Cold Call

In March 2020, Twiddy & Company, a family-owned vacation rental company known for hospitality rooted in personal interactions, needed to adjust to contactless, remote customer service. With the upcoming vacation season thrown into chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic, president Clark Twiddy had a responsibility to the company’s network of homeowners who rented their homes through the c

Ferran Adrià, chef at legendary Barcelona-based restaurant elBulli, was facing two related decisions. First, he and his team must continue to develop new and different dishes for elBulli to guarantee a continuous stream of innovation, the cornerstone of the restaurant's success. But they also need to focus on growing the restaurant’s business. Can the team balance both objective

In 2020, Amazon built a shelter for women and families experiencing houselessness on its campus in Seattle, Washington. The shelter was operated in partnership with a nonprofit organization known as Mary’s Place and was designed to address what had become an urgent problem for Seattle and many other wealthy American cities, where communities were being displaced by a lack of affo

Özyeğin Social Investments was founded by Hüsnü Özyeğin, one of Turkey's most successful entrepreneurs, with a focus on education, health, gender equality, rural development, and disaster relief in Turkey. Harvard Business School senior lecturer Christina Wing and Murat Özyeğin (MBA 2003) discuss how the company is a model for making a significant impact across multiple sec

In the spring of 2021, Raymond Jefferson (MBA 2000) applied for a job in President Joseph Biden’s administration. Ten years earlier, false allegations had been used to force him to resign from his prior U.S. government position as assistant secretary of labor for veterans’ employment and training in the U.S. Department of Labor. Jefferson filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S

Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei and Paul English, one of the most imaginative and successful innovators of his generation, discuss how to tell the difference between a good idea and a bad one, the importance of iteration, and taking a systematic (but fast) approach to developing new ideas.

Harvard University aims to be fossil-fuel neutral by 2026 and totally free of fossil fuels by 2050. As part of this goal, the university is trying to decarbonize its supply chain and considers replacing cement with a low-carbon substitute called Pozzotive®, made with post-consumer recycled glass. Harvard Business School professor emeritus Robert Kaplan and assistant professor Shir

In 2015, Apple debuted the iPhone 6S, which employed a default encryption system preventing both Apple and government authorities from accessing data stored on the device. But since then, global governments have questioned whether Apple’s desire to protect customer privacy interferes with public health and safety. Harvard Business School senior lecturer Henry McGee and professor

Ethanol had already transformed Brazil, where flex-fuel vehicles dominated the streets. Raízen, a bioenergy company headquartered in São Paulo, sought to prove that second-generation ethanol (E2G) could do the same for the world – especially in hard to decarbonize sectors, such as aviation and shipping. E2G is made from a byproduct of sugarcane that doesn’t compete with food

In December of 2020, SolarWinds learned that they had fallen victim to a widespread malware supply chain attack. This attack granted hackers access to thousands of it customers’ data, including military and government agencies across the globe. General Counsel Jason Bliss needed to orchestrate the company’s response without knowing how many of its 300,000 customers had been aff