? Participants will gain from faculty research insights and draw upon the experience of the alumni to address these questions

Why do we talk to people? The reasons are complex and many: To find love and friendship. To learn. To express feelings. To convey complex information. To laugh. To pass the time. To make decisions. To persuade. To solve problems. In this session, participants will learn a framework to understand their conversational purposes and new tools to achieve their goals more effectively, based on behavioral science. It's not just that we are failing to navigate difficult conversations, or that our social skills have atrophied thanks to technology and remote work. We are missing abundant opportunities to light up the world.

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When it comes to improving customer experiences, trying out business models, or developing new products, even the most experienced managers often discover that intuition, experience, and big data alone don’t work. What does work? Running disciplined business experiments. What makes a good experiment? How do you test in online and brick-and-mortar businesses? How do you build an experimentation culture? Professor Thomke will introduce you to best experimentation practice, explain how that works at leading companies like Amazon and Booking.com, and address some fundamental questions. He’ll also explain how these and other organizations have discovered that experimentation provides considerable competitive advantages.

In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost of adding new customers—work for challengers too. What then allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow profits? Participants will leave this session with a framework to evaluate the likelihood of success of a digital-platform business.

Slides

Hear an update on the Dean’s key priorities, which will strengthen and accelerate the School’s impact in the world.

Critics of contemporary economics sometimes complain that belief in free markets is a form of religion. There’s something to this idea. Contrary to the historical view of economics as an entirely secular product of the Enlightenment, religion exerted a powerful influence from the outset. The foundational transition that led to our modern thinking about capitalism, beginning in the 18th century, was shaped by what were then hotly contended lines of religious thought within the Protestant world. Understanding the origins of this relationship between religious thinking and economic thinking also provides insights into our current economic policy debate in the United States.

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Drawing upon my recent book, I will offer a compelling reassessment of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms get purpose right. Based on extensive field research, I will show how deep-purpose companies energize their enterprise by inspiring employees and fostering greater loyalty and trust with customers and partners. Purpose is also a compass with which these firms effectively navigate the inevitable tradeoffs across stakeholders and balance their short- and long-term goals. Ultimately, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s future.

With war, a pandemic, cyberattacks, and natural disasters, the world can seem overwhelming. The Kennedy School and CNN’s Juliette Kayyem, in conversation with Harvard Business Review Editor in Chief Adi Ignatius, will draw on lessons from her new book, The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters, on how we can reframe our thinking about disasters and prepare for the unknown.

Chamberlain’s negotiations with Hitler, and the resulting “Munich Agreement” of 1938, are often considered among the greatest strategic and moral failures in history. Is this a fair characterization of what transpired in the lead-up to World War II? What could have been done differently? Would your preferred approach have been feasible or effective? We can’t afford to ignore the lessons of the past—nor can we afford to learn the wrong lessons. In this session, we will do a deep dive into what led to Munich, as well as the details of the negotiations themselves, with the goal of extracting lessons for leaders, strategists, and negotiators of all kinds.

Professors Bower and McFarlan examine how the HBS MBA education has changed in dramatic ways and yet, in some fundamental aspects it has not changed very much at all. These two professors will explore ways in which the MBA experience has been transformed by important changes in the student body, the faculty, the world of business, and global society. But as a program devoted to developing leaders who will transform the world around us, HBS has retained key aspects of its approach that will seem very familiar to alums who walked into the classroom for the first time in 1959.

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As war rages in Ukraine, many worry about a looming energy crisis as Russia is one of the world’s largest producers of oil and natural gas – and a large coal and enriched uranium exporter. But even as countries grapple with the need to meet urgent energy needs, they have a longer-term goal: to wean themselves off carbon-intensive energy sources as a way of addressing change. How has the crisis changed energy markets and which of these changes are likely to be lasting? And to what extent does this crisis alter the prospects of meeting the climate imperative?

If COVID has taught us anything, it is that we must find new ways to be at our best physically and mentally and to stay in touch with old friends and making new ones. Now is the time to apply your experiences and build on your strengths and interests. During this interactive session you will be inspired by a new framework on how to maintain your vitality and create a pathway to live the life and leave the legacy you desire. The session will end with a 15-minute strengthening routine to help you do and enjoy the most.

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The past few years have seen an outpouring of statements heralding the arrival of a new and more inclusive form of capitalism often called stakeholder capitalism. In line with the new ideology, corporate boards and business leaders are being urged to replace the shareholder-centered governance model that has guided their work for the past several decades with a multi-stakeholder approach that puts the interests of employees, customers, suppliers, and communities on par with those of the company’s shareholders. In this session we will examine these contending views and take stock of where the debate currently stands.

Depending on the source, the People's Republic of China is either the next global technological and financial leader or teetering on collapse. How has the Chinese Communist Party managed rapid modernization while maintaining its monopoly on political power, and what does the country's domestic trajectory say about the CCP's global role? Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how China works and how the Chinese leadership see the world.

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How did global supply chains become such a mess, and how does an understanding of the Beer Game and the “National Cranberry” case help me sort this out? Participants will leave this session with a reminder of how what they learned during their first-semester RC applies to everyday problems.

In this session, we enter the world of business leaders who are not just concerned about climate change, but are boldly doing something about it. Some are building green-energy businesses in wind, solar, and batteries. Others are harnessing big data and traditional knowledge to restore ecologies and sequester carbon. Still others are working on breakthrough new ventures in direct carbon capture, nuclear fission, and arctic rewilding. These entrepreneurs share a deep commitment to stopping or even reversing climate change. And they’re doing so in a way that creates a more prosperous and more just world.

This talk will cover some of the major political-economic trends affecting the world economy: China's grand strategy; Russia's struggle to undermine Western leadership; the United States’ weakened economy after 2008; post-COVID deficits and debt in Latin America, Africa and Europe; and the conditions of energy and commodity markets post-Ukrainian war.

Slides

Hear an update on the Dean’s key priorities, which will strengthen and accelerate the School’s impact in the world.

The greatest challenge to the sustainability of our current era of globalization comes from within the US. Most Americans now reject globalization. What can we learn from parts of the developed world where the backlash is also profound—or more muted? One conclusion: It is not just about money. Those who feel left behind feel they have lost respect and dignity. The populist backlash also coincides with a shift in the global balance of power. We will explore the ways in which the disappointments with globalization in the West connect to the efforts of other great powers to rewrite the rules of the system.

We now know of thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Some of these resemble the Earth: similar in mass, rocky, and with moderate surface temperatures like the life-supporting climate we enjoy. Might there be life on any of these "exoplanets"? Are we alone in the universe? How can we tell? Astronomers will exploit new technology, including NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the new ground-based Giant Magellan Telescope, to search for signs of life. Participants will leave this session knowing what astronomers expect to see when they find a life-bearing planet, how they will see this, and perhaps when.

The case “Andonix: Leading Innovation in Turbulent Times” looks at David Yanez, a Mexican factory worker who migrated to Detroit to found a new venture in 2017 that provided a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform to empower—rather than replace—front-line workers. Andonix was just launching its MVP in Detroit automotive plants when COVID shut down businesses around the world. Yanez pivoted and developed a mobile app that would enable front-line workers to safely return to work. Between Q4 2020 and Q4 2021, Andonix grew its revenues by over 100% and expanded to other industries. Leave this session understanding how to lead innovation, growth, and transformation during turbulent times.

Stocks that trade at a low multiple of earnings or book value have outperformed higher-valued growth stocks for much of the last 100 years, providing a tailwind for value investors. But, for much of the last decade, large growth stocks have outperformed in the US and around the world. This session will explore shifting market sentiment, valuations, and fundamentals of value and growth stocks. Participants will leave this session with a better understanding of the risks and rewards of systematic value investing.

Talent markets are shifting. Until recently, job seekers focused mainly on what organizations would hire them to do: organizations posted jobs, and people applied for them. For many of us, however, the pandemic has brought back into focus the critical job we “hire” employers to do for us—make progress in our lives and careers—and how divorced that progress has become from the progression organizations offer. Participants will leave this “working on material” session (as comedians would call it) with a sneak peek into how we are reconceptualizing career development post-pandemic and the implications for us and our organizations.

How do executives’ values and behavior in their personal lives influence their decisions in their professional lives? How do executives with different values respond to various corporate governance mechanisms? Understanding how personalities of leaders influence their actions can be useful for boards and shareholders. This knowledge can be applied both to shaping an executive team and to designing a governance system appropriate to that team.

Most startups fail. About two-thirds of venture capital investments do not earn a positive return. Surprisingly, late-stage startups fail at the same high rates as early-stage ventures. Professor Eisenmann will discuss patterns that explain a large fraction of these failures and what entrepreneurs can do to anticipate patterns and reduce mortality risk. Participants will learn how founders can decide whether to pull the plug on their struggling startup, and if they do, how they can “fail well” in ways that leave their relationships and integrity intact, facilitate learning from the experience, and position them for their next career move.

Slides

What does the future of entertainment look like? Fueled by advances in digital technology, will a select few superstars in media and sports come to have a bigger impact on popular culture than they do now, and how will they use their power? Will we see bigger bets on likely blockbusters, more intense competition in areas such as streaming and esports, and more industry consolidation? Drawing on dozens of recent case studies, Professor Elberse will walk participants through the likely future of the entertainment industry and outline the most effective business strategies and biggest entrepreneurial opportunities in these sectors.

What is going on in the US labor market? What is the Great Resignation and will it have lasting impact on the economy? What explains America having a record number of job openings and near record-low workforce participation at the same time? What can be done to create opportunity for the 40% of American workers stuck in low-wage jobs? This session will feature recent research from the School's Managing the Future of Work Project. Participants will gain an understanding of what lies beneath the headlines and of the various forces that will shape work in years to come.

Over 35% of professionally managed assets worldwide incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and impact factors in the investment process. The promises are compelling: better long-term risk management, new sources of alpha, and “doing well by doing good.” In contrast, skeptics argue a focus on ESG and impact criteria may reduce returns or shift funding away from worthy philanthropic causes. In this session, Professor Gandhi will share his perspectives on investing in the new normal, and how we can incorporate impact to deliver financial performance in addition to making a positive contribution to our planet’s future.

Amidst calls to increase consumerism in health care, large tech companies and retailers are making bold moves into the industry. These health care “entrants” aim to leverage their general skills in serving consumers to address barriers in health care delivery. Will these new entrants be competitors or partners with respect to existing health care players? Drawing upon examples of entrant moves into health care—at Walmart, Best Buy, and Amazon—this session will help participants understand the landscape of current efforts to embrace consumerism in health care and the significant challenges that remain in realizing its full potential.

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This talk looks at the cases of influential business leaders in the past—the retailer Edward Filene, German industrialist Robert Bosch, interwar HBS Dean Wallace Donham, and British beauty entrepreneur Anita Roddick—to see what light they can shed on the much-debated but still nebulous concepts of responsible and purpose-driven business. Participants will leave this session with concrete examples of responsible business leaders, warts and all, and some answers to why they have never mainstreamed, whether they were profitable as well as good, and if they really add societal value.

Even can-do achievers can feel overwhelmed by big societal problems and the challenges they pose to business and personal life. Positive action requires leaders to “think outside the building” to open new pathways, forge new coalitions, and find sources of personal nurturance. Professor Kanter will outline 5 tactics for coping, transcending, and contributing to solutions to respond to the COVID pandemic, deal with war and cultural conflicts, or combat climate change, whether as entrepreneurs in startups, seasoned business leaders, or concerned citizens and parents. The session will include lessons on what can make things worse, when the goal is to make life better.

Zipline is the world's largest autonomous logistics network, created by entrepreneurs in California and Rwanda. Drones deliver life-saving blood, medications, and vaccines to inaccessible locations cheaply, accurately, and on-demand. Our case discussion will examine the factors underling its rapid rise. Should Zipline next transform itself into a global health logistics company or embrace a “blood to burritos” framing of logistics-for-all? Participants will leave with an understanding of what it takes to create a company on the technological cutting-edge in Africa, and how emerging markets might well be a source of leapfrogging innovations for the rest of the world.

We have entered a new era in which artificial intelligence (AI) is challenging the very concept of how a company is put together. AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value. Professor Lakhani will discuss how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have constrained business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, research shows how AI-driven processes are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, enable companies to straddle industry boundaries, and open up powerful opportunities for learning.

Slides

In this session, we will consider the implications of living in a permanent state of elevated turbulence. COVID has been an object lesson in having to continuously reassess changing conditions and adapt both strategy and operations to the emerging environment. But there is further turbulence ahead. We will look at an example—a company that is optimized to operate in a differentially turbulent environment and is thriving in part by virtue of its ability to handle elevated levels of risk. We will then consider other ideas about how firms can operate more effectively in the increasingly volatile world we all inhabit.

Slides

Wildfire, river flooding, drought, extreme heat, and sea rise perils seem to be getting worse in many parts of the world. The impacts vary depending on location, peril, types of structures, wealth, point of view, and the priority of other pressing concerns. There are substantial openings for organizations and investors to play offense, as well as defense. We will use case studies from Miami, FL (flooding) and Sonoma, CA (wildfire) to illustrate techniques and best practices. Participants will leave with a toolkit to help assess the severity of exposures and to use probabilities and risk maps to make investment choices.

Over the last decade, firms have begun to recognize the power of gender diversity and have worked to actively hire and retain more women. While we see improved diversity at junior levels, industries such as finance (“PE bros”) and tech (“tech bros”) still struggle to translate hiring into thriving at senior levels. What does gender research tell us about why this is happening and what firms and individuals might do to help? Participants will leave this session with a better understanding of the obstacles at play and some strategies they can employ to build organizations where top talent of any gender can thrive.

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In this session, we will discuss whether hybrid classrooms that mix in-person and remote students are an opportunity or threat to HBS's case-based pedagogy. We will address whether hybrid classrooms are likely to help HBS alumni in their quest for lifelong learning.

In this interactive session, I will share my research on companies that achieve exceptional financial performance. Our discussion will be based on my strategy course and the recently published book Better, Simpler Strategy. I will walk the participants through a simple framework that helps identify opportunities to create value for customers, employees, and suppliers.

Today's assistant and associate professors will help keep HBS at the forefront of management education with their innovative ideas and tools, groundbreaking research, and rigorous scholarship. Select assistant professors were invited to present their research to the entire HBS faculty this semester, and here will reprise those 7-minute talks. Join to learn from and engage with the next generation of HBS faculty, including Assistant Professors Samuel Antill, Jill Jordan, Himabindu Lakkaraju, James Riley, Jonathan Wallen, and Yuan Zou.

As businesses grow, founders lose the ability to set direction through informal interactions. They increasingly rely on formal systems to implement their strategies and hold employees accountable. Yet, many executives worry that these systems could reduce employee empowerment and hinder employees’ entrepreneurial spirits. Is there a way to avoid this tradeoff? Professor Sandino will share insights on ways to promote adaptability and entrepreneurship in growing service organizations. Participants will learn how to build systems that incorporate flexibility of strategy implementation through a structured empowerment model, promote critical thinking and innovation, and emphasize a common purpose throughout a growing organization.

Participants will have a chance to engage in a discussion of the case "A Letter From Prison," followed by a presentation on the psychology of white-collar crime.

In February 2022, the three leading pharmaceutical distributors (AmerisourceBergen, McKeeson, Cardinal Health) and Johnson & Johnson agreed to a $25 billion payment to settle thousands of lawsuits relating to their alleged role in the opioid epidemic. In my recent case study, “The Opioid Settlement and Controversy Over CEO Pay at AmerisourceBergen,” I use the lens of this crisis to study how businesses should fulfill their social obligations. In this talk, we will explore how the board of AmerisourceBergen responded to shareholder pressure to reduce the CEO’s compensation as a result of the settlement. We will ask: what would you do if you were on the board? We’ll also look how other corporate boards responded in highly politicized situations, such as that facing Disney in Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Participants will leave with a better understanding of the role of boards of directors in helping companies fulfill their social obligations and the tensions that can arise in the process.

This session will examine the legal and business issues raised by Elon Musk's recent on-and-off deal to acquire Twitter. Topics will include: Musk's initial disclosure of a 9% stake, Twitter's installation of a "poison pill" takeover defense, and Musk's announcement that the deal was "temporarily on hold" pending an investigation of fake accounts. Participants will leave the session with a better understanding of the corporate law and business issues raised in complex corporate deals.

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Children staring at smartphones and hanging out with friends on Roblox, often late into the night. Parents communicating with them by text while “workzooming.” The COVID-19 lockdown and “year of remote learning” accelerated and amplified our dramatic shift to living online. What is pathology and what is the “next normal”? The Digital Wellness Lab and the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital (CIMAID) have been researching and responding to Problematic Interactive Media Use (PIMU)—from gaming to social media to pornography. Participants will leave this session understanding whether the kids are all right.

This session will be centered around a discussion of the case “Accounting for Bitcoin at Tesla.” Participants will evaluate Tesla’s strategic and financial rationale for adopting bitcoin, learn about the financial accounting implications or holding cryptocurrencies, and explore what these investments mean for corporate managers in terms of communication and reporting performance to the investment community.

In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly—such as the low cost of adding new customers—work for challengers too. What then allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow profits? Participants will leave this session with a framework to evaluate the likelihood of success of a digital-platform business.

Slides

Hear an update on the Dean’s key priorities, which will strengthen and accelerate the School’s impact in the world.

The case “Andonix: Leading Innovation in Turbulent Times” looks at David Yanez, a Mexican factory worker who migrated to Detroit to found a new venture in 2017 that provided a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform to empower—rather than replace—front-line workers. Andonix was just launching its MVP in Detroit automotive plants when COVID shut down businesses around the world. Yanez pivoted and developed a mobile app that would enable front-line workers to safely return to work. Between Q4 2020 and Q4 2021, Andonix grew its revenues by over 100% and expanded to other industries. Leave this session understanding how to lead innovation, growth, and transformation during turbulent times.

Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) have made an abundance of data and technological tools available to companies. Firms are increasingly personalizing their offerings to increase the effectiveness of their interventions and benefits consumers who now receive communications that are more relevant to them. However, algorithmic personalization poses risks for firms, consumers, and society. One risk is to underserve customers from protected or underrepresented groups, even if the firm does not intend to discriminate based on those characteristics. In this session we will discuss ways in which algorithmic bias occurs in practice, and present practical solutions to overcome those biases.

Slides

It is an almost inevitable—and, to many of us, frightening—fact that our professional abilities decline as we age. As leaders, how can we prepare for the changes that come later in life, and how can we structure our lives in a way that uncovers new strengths and leads to lasting happiness? Blending the latest in behavioral social science research, ancient wisdom, and historical analysis, Professor Brooks will reveal how effectiveness and wellbeing at all stages of life come not from holding on to past achievements, but from cultivating new habits and a different understanding of success and fulfillment.

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Like perishable goods in grocery stores, sales models have a sell-by date. Firms that fail to adjust to changing buyer behavior lose advantage. Drawing on research from a new book, Frank Cespedes explains why much commentary about the impact of digital technologies on sales is mistaken, how to separate signal from noise, and where new tools have the biggest impact on business development. You will leave this session with practical advice about how to maintain a relevant sales model and how to improve hiring, training, and performance-management practices.

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The pandemic has hastened a rise in remote working for knowledge-based organizations. This has notable benefits: Companies can save on real estate costs, hire and utilize talent globally, mitigate immigration issues, and experience productivity gains, while workers can enjoy geographic flexibility. At the same time, concerns include how to communicate across time zones, share knowledge that isn’t yet codified, socialize virtually and prevent professional isolation, protect client data, and avoid slacking. My research into work-from-anywhere (WFA) organizations and groups that include the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Tata Consultancy Services, and GitLab (the world’s largest all-remote company) highlights best practices and can help leaders decide whether remote work is right for their organizations.

Total Shareholder Returns (TSRs) are a dominant measure of company returns but are deeply flawed. We propose an alternative measure that isolates operational performance from financial engineering, titled Core Operating Shareholders Returns (COSRs). In the process of disentangling COSRs from TSRs, we provide a comprehensive verdict on the buyback revolution and the results are fairly damning.

How should historic social injustices be addressed? Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants believe they should be addressed through reparations. In this modified case discussion, participants will consider the specific issue of reparations for the Tulsa Massacre, the idea of reparations generally, and the use of reparations to respond to the effects of slavery and racist governmental policies in the US. Participants will leave with a sense of how to engage with social issues as a business leader, a facility in talking about complex social issues, and a greater understanding of the merits of reparations.

Join a case discussion about the business of jazz in America. Excerpts from the “Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center” multimedia case will be shown during the session, featuring video interviews with Marsalis, executives at Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC), and audience members. The case covers the history of jazz music, the evolution of the music industry, and changing tastes of consumers. Participants will explore how the declining interest in, and sales of, jazz music can be reversed; the role of Marsalis and JALC in this context; and the lessons for arts and cultural institutions worldwide and for cultural entrepreneurs.

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It’s becoming clear that today’s organizations are (and will continue to be) in a state of flux, as new experiments in work arrangements disrupt teams, a demand for innovation intensifies, and risks multiply. How to inspire and enable people to contribute their knowledge in timely, fearless ways has moved to center stage for leaders across industries. In this session, we will explore why psychological safety matters now more than ever for success in hybrid and shifting work environments, as well as how to help people team across boundaries of all kinds to accomplish challenging work together.

Most startups fail. About two-thirds of venture capital investments do not earn a positive return. Surprisingly, late-stage startups fail at the same high rates as early-stage ventures. Professor Eisenmann will discuss patterns that explain a large fraction of these failures and what entrepreneurs can do to anticipate patterns and reduce mortality risk. Participants will learn how founders can decide whether to pull the plug on their struggling startup, and if they do, how they can “fail well” in ways that leave their relationships and integrity intact, facilitate learning from the experience, and position them for their next career move.

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What is going on in the US labor market? What is the Great Resignation and will it have lasting impact on the economy? What explains America having a record number of job openings and near record-low workforce participation at the same time? What can be done to create opportunity for the 40% of American workers stuck in low-wage jobs? This session will feature recent research from the School's Managing the Future of Work Project. Participants will gain an understanding of what lies beneath the headlines and of the various forces that will shape work in years to come.

Our research on the market for CEOs among larger US companies purchased by private equity firms finds that almost 75% of the new CEOs are external hires. The median buyout in our sample earned 2.5 times on its equity investment. Companies with external CEOs appointed at the time of the buyout did particularly well. Using the performance of the buyouts and survey evidence on buyout equity incentives, we find that these CEOs’ compensation buyout is higher than that for CEOs of similarly sized public companies. Overall, our results suggest that firm-specific human capital is relatively unimportant. In addition, the compensation results indicate that public company executives have viable outside options.

The COVID-19 pandemic opened the door to consumer-driven innovations in the supply of health care that can address its cost, access, and quality problems. These innovations are not new ideas, but they are new implementations. In this session, I will describe examples of these innovations and show how firms, patients, and public policy makers can best adopt them. I will also discuss how employers/public policy can ameliorate the disappointing results achieved to date with “value-based” remedies for the fragmented health care payment system and marshal their resources to create the two most essential consumer-driven health care innovations that remain absent: transparency and financial empowerment.

Squire is a vertical SaaS start-up serving barbershops. Founded by two young Black entrepreneurs, the company entered 2020 struggling to convince investors that its market size is large enough to be “venture-scalable” and due to persistent funding gaps for Black entrepreneurs. Just as the founders feel like they’re getting traction, COVID-19 hits and barbers shut down. How does market size affect their strategic vision? Should the founders adjust their business model? Participants will leave this case-based session with tools to consider market sizes and opportunities, as well as an appreciation for the challenges minority entrepreneurs have in raising startup capital.

2021 saw an unprecedented explosion of venture capital activity worldwide, far eclipsing 2000 and earlier venture peaks. What was behind this dramatic surge of activity? How will it affect the nature of entrepreneurship and society more generally in the years to come? What should venture and angel investors anticipate in the future?

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Join this session to explore the ways in which modern analytics can improve organizational decisions, as well as barriers to data-driven decisions - and strategies leaders can implement to overcome these barriers.

Wildfire, river flooding, drought, extreme heat, and sea rise perils seem to be getting worse in many parts of the world. The impacts vary depending on location, peril, types of structures, wealth, point of view, and the priority of other pressing concerns. There are substantial openings for organizations and investors to play offense, as well as defense. We will use case studies from Miami, FL (flooding) and Sonoma, CA (wildfire) to illustrate techniques and best practices. Participants will leave with a toolkit to help assess the severity of exposures and to use probabilities and risk maps to make investment choices.

CS50 is Harvard's introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming, now available as a suite of courses to undergraduates and MBAs alike. Long offered online through Harvard Extension School, the course is also edX's largest MOOC (massive open online course) and is offered at Yale University as well. In this talk, a look at how CS50's pedagogy and technology has evolved to accommodate students in Cambridge, Allston, New Haven, and beyond, particularly during COVID-19. Participants will leave with a newfound appreciation of what online education can and should be in the years to come.

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Using examples from ultrafast grocery delivery and cloud kitchens, we will discuss how value chains are increasingly digitized even in the most traditional industries. Participants will leave this session with a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities arising from the digitization of value chains.

It has become popular to talk about the need for companies to be purpose-driven. However, many companies seem to delink their business model choices from their corporate purpose in practice. This session will discuss the consequence of such failures for both corporations and society using the case “Preserving Trust at Care.com.” We will then generalize this discussion to many well-known tech platforms facing the same challenge, and discuss how companies can avoid such pitfalls and effectively connect their pursuit of profit to their corporate purpose.

Facebook, recently renamed Meta, has built a hugely successful in a very short period of time, and it’s done so largely without any legal or regulatory guardrails. Join us for a case discussion exploring two major challenges facing the company and society: privacy and trust breaches, and a growing sense of the “tragedy of the commons” in moderating content. Can management be trusted to self-regulate, or will regulators or other stakeholders need to play a more significant role to address a growing range of harms? Participants will leave with an understanding of how the business model creates challenges at scale and a greater sense of complexity of the regulatory and governance issues facing this and similar business.

Depending on the source, the People's Republic of China is either the next global technological and financial leader or teetering on collapse. How has the Chinese Communist Party managed rapid modernization while maintaining its monopoly on political power, and what does the country's domestic trajectory say about the CCP's global role? Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how China works and how the Chinese leadership see the world.

Acquiring the right kind of smaller firm offers very compelling economic rewards. These well-established, enduringly profitable businesses offer fewer risks than startups and greater professional independence than working in someone else’s company. Thousands of these small firms come up for sale each year, mainly as founders retire, and they require buyers who can organize the capital to complete an acquisition and have the ability to run the business as its CEO. This session introduces participants to this opportunity, and provides guidance to owners of smaller businesses who are interested in selling their companies and potential investors in small-business acquisitions.

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As faculty cochair of the Impact-Weighed Accounts Project, Professor Serafeim heads a growing effort to affect corporate behavior through the tools of accounting, and to develop rigorous methodologies for assessing areas—such as carbon emissions generated, decarbonization efforts, or commitment to social justice—that are too often seen as either intangible or immeasurable. In this session, Professor Debora Spar, the Senior Associate Dean for Business and Global Society, will interview Professor Serafeim about his work, his goals, and the role that measurement and the construction of a new global accountability infrastructure can play in truly changing the world.

For high achievers, perhaps the biggest barrier to deeply “connecting” with another human being is a heartfelt need to convince the world that they are perfect. The more successful they get, the greater the pressure they feel not only to build this ridiculous image of themselves but also to maintain it at all costs. Using a series of short video vignettes and interpersonal exercises, participants will explore the counterintuitive role that vulnerability plays in leading and leave with deeper appreciation for the kind of work it takes to become more authentic and transparent.

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The HBS Live Online Classroom is a one-of-a-kind virtual classroom that allows faculty to interact in real time with students and alumni from around the world, much as they would in a traditional HBS classroom. Through this platform, now in its second iteration, we have created a space that will allow engagement with up to 96 participants at a time in a fully immersive produced experience. Join a tour of the virtual classroom to hear about how and why this unique learning platform was built.

*This tour will begin at the Cumnock Hall Entrance, and can accommodate 20 people in the Live Online Classroom at a time. Tours will be staggered every 20 minutes from 10-11am.*

Panelists will discuss using business leadership to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in business and in society. HBS Class of 1991 alumni will share their experiences, first as students, then employees, and now as executives, educators, and researchers. Attendees will gain an understanding of past actions and current plans to improve DEI at HBS, as well as new insights on advancing DEI beyond color and gender lines, and will leave with a broader understanding of the impact of DEI as well as actionable measures they can take to advance DEI in their workplaces and in their communities.

This session will examine the legal and business issues raised by Elon Musk's recent on-and-off deal to acquire Twitter. Topics will include: Musk's initial disclosure of a 9% stake, Twitter's installation of a "poison pill" takeover defense, and Musk's announcement that the deal was "temporarily on hold" pending an investigation of fake accounts. Participants will leave the session with a better understanding of the corporate law and business issues raised in complex corporate deals.

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Professor Mike Toffel, host of the HBS Climate Rising podcast, will interview Jules Kortenhorst (HBS 1986), CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a nonprofit focused on decarbonizing the energy system. They will discuss the opportunities and challenges of working with companies to accelerate technological development and diffusion of carbon-free electricity, buildings, and transportation. They will also talk about how HBS shaped Jules’ career path toward leading RMI, and his outlook on the energy system. Q&A with the audience will follow the interview.

What keeps people happy and healthy as they go through life? The Harvard Study of Adult Development is one of the only studies in history to track the same people from adolescence into their 90s, to find out what really makes us thrive. We find that the breadth and depth of our relationships with others are keys to wellbeing—not just happiness, but physical health. In this talk, I consider how we can actively tend to our connections with others in order to foster our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those we care about.

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This session will be centered around a discussion of the case “Accounting for Bitcoin at Tesla.” Participants will evaluate Tesla’s strategic and financial rationale for adopting bitcoin, learn about the financial accounting implications or holding cryptocurrencies, and explore what these investments mean for corporate managers in terms of communication and reporting performance to the investment community.

In 15 years, Americans aged 65 and over will outnumber those under 18, and this growing, $22 trillion demographic market worldwide will impact every imaginable industry. In this special live recording of the HBS alumni podcast, Skydeck, Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer in management Susan Wilner Golden (PMD 59, 1990; SD 1981, HSPH), discusses her new book, Stage (Not Age), and how we can unlock this new market by rethinking everything we think we know about people over 60.

Bio:
Susan Wilner Golden is an expert on innovation and entrepreneurial opportunities created by the new longevity, and she teaches this subject at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is the director of the dciX impact initiative at the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute, and advises companies on their longevity strategies. She serves as an adviser to the Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator and to Pivotal Ventures on longevity investment opportunities. Her career stops in venture capital, public health, and life sciences have given her a multidimensional, multidisciplinary perspective on longevity opportunities. Susan received her Doctor of Science in Health Services from the Harvard University School of Public Health and is a graduate of the HBS Program for Management Development. Her new book, Stage (Not Age): How to Understand and Serve People Over 60—the Fastest Growing, Most Dynamic Market in the World is now available for purchase at your favorite bookseller.

This session’s audio was recorded for the Skydeck Live podcast.

Hear an update on the Dean’s key priorities, which will strengthen and accelerate the School’s impact in the world.

The greatest challenge to the sustainability of our current era of globalization comes from within the US. Most Americans now reject globalization. What can we learn from parts of the developed world where the backlash is also profound—or more muted? One conclusion: It is not just about money. Those who feel left behind feel they have lost respect and dignity. The populist backlash also coincides with a shift in the global balance of power. We will explore the ways in which the disappointments with globalization in the West connect to the efforts of other great powers to rewrite the rules of the system.

Capital markets defied simple logic after the onset of Covid, quickly rallying to all-time highs in 2021. In 2022, the focus of policy makers has shifted from stimulating a pandemic economy to tightening financial conditions and combating inflation around the world. So far, indices which track fixed income market volatility have reached their highest levels since March 2020; mortgage rates in the US have doubled since the start of the year; credit spreads are markedly wider; global equity indices are in bear market territory; and the number of global IPOs has dramatically slowed in 2022. Is this the start of a new trend, with parallels to 1970s stagflation, or an opportunity to find bargains? Our panel of alumni active in investment management will share their insights about current market conditions and their implications for the economy, for public markets, for venture capital, for private equity, and for distressed investments. Alumni will leave this session with a better sense of the risks and opportunities in markets today.

Reunion brings the opportunity to reflect. Do you find yourself considering new ways to contribute to family, community, or work? This program will allow you to look more deeply into the essential elements that are always present when making the decisions that bring you closer to work and life fulfillment. Dr. Tim Butler will guide participants through exercises, working individually and in small groups, to help you gain clarity about what matters most in your work and life, better understand what you need and want in your life, and determine what action needs to be taken in your life.

Join Professor Casadesus-Masanell for a discussion on value innovation through the lens of the circus. In the mid-1800s, when the circus came to town, stores and factories closed, and children were let out of school. The circus was gaudy, noisy, and bustling. It represented an escape from the mundane into a world of intrigue and adventure. However, by the 21st century, the circus had begun to lose its appeal. Had an overreliance on nostalgia proved to be the bane of the circus? In this session, we will define the concept of value innovation and highlight its beliefs as well as limitations as a technique for breakthrough growth in crowded, competitive spaces.

How should historic social injustices be addressed? Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and their descendants believe they should be addressed through reparations. In this modified case discussion, participants will consider the specific issue of reparations for the Tulsa Massacre, the idea of reparations generally, and the use of reparations to respond to the effects of slavery and racist governmental policies in the US. Participants will leave with a sense of how to engage with social issues as a business leader, a facility in talking about complex social issues, and a greater understanding of the merits of reparations.

Total Shareholder Returns (TSRs) are a dominant measure of company returns but are deeply flawed. We propose an alternative measure that isolates operational performance from financial engineering, titled Core Operating Shareholders Returns (COSRs). In the process of disentangling COSRs from TSRs, we provide a comprehensive verdict on the buyback revolution and the results are fairly damning.

It’s becoming clear that today’s organizations are (and will continue to be) in a state of flux, as new experiments in work arrangements disrupt teams, a demand for innovation intensifies, and risks multiply. How to inspire and enable people to contribute their knowledge in timely, fearless ways has moved to center stage for leaders across industries. In this session, we will explore why psychological safety matters now more than ever for success in hybrid and shifting work environments, as well as how to help people team across boundaries of all kinds to accomplish challenging work together.

Slides

Most startups fail. About two-thirds of venture capital investments do not earn a positive return. Surprisingly, late-stage startups fail at the same high rates as early-stage ventures. Professor Eisenmann will discuss patterns that explain a large fraction of these failures and what entrepreneurs can do to anticipate patterns and reduce mortality risk. Participants will learn how founders can decide whether to pull the plug on their struggling startup, and if they do, how they can “fail well” in ways that leave their relationships and integrity intact, facilitate learning from the experience, and position them for their next career move.

Slides

What is going on in the US labor market? What is the Great Resignation and will it have lasting impact on the economy? What explains America having a record number of job openings and near record-low workforce participation at the same time? What can be done to create opportunity for the 40% of American workers stuck in low-wage jobs? This session will feature recent research from the School's Managing the Future of Work Project. Participants will gain an understanding of what lies beneath the headlines and of the various forces that will shape work in years to come.

One of the toughest challenges leaders face is managing diverse perspectives. At the same time, productive disagreement and engagement with opposing views are crucial to high-functioning teams and organizations. Drawing from my research I will discuss how leaders can approach disagreements productively and help employees at all levels do so. Tactics include training that defuses fears of disagreeing; encourages people to cultivate a receptive mindset; teaches people to choose words carefully, hedge claims, and emphasize areas of agreement; and fosters a culture of tolerance. Honing these skills can decrease frustration and negativity and is well worth the effort.

Drawing upon my recent book, I will offer a compelling reassessment of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms get purpose right. Based on extensive field research, I will show how deep-purpose companies energize their enterprise by inspiring employees and fostering greater loyalty and trust with customers and partners. Purpose is also a compass with which these firms effectively navigate the inevitable tradeoffs across stakeholders and balance their short- and long-term goals. Ultimately, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s future.

Amidst calls to increase consumerism in health care, large tech companies and retailers are making bold moves into the industry. These health care “entrants” aim to leverage their general skills in serving consumers to address barriers in health care delivery. Will these new entrants be competitors or partners with respect to existing health care players? Drawing upon examples of entrant moves into health care—at Walmart, Best Buy, and Amazon—this session will help participants understand the landscape of current efforts to embrace consumerism in health care and the significant challenges that remain in realizing its full potential.

Even can-do achievers can feel overwhelmed by big societal problems and the challenges they pose to business and personal life. Positive action requires leaders to “think outside the building” to open new pathways, forge new coalitions, and find sources of personal nurturance. Professor Kanter will outline 5 tactics for coping, transcending, and contributing to solutions to respond to the COVID pandemic, deal with war and cultural conflicts, or combat climate change, whether as entrepreneurs in startups, seasoned business leaders, or concerned citizens and parents. The session will include lessons on what can make things worse, when the goal is to make life better.

How can global energy companies, with substantial fossil fuel-burning assets, navigate decarbonization of their portfolio and the transition to renewables without sacrificing financial performance or putting off investors? Over what time horizon? In this session, we will discuss how setting ambitious net-zero energy goals means taking calculated risks at the frontiers of science and technology, making the most of growing green energy public and private infrastructure, working with your shareholders, and convincing the board to go along with the plan.

Small businesses have often faced gaps in access to credit. An explosion of new online fintech lenders is providing small-dollar loans to businesses within days, with easy online applications and innovative credit algorithms. Is this a good development for America’s small businesses? Senior Fellow Mills draws on her experience as former head of the United States Small Business Administration and member of President Obama’s Cabinet to discuss recent developments in this market. Participants will leave this session with a sense of both the underlying causes of the online fintech lending boom and the open questions faced by regulators, borrowers, and traditional banks.

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Do you see change ahead on your horizon, and you’re not sure how to put it all together optimally? Are you considering an encore or portfolio career, or do you want to explore a new path altogether? Maybe you’re wondering what a meaningful partial or full retirement might look like. If these topics resonate, join this hands-on workshop in which participants will learn efficient frameworks for ongoing life and career planning; consider work and life dimensions to help them create their next chapter; and network with peers who are also developing their next paths, wherever they may lead.

In this interactive session, I will share my research on companies that achieve exceptional financial performance. Our discussion will be based on my strategy course and the recently published book Better, Simpler Strategy. I will walk the participants through a simple framework that helps identify opportunities to create value for customers, employees, and suppliers.

Facebook, recently renamed Meta, has built a hugely successful in a very short period of time, and it’s done so largely without any legal or regulatory guardrails. Join us for a case discussion exploring two major challenges facing the company and society: privacy and trust breaches, and a growing sense of the “tragedy of the commons” in moderating content. Can management be trusted to self-regulate, or will regulators or other stakeholders need to play a more significant role to address a growing range of harms? Participants will leave with an understanding of how the business model creates challenges at scale and a greater sense of complexity of the regulatory and governance issues facing this and similar business.

Depending on the source, the People's Republic of China is either the next global technological and financial leader or teetering on collapse. How has the Chinese Communist Party managed rapid modernization while maintaining its monopoly on political power, and what does the country's domestic trajectory say about the CCP's global role? Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how China works and how the Chinese leadership see the world.

In 1921, Professor Clinton Biddle penned the very first HBS case: "In a plant of the General Shoe Company, it has come to the attention of the chief executive that many of the piece workers throughout the plant are in the habit of discontinuing their work three-quarters of an hour before closing time." Why are the workers leaving early? What can the chief executive do about it? Participants in this session will see whether a one-page case written a century ago can still spark a conversation and deliver valuable lessons.

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For a long time, companies looking to hire key executives knew what to look for: somebody with technical expertise, superior administrative skills, and a track record of successfully managing financial resources. When courting outside candidates to fill those roles, they often favored executives from established large companies, with proven operational expertise. That practice now feels like ancient history. So much has changed during the past two decades that companies can no longer assume that leaders with traditional managerial pedigrees will succeed in the C-suite. Join this interactive session to learn about the latest research on executive recruiting.

The world has a seemingly infinite supply of problems. Fortunately, entrepreneurs view problems as opportunities. In this talk, I will focus on entrepreneurs trying to deliver better health and education outcomes at lower cost and in less time. I will also discuss the role of ventures in addressing climate change. Some of the popular solutions to these challenges (e.g., Medicare for All, free community college, and elimination of fossil fuels) seem unlikely to work as currently envisioned. I will also address the current preoccupation in the media and politics with what is wrong, rather than how to fix problems at scale.

How did global supply chains become such a mess, and how does an understanding of the Beer Game and the “National Cranberry” case help me sort this out? Participants will leave this session with a reminder of how what they learned during their first-semester RC applies to everyday problems.

No industry is more important to the future of humanity than the space industry, and the current moment is more important to that industry than any since 1969. These are bold claims, but in this session we will engage them as we discuss the revolution being driven by companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Made In Space, Spire, and more. Participants will leave this session with an understanding of the core economics of the sector, the evolving relationship between private and public actors, and both the challenges and promise of this Commercial Space Age.

Web3 has come for government. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies have wound their way into public services. DAOs and NFTs have arrived on the political scene. Now public officials are tip-toeing into the metaverse. Barbados will open an embassy in Decentraland, an online world. Seoul’s mayor has announced plans for a metaverse platform for his city. The question for them and us: Should other officials should follow? Participants will leave with a sense for Web3 technologies being explored by governments and the private companies that engage them, as well as the potential political, social and commercial implications of these new partnerships.

Today’s assistant and associate professors will help keep HBS at the forefront of management education with their innovative ideas and tools, groundbreaking research, and rigorous scholarship. Select assistant professors were invited to present their research to the entire HBS faculty this semester, and here will reprise those 7-minute talks. Join to learn from and engage with the next generation of HBS faculty.

Professor Shapiro, and several of his colleagues, believe that they understand why some organizations succeed and some don’t. The presentation will begin with an explanation of that “secret sauce.” Then, we will jointly explore, in traditional HBS discussion mode, the relationships between the source of success, and the nature of the management team. The goal is to learn how to predict organizational success rather than just explain it after the fact.

Hosted by the Class of 1977.

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Fueled by a series of recent political events and actors, anti-globalization has been growing. From the rise of political platforms pinning blame on openness to imports and immigration to the public’s exposure to explicitly anti-global rhetoric and fast but not always research-methods-based online information, political actors have succeeded in giving voice to this set of economic grievances. In this session, we will review online surveys on attitudes towards globalization and economic policy to answer the question: Does the information that the public is exposed to online influence their views on trade policy? And by how much?

The case “Andonix: Leading Innovation in Turbulent Times” looks at David Yanez, a Mexican factory worker who migrated to Detroit to found a new venture in 2017 that provided a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform to empower—rather than replace—front-line workers. Andonix was just launching its MVP in Detroit automotive plants when COVID shut down businesses around the world. Yanez pivoted and developed a mobile app that would enable front-line workers to safely return to work. Between Q4 2022 and Q4 2021, Andonix grew its revenues by over 100% and expanded to other industries. Leave this session understanding how to lead innovation, growth, and transformation during turbulent times.

What does the future of entertainment look like? Fueled by advances in digital technology, will a select few superstars in media and sports come to have a bigger impact on popular culture than they do now, and how will they use their power? Will we see bigger bets on likely blockbusters, more intense competition in areas such as streaming and esports, and more industry consolidation? Drawing on dozens of recent case studies, Professor Elberse will walk participants through the likely future of the entertainment industry and outline the most effective business strategies and biggest entrepreneurial opportunities in these sectors.

E.O. Wilson observed that the “real problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.” We will examine 5 recently developed “godlike technologies” that have passed commercial viability and are on track to change the foundations of business and society by 2032—AI, blockchain, ubiquitous networks, synthetic biology, and brain-computer interfaces—and examine their impact on who we are as individuals and as a species. What does it take to live a purposeful life in an age where everything can change and where existential threats are real?

Burnout, retention, and renewed labor organization are critical challenges for leaders, especially amid COVID-19 and a looming recession. Leaders must ask themselves: What is it about my organization’s culture that is contributing to such a high level of mental stress for my employees? Why are people leaving my organization or refusing to return to the office in such high numbers? What is my response, and how are my employees receiving it? Participants will leave this interactive session with a framework for retaining talent.

The crush of patients created by COVID enabled the creation of sites for care outside the traditional hospital, such as retail pharmacies, ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care centers, telemedicine, and wireless sensors. Public policy mirrored these changes by allowing access to telemedicine and pharmaceuticals by mail and by redefining care of the home as an insured benefit and the ownership role of physicians. Some newly public health insurers added technology as a major asset, and VCs and PEs invested heavily in these new businesses. How sustainable is this new health care system, and what opportunities and risks does it create for patients, employers, and investors?

Executive teams in US firms are becoming increasingly partisan. We establish this new fact using political affiliations from voter registration records for top executives of S&P 1500 firms between 2008 and 2020. The new fact is explained by both an increasing share of Republican executives and increased assortative matching by executives on political affiliation. Departures of politically misaligned executives are value-destroying for shareholders, implying the increasing political polarization of corporate America may not be in the financial interest of shareholders.

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The World Economic Forum deems mental health deterioration as an imminent risk for humanity in the next two years. Talk of issues of mental health and work, once taboo, is now constant. In this session, we will explore why many pandemic responses – apps, time off, mindfulness webinars – have disappointed us. We will assess how companies can instead focus on why we get ourselves and our colleagues in trouble at work in the first place, and in doing so, increase the return on investment in employee well-being.

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We have entered a new era in which artificial intelligence (AI) is challenging the very concept of how a company is put together. AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value. Professor Lakhani will discuss how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have constrained business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, research shows how AI-driven processes are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, enable companies to straddle industry boundaries, and open up powerful opportunities for learning.

In the last decade, there has been a dramatic rise of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands such as Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, Glossier, and Allbirds. These brands entered mature markets dominated by established players like Gillette, L’Oréal, and Nike, and yet they grew rapidly to attain valuations over $1 billion. At the same time, some DTC brands, such as Casper, saw a significant drop in their valuation after going public. Are DTC brands a fad or a real disruption? And how should incumbents respond?

Wildfire, river flooding, drought, extreme heat, and sea rise perils seem to be getting worse in many parts of the world. The impacts vary depending on location, peril, types of structures, wealth, point of view, and the priority of other pressing concerns. There are substantial openings for organizations and investors to play offense, as well as defense. We will use case studies from Miami, FL (flooding) and Sonoma, CA (wildfire) to illustrate techniques and best practices. Participants will leave with a toolkit to help assess the severity of exposures and to use probabilities and risk maps to make investment choices.

If COVID has taught us anything, it is that we must find new ways to be at our best physically and mentally and to stay in touch with old friends and making new ones. Now is the time to apply your experiences and build on your strengths and interests. During this interactive session you will be inspired by a new framework on how to maintain your vitality and create a pathway to live the life and leave the legacy you desire. The session will end with a 15-minute strengthening routine to help you do and enjoy the most.

Slides

After 30 years in the corporate world, Anouk Patty (MBA 1997) made the leap to her dream job as chief of sport for US Ski and Snowboard, which is the governing body that nominates athletes to the US Olympic teams. In this live taping of the HBS alumni podcast Skydeck, Patty will talk about her own path as a former world-class skier and NCAA champion, through Silicon Valley and the tech world, and the ways in which the fundamentals of corporate leadership translate to the world of sport—and the areas in which they don’t. Bring your questions for the chief of sport, who is taking on organizational challenges like building culture across varied teams and disciplines (everything from Alpine racing to slopestyle), as well as creating a pipeline of young athletes and increasing the accessibility of snow sports.

Do your values match how you spend your time? If not, what’s getting in your way? Join HBS professor Leslie Perlow on a journey of thought-provoking self-reflection with tools used in a new popular EC course Crafting Your Life. This course explores how one can be more intentional about one’s choices and tradeoffs, even when faced with surprises and challenges along the way. Please submit your LIFE Matrix before your reunion to get the most out of this program.

Conventional wisdom says there are two phases of a company’s development—exploration and exploitation. But this overlooks a critical link, extrapolation—the transition phase between the two. Understanding how to unlock and manage through rapid growth is particularly pressing for technology ventures. When new ventures achieve market traction, revenues can grow at exponential rates. Success hinges on specific approaches to leadership and management that differ radically from what comes before or after. Participants will leave this session with a better understanding of how to make and manage such hypergrowth—and how to build more successful and sustainable tech ventures.

Conventional wisdom says there are two phases of a company’s development—exploration and exploitation. But this overlooks a critical link, extrapolation—the transition phase between the two. Understanding how to unlock and manage through rapid growth is particularly pressing for technology ventures. When new ventures achieve market traction, revenues can grow at exponential rates. Success hinges on specific approaches to leadership and management that differ radically from what comes before or after. Participants will leave this session with a better understanding of how to make and manage such hypergrowth—and how to build more successful and sustainable tech ventures.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, impacting 1 in 5 families in the United States. It causes profound suffering for patients, and is heartbreaking for families to witness. This disease also places an enormous burden on society. Delaying the onset of AD by just 5 years can save nearly a trillion dollars in the next decade in the US alone. Despite growing knowledge, treatments for AD have been largely ineffective because changes in the brain of AD patients begin to develop decades before symptoms appear. In this session, we will discuss the current Early Prediction – Early Detection – Early Intervention strategy, with its goal of preventing the onset of AD before symptoms arise or progress, and how we are now poised to take a giant step forward in preventing and curing Alzheimer’s disease.

When it comes to improving customer experiences, trying out business models, or developing new products, even the most experienced managers often discover that intuition, experience, and big data alone don’t work. What does work? Running disciplined business experiments. What makes a good experiment? How do you test in online and brick-and-mortar businesses? How do you build an experimentation culture? Professor Thomke will introduce you to best experimentation practice, explain how that works at leading companies like Amazon and Booking.com, and address some fundamental questions. He’ll also explain how these and other organizations have discovered that experimentation provides considerable competitive advantages.

Economists, lawyers, pundits, business leaders, and politicians all speak eloquently and forcefully about the role of business in society. But we listen less to our fellow consumer-citizens and who they think business should serve—or how. Peter Tufano, Sandra Sucher, and researchers at Edelman have collected and analyzed data from 14 countries about whose interests should be prioritized. In this session, we will poll alumni about how they conceive of the role of business—or what they imagine others might think—and compare this with the broad evidence. We will then discuss the implications for business—and for business education.

Professor Viceira will discuss the interest rate environment, putting it in historical context and in relation to macroeconomic and financial forces. He will also discuss the implications for investing of the low interest rate environment and how sophisticated institutional investors such as endowments have been reshaping their portfolios in response to this environment. Participants will leave the session with a perspective on current trends in investing.

After sourdough bread, countertop chive gardens, and vaccine selfies came a new pandemic-era trend: one daily chance to guess a five-letter word and crow about your success on social media via little green and yellow squares. From a personal game between a developer and his girlfriend to a global phenomenon in just a few months, Wordle seems poised to outlast its pandemic peers when the New York Times makes an unexpected bid to acquire it. Come dissect the journey of one entrepreneur and his viral product as he debates a 7-figure exit before earning his first dollar of revenue.

This session will be centered around a discussion of the case “Accounting for Bitcoin at Tesla.” Participants will evaluate Tesla’s strategic and financial rationale for adopting bitcoin, learn about the financial accounting implications or holding cryptocurrencies, and explore what these investments mean for corporate managers in terms of communication and reporting performance to the investment community.

What Makes for a Happy and Meaningful Life? And, what do the latest neuroscience findings say about it? Venture capital investor and HBS Senior Lecturer Jo Tango (MBA 1995) will cover those items and lessons learned from a challenging childhood.

Hosted by the Class of 1987.