The seminar is focused on the skills required to be an entrepreneurial leader over the next decade (2032).

E.O. Wilson observed that the ‘real problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.’ This seminar 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. It will do so in the context of 2 trends that have the same disruptive potential – climate change and demographic shifts.

What are the educational objectives?

The seminar will give students a basic understanding of 5 emerging technologies and 2 intersecting trends. It is designed to prepare students for the commercial and ethical choices they will face as these technologies get widely adopted and increase their potency.

1. Learn through engagement: Students will get a foundational understanding of the 5 selected technologies and how they reinforce each other.

• Ubiquitous networks: These networks collect data everywhere, on everything, all the time . They have shifted from tracking the things we do on networks, to things we do anywhere, to recording biometric markets of our internal states. They provide the fuel for the other 4 technologies.
• AI and Deep Learning Algorithms: In September 2017 Vladamir Putin predicted, ‘…. Artificial Intelligence is the future for all humankind. …..Whoever becomes leader in this sphere, becomes leader of the world.’ In 2020. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, predicted that AI would be as consequential to human development as fire and the wheel. Why?

  These technologies predict behavior and increasingly create behavior. They learn and improve relentlessly. They make better decisions than humans in an increasing number of contexts. They are unconstrained by moral boundaries.

• Neuroscience and the Human Operating System: The technologies enable us to develop a rigorous understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the Human Operating System – our strengths and our biases. The understanding enables us to move from predicting to influencing to controlling through fine grained understanding of the power of intermittent reinforcement, narrative coherence, social fear etc. These tools become particularly powerful in conjunction with the reach and scale of our data and AI.
• Gene Editing: In the last few years we have reached developed the capability to potentially edit the building blocks of life and change many of the inherent characteristics of living organism. The core technology has been validated and proved its efficacy with the development of the BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. The technology can also be used to redesign human capabilities and strengths. In some ways the biotech industry can serve as an early model of self-imposed constraints on certain types of uses – even when they serve the narrow interests of their creators.
• Blockchain based technologies: These technologies have completely flipped the centralized model of trust and control that underpins many of our core institutions. Companies are issuing their own currencies, enabling distributed autonomous governance processes, enabling self-enforcing contracts, creating new forms of value capture (NFT’s for example) and, most of all, moving the provision of trust from institutions and governments to network protocols that have no central authority. They challenge the core notions of brand value, scale, regulatory guardrails, hierarchy, incentives etc.

By the end of the seminar students should have a basic understanding of how these technologies work, how fast they are evolving, how they interact with each other and how they intersect with the problems of climate change and demographic shifts.

We will develop a limited set of hands-on exercises that enable students to experience the power of these approaches. For example, students could be asked to develop an AI model for detecting a disease, create deep fakes or train a computer to analyze an HBS case. Students could also create their own currency by launching a crypto token or spend time with an emotion-hacking bot or observe the process of using CRISPR to change biology.

2. Apply to current problems: How will these technologies affect our roles as customers, managers, leaders, investors and citizens? The class discussions will use case studies to examine the choices that are being made by CEO’s today. We will use cases that illustrate the how early business model, governance and financing choices constrain or amplify choices companies have (Facebook, Twitter, Uniswap).We will also look at a few early stage companies and discuss how their business model choices could affect their impact on society. What could go right? What could go wrong? How well do our existing processes and incentives lead us to good outcomes for the individual, firm and society?

3. Explore Implications: What are the individual competencies and institutional structures we need to develop? How will these technologies interact with each other? How can these new capabilities be used to address the challenges of climate change and demographic shifts? What ethical or professional boundaries should we consider for the ‘business professional’ (similar to the professional codes or lawyers or medical professionals) as we give businesses these gargantuan powers. The final project is likely to be an assessment of what the leadership challenges will be in 2032? What frameworks can students create to navigate the capabilities and risks of these techgnology capabilities and trends.?

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

This main purpose of this course is to extract highly practical lessons from studying the world’s greatest negotiators at work on their most challenging deals—in business, finance, diplomacy, the not-for-profit world, and across sectors. Since 2001, the Program on Negotiation—an interuniversity consortium involving Harvard, MIT, and Tufts—has regularly bestowed the “Great Negotiator Award” on men and women from around the world who have consistently overcome formidable barriers to achieve truly worthwhile purposes. In a closely related project at Harvard, faculty have conducted detailed interviews with former American Secretaries of State—Henry Kissinger, George Shultz James A. Baker, III, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Rex Tillerson—about their most difficult negotiations. As chair of the Great Negotiators Award program and co-chair of the American Secretaries of State initiative, I am deeply involved in a multi-year project to systematically distill the strategies and tactics of this distinguished group (along with several other remarkable negotiators). The emerging findings of this ongoing project will heavily inform this course. By way of highly interactive case discussions, frequently interspersed with video clips of the protagonists, and a few negotiation exercises, this course will develop valuable lessons and skills for complex dealmaking and dispute resolution that go well beyond those offered in introductory courses.

Career Focus

This course is designed for students who expect to analyze and participate effectively in challenging business, financial, diplomatic, and not-for-profit negotiations, often with public-private and cross-border aspects. Of the cases, exercises, videos, and significant examples in the course, roughly a third could be classified in a mainly business/financial/entrepreneurial category, a third could be classified in a mainly public/diplomatic/not-for-profit category, and a third would involve a mixture of private, public and/or not-for-profit parties that played meaningful roles.

Course Content and Organization

Throughout this course, a central theme is how to deal with difficult negotiators and genuinely hard negotiations in many different settings. Different aspects of meeting this challenge will be developed. One focus will be on "at-the-table" tactics for handling hardball moves, incompatible positions, adversarial relationships, ideological differences, the lack of vital information, and cross-cultural frictions. A second thread explores how sophisticated deal design moves can overcome impasses in order to create maximum value on a sustainable basis. A third consistent emphasis develops advanced concepts and skills for making effective "away-from-the-table" setup moves, especially to meet the challenges of cross-border negotiations and those that play out over time. Such challenges typically occur both "across the table" in negotiating "externally" with the other side(s) as well as "internally" within each side. Beyond doing individual deals, the course will explore how great negotiators often envision and carry out effective multi-front, sequential “negotiation campaigns” that culminate in achieving a target deal or deals with sufficient support for implementation and sustainability.

Course Requirements

Beyond constructive participation in class and faithfully preparing for and carrying out negotiation exercises, some students will opt for a self-scheduled written exam. However, with my approval, I will encourage individual students, optionally but often in small groups, to distill practical insights from studying a remarkable negotiator and/or especially valuable writings on a challenging aspect of the negotiation process. Those opting for a non-exam option should plan to present of their key findings to the class and to write a paper on their topic.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview

The course will provide a survey of the global food and agribusiness system. The primary focus is on understanding the business model and practices of farmers, processors and traders in traditional agriculture, both grain and protein. A few cases will explicitly consider the issues facing branded consumer goods manufacturers and food retailers. The case discussions will also reflect consumer trends, technological advances, public policy issues, food safety and risk management. An undercurrent in the course is the question of whether the food system is capable of feeding 9 billion people. The pervasiveness of food and agribusiness makes the course suitable for future consultants and investment bankers in addition to those who have a direct interest in the industry; it may also be of interest as a general management course due to its integrative, cross-functional approach and emphasis on strategy.

Content

Crop Production: We consider the typical challenges faced by farmers and processors involved with grains, fruits and vegetables. We look at where the margins are and the challenges of distribution. Cases may include Vegpro (Kenya), Zespri (New Zealand), Simplot (US) and Climate Corporation (US).

Protein: Similarly we consider the structure of beef, chicken and fish (aquaculture) producers, and opportunity for improvement. Cases may include Tyson (US), BRF (Brazil) and Marine Harvest (Norway).

Trading: Countries, by and large, aspire to self-sufficiency. But the reality is that supply and demand are not perfectly aligned. We examine the business (and lifecycle) of trading with cases on Olam (Singapore)and Louis Dreyfus (France).

The Consumer: The course ends with a module that explicitly considers how consumer needs and habits play into the food system, both good and bad. Cases include Dominos (US) and Nestle (Switzerland).

The course includes discussion of topics like human nutrition, GMOs, climate change and industry efforts to improve sustainability.

Course Requirements

The course is offered on a 28 session plus exam basis.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Objective

We are in the golden age of fraud. Learning how to detect and prevent fraud, and make better investment decisions, has broad applicability for people joining or running companies, as well as private and public market investors.

This course examines the most sensational global frauds of this millennium, such as Enron, FTX, and Lehman Brothers, with the following goals in mind:

• To learn the strategies used in executing the fraud;
• To understand how the fraud unraveled;
• To spot financial and non-financial “red flags” that should have alerted investors;

The course features prominent speakers involved in the frauds, including executives, short sellers, and whistleblowers.

Career Focus

The course is relevant for future leaders, as they develop expertise to understand financial reporting implications of business decisions and identify key control fault-lines in companies that can lead to fraud. The course is also relevant for students seeking to develop sophisticated financial analysis skills to spot red flags in their investment portfolios, and better prepare for careers in hedge funds, investment banking, or private equity.

Course Administration

Course grades will be based on class participation (50%) and a final project (50%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Purpose - Who Should Take this Course?

The purpose of ALD is to help you become more effective, authentic individuals, and leaders. We do this by carving out some sacred time and space in your busy lives to engage in a rigorous, theoretically-supported, meaningful conversation about who you are and the purpose of your leadership. This is a different kind of work. You cannot do it alone. Do not take this course unless you are open to sharing personal insights, experiences, ambitions, and fears both in class and in your Leader Development Groups (LDGs).

ALD requires an unusually high degree of curiosity, reflection, and interpersonal openness. You will be asked to think differently and explore new behaviors. We expect you to be absolutely honest with yourself and others. While few of our students are completely comfortable or sure about this type of work coming in, you must be at least open to experimenting with a different kind of learning. This is the bare minimum for joining ALD. Those who are not fully committed to investing in this course end up wasting their time. More importantly, they waste the valuable time and effort of others. We invite you to be “all in.”

Why Should You Take this Course?

If you spend time reflecting on some of the following challenges, you might consider taking ALD:

• I am 26 years old; I have lived for my resume. I am proud of what I have accomplished, but is that really all there is to it? What do I live for now?
• I seek public success and approval; my achievement masks deeper insecurities.
• I need to appear “strong” and “perfect.” I rarely open up or ask for help. These actions are signs of weakness to me.
• Why do I obsess about my image? Why do I care so much about what others think of me?
• Why am I afraid to tell you who I really am?
• I obsess about status and money, but don’t have the courage to pursue my personal passions. I’m not even sure anymore what they are.

Requirements

• Attend one 80-minute class each week for thirteen weeks on Tuesdays in assigned classrooms (please note exceptions for the first week and the week of 7 Novermber).
• Attend one, two-hour-long meeting per week with a six-person Leader Development Group (LDG). LDGs are held the afternoon of class between 5:30 and 7:30 pm. Rotating facilitators are drawn from the group. LDGs will be assigned in advance by your professor with the intent of creating diverse groups.
• Submit a reflective essay each week via Canvass. Reflections are due NLT midnight on the day following your class. Your reflection should be no less than one paragraph and no more than 2 pages double-spaced (think blog). This reflection is due even if you are the group facilitator that week.
• In lieu of an exam, students will write a final paper on the purpose of their leadership, as well as complete and submit a Personal Leadership Development Plan (PLDP).

Grading

There are three graded requirements:

1. Class participation
2. Weekly reflections
3. Final Essay & Personal Leadership Development Plan (PLDP)

There is one simple overarching criterion for assessing performance in all three areas:

Are you “all in”? Are you deeply engaged in this different kind of work? Are you giving this your best shot?

Course Premise

In its simplest form, here is the theoretical premise for ALD:

To the extent that you have a clearer sense of:

who you are, your life story, your values & principles, your motivations and passions, your leadership purpose, your True North,

When it comes time to lead you will be more likely to:

• step up,
• lead effectively, and
• live a more integrated & meaningful life.

Course Goals:

Overarching: Increased CLARITY (self-awareness) & COMFORT (self-acceptance)

Detailed:

1. Increase your self-awareness by engaging the “big questions” in life, with the goal to live with greater mindfulness and intentionality.
2. Help you uncover personal patterns, decide which ones serve you well (accept and commit to them), and which ones don’t (commit to changing them).
3. Learn how to participate more fully in open, intimate small-group discussions. Learn how to “listen deeply” to others, to be “fully there” for them.
4. Gain some clarity about your leadership purpose, values, and motivations, and the role these play when leading others.
5. Become more honest (and comfortable) with yourself in all dimensions of life.
6. Learn how to empower, engage, and inspire others.
7. Be able to more fully imagine the reality of others.

Course Outline

Drawing broadly from the fields of positive psychology, sociology, adult development, and leadership, you will be exposed to a powerful collection of theoretical frameworks and concepts all selected to support your progress in line with ALD Course Goals. Additionally, you will learn a set of foundational skills essential to the practice of authentic leadership. Finally, you will engage in several rigorous processes designed to support your continued growth and development throughout your life. Here is the course outline for ALD:

Readings

• Brown, Brene. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. New York: Gotham, 2012.
• Craig, N., George, B.; & Snook, S. The Discover Your True North Fieldbook. New Jersey: Wiley, 2015.
• Stone, D., Patton, B. and Heen, S. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. New York: Penguin Books, 2010.

Students receive three texts. The first of them, The Discover Your True North Fieldbook, is the basic text for ALD. Assignments in this workbook are designed to personalize and deepen your understanding of each week’s topic. Students are expected to complete all assigned exercises in this workbook prior to attending class each week.

Selected chapters will be assigned from the books, Difficult Conversations and Daring Greatly.

Leader Development Groups (LDGs)

Prior to our second meeting, each student will be assigned to a six-person Leader Development Group (LDG). LDGs meet in designated classrooms from 5:30 – 7:30 pm each week on the same day as your class. LDG meetings are a central part of the course and as such are treated just like normal class time. Attendance is mandatory. Do not take ALD if you cannot commit to attending all 12 LDG sessions (there is no LDG meeting following Lesson 1).

The purpose of LDGs is to carve out an intimate and safe place to engage in a deeper discussion of that day’s topic with your peers. Each week, a different student will be assigned to facilitate that day’s session. Faculty will provide additional guidance in the form of suggested exercises and discussion questions to help facilitators prepare for and lead their groups.

Each student will have the opportunity to facilitate for two weeks during the course. Facilitators will meet briefly with their professor prior to the LDG to discuss that week’s meeting (typically just following each day’s class). An ALD “Facilitator’s Guide” will be posted on the course website and also sent out to you via email when it is your turn to facilitate. The Facilitator’s Guide will provide a helpful overview of your responsibilities as facilitator for the weeks that you are assigned to that role.

Following each LDG meeting, facilitators will submit a summary of the group’s discussion, including attendance records and open questions.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

Avoiding Startup Failure will be of interest to students who:

1. Plan to start their own companies, immediately after graduation or in the future
2. Have experienced a startup failure--of their own or of a company they were a part of--and want to build a narrative toolkit for talking to future employers and investors about the experience
3. Want to join a startup and are looking for tools to evaluate companies and founding teams they are considering working with
4. Intend to invest in startups or serve as startup advisors and board members
5. Are interested in corporate innovation and applying the patterns of startup failure to innovation initiatives or incubator programs within traditional corporations

Educational Objectives

Most startups fail. Avoiding Startup Failure focuses on understanding why startups fail and what entrepreneurs can do to anticipate and avoid failure.

Additionally, the course prepares prospective entrepreneurs, those interested in joining startups, and those interested in investing in startups with a toolkit to rebound from startup failure, allowing them to maintain their reputations, relationships, and the opportunity to found again.

Course Content

Through a series of cases and discussions with founders, students will have the opportunity to build an understanding of the common causes of startup failure and how companies and founders can avoid, or rebound from, failure.

Over the arc of the course, we will explore:

• Common patterns that lead to startup failure
• Frameworks to identify these patterns in early-stage and late-stage ventures
• Rebuilding a venture after a near failure
• Avoiding ethical lapses as startups struggle
• Tactical steps for managing a venture’s shutdown to preserve relationships, reputations, and integrity
• How to learn from a venture’s failure and what to do with those learnings
• Addressing founder burnout & weighing tradeoffs when deciding if and when to found again
• Communicating key lessons from a venture’s failure when pitching a next venture to potential employees, investors, and strategic partners

Most class sessions will focus on venture capital-backed startups, but the course will also examine entrepreneurial failure in other contexts, for example: science-based “tough tech” ventures; startups that aim for social impact; new ventures launched by established corporations; and bootstrapped, “low tech” businesses. The case protagonist will join as a guest in most sessions.

Students can choose to take a final exam or complete a final paper (alone or in pairs). The final paper can either address a topic approved by the instructor or one of the following topics:

• Using course frameworks, analyze factors that contributed to the failure of a startup of their choosing.
• Write a “pre-mortem” for a going concern—or a startup that students might plan to launch—analyzing the factors behind that startup’s imagined future failure.
• Analyze distinctive factors behind startup failure in a specific context or industry sector, for example, biotech, social enterprise, or emerging markets.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Description

Effective managers need sound judgment to navigate a complex world. Good judgment requires an understanding of the behavioral biases that can hinder effective decision-making. It also requires a foundational understanding of the modern analytical toolkit, which can mitigate the risk of mistakes and guide managerial decisions. This course explores modern managerial judgment through the lens of behavioral economics, experiments, and other forms of data. The course aims to help students (a) improve their ability to make decisions effectively, (b) understand how to create environments that encourage others to make wiser decisions-or more broadly to do good-and (c) learn how to leverage experiments and other data to guide managerial decisions. Students will learn how to use psychological, sociological, and economic research, and a thoughtful approach to data, to structure organizational or institutional environments that encourage wiser, fairer, or otherwise better decisions by others, including employees, clients, customers, counterparts in other organizations, and the public at large. Topics may include risk and loss aversion, inattention, memory, intertemporal choice, networks, organizational norms, default options, consideration sets, choice architecture, platform design, experimental methods, unintended consequences, fairness, and the public good.

The course is centered on five themes:

1. Understanding decision-making. How do people make decisions? We discuss the psychology and sociology of decision-making, emphasizing the many ways that, in their everyday lives, people make decisions inconsistent with expectations of rationality.
2. Clarifying objectives. How should leaders determine whether the decisions others are making are optimal? We address the questions leaders should consider before deciding to intervene in others’ decision-making behavior-including whether it is actually irrational and whose interest it serves.
3. Creating environments. What strategies can leaders use to design and build environments conducive to better decisions? We explore the construction of environments that encourage others to do well by doing good or to make wiser decisions themselves, through processes that include nudges, incentives, and organizational changes.
4. Leveraging experiments. How can experiments guide managerial decisions? We develop a basic understanding of experiments, address their value in assessing the effectiveness of decision-making environments, introduce frameworks for students to leverage them in such contexts, and discuss the managerial questions that arise around their use.
5. Managing complexity.What broader questions must leaders consider when creating decision-making environments? We discuss the questions leaders must ask when managing the complexity of real-life environments, including how social networks and organizational capacity may complicate an intervention, what kinds of unintended consequences interventions may produce, and which constituents the leader can or should consider. Throughout the course, we discuss the ethical issues involved in behaviorally-informed management.

Excludes enrollment in Data Driven Leadership (2231) in Fall 2023

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview

Building Trusted Organizations focuses on methods that managers and executives can use to build strong and successful companies. Whether you’re an entrepreneur hoping to lead the next unicorn or aspire to be a C-level executive at an established corporation, knowing how to maintain the trust of multiple stakeholders will improve your ability to lead effectively. We often associate trust with ethical decisions but trust also directly translates into profit, growth, and the overall success of a business. BTO provides helpful frameworks and practical tips needed to cultivate trust with different audiences, including investors, board members, employees, customers, and government officials.

Course Objectives

Students will learn tactics for dealing with difficult situations, like deciding how to handle a safety or data breach, or apologizing for a well-publicized mistake. BTO supplements case studies and discussions with simulations and role-plays that place students in challenging situations. Students may be forced to choose only one option in situations where multiple stakeholders that are essential to the company have conflicting needs. Hands-on exercises will provide a sense of the pressures and difficult decisions leaders regularly face and learn how applying principles of trust within an organization can help leaders fairly manage multiple stakeholders with divergent needs.

1. Learn about the mechanics of building trust through direct engagement. Hands-on exercises will enable students to experience the power dynamics of trust and how to handle a breach of integrity. For example, students could be asked to act as CEO faced with the decision of how to manage an unexpected financial crisis, such as the sudden failure of an established bank.

2. Apply trust to common problems and scenarios. What are the individual competencies and institutional structures we need to develop to build lasting trust as an organization? We will incorporate case studies and discussions with class guests that explore how trust in a company affects customers, managers, leaders, investors, and citizens, individually and collectively. The class discussions will center on case studies that examine choices that are being made by CEOs today.

3. Explore the implications of what happens when leaders don’t cultivate trust. What happens if a trust breach occurs—what if your company fails to deliver on a promise or something out of your control goes wrong? What organizational expectations and actions can leaders take to rebuild trust? Under what conditions should you apologize? How do you apologize in a way that builds trust without undermining confidence in your ability to lead?

4. Learn how companies can measure and monitor their level of trust across multiple platforms and audiences. We will explore new technologies used to measure trust, and learn how boards and investors assess and act on company trust data and scores.

Learning objectives include:

1. Discover how to build and maintain the trust of stakeholders with different needs
2. Develop practical skills that help business leaders build trust within and beyond their organizations
3. Understand how businesses can measure its trust levels among constituents and track the impact of trust
4. Learn and apply techniques for recovering trust when necessary
5. Identify when it’s appropriate to apologize and how to craft an effective apology

Expectation

Grades are based on the final paper deliverable and class participation.

Outcomes

By the end of the course, students should have a deeper understanding of why trust uniquely matters to business and how leaders can build, maintain, and recover trust.

By actively participating in exercises and reflecting on personal results, students can begin to develop a blueprint for building trust among different constituents.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview

The "Web3" paradigm represents a new way of doing business on the Internet, leveraging decentralized platforms running on blockchain infrastructure. And just like the first and second waves of the Internet, Web3 has the potential to fundamentally reshape our lives.

Web3 adds a new "ownership" layer overlaying the Internet, giving users more direct control of their data, identity, and other digital assets – and thus potentially rebalancing their relationship with online platforms. This new Internet architecture holds the potential for building disintermediated financial and payment rails that could improve financial inclusion and revolutionize how value is transferred around the globe. And it is already shaping how digital assets are created and traded, affecting value capture by giving creators a way to interact with consumers directly – and giving consumers new ways to affect platform design and governance.

Yet at the same time, at least among some, Web3 has been beset with deep skepticism. Many early Web3 business models proved to be unsustainable. Regulators and policymakers increasingly expressed concerns about investor and consumer protections, fraudulent activities, and overall about financial stability.

This course will teach students what Web3 is, and how to think critically about it. We’ll explore the ways in which Web3 can create value (or fail to do so); and how that value is captured and shared by entrepreneurs, developers, consumers, and investors. Along the way, we’ll examine numerous use cases that rely on the nascent blockchain technology, and evaluate their merits and costs. Students will also learn the technical and practical underpinnings of the blockchain landscape through a series of live exercises.

Career Focus

This course has been specifically designed for students who are considering founding, joining, or investing in blockchain-based ventures upon, or soon after, graduation – or for any students who are likely to interact with such ventures through their broader engagement in business fields such as technology, finance, or media. While the course is focused on advanced technology, students need not have a technical background, merely a curiosity about these ventures and a passion for making an impact on the Web.

The primary objective of the course is to enable students to understand and evaluate Web3 business models and strategies at various stages of their development. The industry is early, and major use cases are still being developed and tested.

Both instructors believe this industry will play a major role in our lives in the future. But you don’t have to share this view(!). The course will help students shape their own assessments of Web3 technology and its future.

Key Learning Objectives

At a high level, the course asks:

• What is Web3, and how might it impact business, competition, and consumer welfare?
• How does Web3 create value? How is that value shared – and how is it captured?
• What are potential pitfalls and risks?

Specific objectives include:

• equipping students with a comprehensive understanding of blockchain technology, its technological advances and limitations;
• exploring which frictions such technology can alleviate, and in which use cases it can create most value;
• recognizing the unique features of Web3 projects: most are open-source, with no clear firm-boundaries, and highly interoperable – relying heavily on network effects and community engagement via the use of tokens;
• discussing how business models should be structured in Web3 in a manner that enables not only value creation but also sustainable value capture;
• understanding how to translate classic business frameworks used in traditional businesses to Web3;
• exploring the nuances and complexities of regulating the Web3 space, and how it affects business creation;
• understanding how investors deploy capital in Web3, and how the associated deals are structured.

We will consider a range of use cases, including new models for payments, finance, digital brand-building, media, gaming, identity, and more!

Course Content & Organization

The course will mostly be framed around case discussions on a range of Web3 ventures, with numerous in-class guests including Web3 entrepreneurs, investors, and other domain experts. Grading will be based on a combination of class participation, periodic written reflections, and a final written case done in small teams. Students will create crypto wallets and engage directly with a range of blockchain-based platforms and transaction formats.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

Leaders who aspire to run successful enterprises need to develop and execute a winning business formula. Difficult enough, but the reward for building a successful business is that the leader must then spot when external conditions require a change to the formula. And the more successful the business, the harder that piece will be to pull off. This course, which introduces a series of powerful theoretical frameworks for navigating these critical moments in enterprise growth, will prove valuable to students who anticipate managing, advising, or investing in any of a variety of companies-from category-creating startups to industry-leading incumbents.

Educational Objectives

The focus of the course is to learn to use well-researched theories about strategy, innovation, and management to understand why things happen the way they do in businesses, and to predict which tools, strategies, and methods will and will not be effective in the various circumstances in which our students find themselves.

Course Content and Objectives

This course was created by Professor Clayton Christensen to help students become insightful consumers and teachers of practical management theory and techniques. Early sessions will introduce models about the key jobs of the general manager, who must integrate the marketing, product development, operations, strategic planning, financial, and human dimensions of the enterprise. We will employ these models throughout the course to understand the root causes of the challenges that the general managers in our cases are facing, and to develop action plans for resolving them. During case discussions, we will seek to answer some of the following questions, which are relevant to companies of all sizes:

1. What is disruptive innovation? How can entrants disrupt market leaders, and what can market leaders do to avoid disruption?
2. Who is our ideal customer? How can we create products and brands that will appeal to those customers?
3. How should we decide which activities to keep in-house and which to outsource?
4. When is an industry about to be commoditized, and how can we profit from that shift?
5. How do we set strategy in a rapidly changing world (where unknowns vastly outweigh knowns)?
6. Whose investment capital will help us, and whose money might undermine our chances of success?
7. To what extent do commonly used performance metrics kill innovation, and how can we develop metrics that encourage new growth?
8. Can acquisitions become a pathway to new capabilities? Should we integrate acquired companies or keep them separate?
9. What is the role of the CEO in building new growth engines within established companies?

Course Organization and Grading

The course includes a final paper, to be completed by teams. The paper will not require field or library research; instead, it will provide an opportunity for students to apply theories and frameworks introduced in the course to explore the opportunities and challenges of a company they know and/or in which they have a current interest. Grading is based on class participation (50%) and the final paper (50%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course provides a comprehensive framework for using financial statements to evaluate a company’s strategy execution, performance, financial prospects, and value. The primary emphasis is on the analysis of public companies, but the framework and tools are also relevant to private enterprises. This course is particularly valuable to students seeking a career in consulting, corporate finance, hedge funds, venture capital, private equity, or investment banking.

Educational Objectives

The objective of the course is to provide hands-on experience in financial statement analysis and valuation that enhances investment decisions. By the end of the course, students are comfortable with analyzing complex financial statements to gain a richer understanding of firm performance and value. The course is a capstone course for the MBA program as it integrates and extends topics covered in various RC courses, including strategy, finance, and accounting.

Course Content and Organization

The course uses case-based discussions to develop a comprehensive framework that integrates strategy and financial analysis, and applies this framework to fundamental analysis and valuation. The first half of the course develops the framework through two main topics:

• Reporting strategy analysis: assessing a firm's value proposition and identifying its key value drivers and risks; evaluating the degree to which accounting policies and standards capture underlying economics; assessing earnings quality; and making adjustments to eliminate accounting distortions.
• Performance analysis and valuation: assessing current performance and its future sustainability; making forecasts of future profitability and risk; and valuing businesses using earnings and book value data.

The second half of the course applies the above framework to various contexts including equity-investment analysis, IPOs, mergers, short selling opportunities, and hedge fund activist investing strategies. Over the course of the semester, several high-profile guest speakers, such as renowned CEOs and CFOs, short sellers, hedge fund managers, activist investors, and research analysts will share their experiences with students.

To deepen students' ability to apply the course skills in a practical context, they also work on a group project. The project involves a comprehensive analysis using the course framework and a stock pitch to a panel of investors. In the past, students’ stock recommendations have outperformed the market.

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Objective

Business-to-business markets constitute about half of the transactional value of the US economy (for example, think about how many B2B transactions happen in the supply chain of a car manufacturer for all the parts before the end consumer purchases a car from a dealer). Many of our students end up working in B2B markets. For example, most financial transactions are B2B transactions (think about mergers and acquisitions, the much larger share of institutional investors in mutual and hedge fund markets, venture capital funds, private equity funds). In addition, critical divisions of many seemingly B2C companies run B2B marketing operations (think about how the revenue-generating divisions of Facebook or Google are, in fact, B2B operations, selling ads to other businesses either directly or through other businesses acting as intermediaries). While B2B operations have similarities with B2C operations, there are also fundamental differences (e.g., the decision-making processes involved in procurement decisions for organizations are much more complex than individuals' decisions to purchase a good or service for themselves). Nevertheless, most marketing and strategy courses are focused on B2C markets across top US business schools.

Sales and personal selling suffer from a similar lack of attention in business education. Personal selling is the primary form of go-to-market for many companies, especially in B2B markets, with salespeople representing 10% of the US's entire workforce. Each year US organizations spend more than $800 billion to manage their salesforce (roughly four times what they spend on advertising). Besides employees hired for formal sales positions, the job description of many others either directly or indirectly involves some form of selling. For example, a large part of a CEO's job is selling to various stakeholders (ideas and company's vision internally and to investors, and company's unique value proposition and branding externally to distribution partners and customers). Given its importance, it is surprising how many of our MBA students graduate without ever taking a course on selling!

The main objective of this course is to remedy the lack of exposure in our students to B2B marketing and sales by teaching them (a) the main considerations in marketing and selling to other businesses (e.g., how to analyze the buyer behavior, choose the right go-to-market strategy), (b) the main considerations in personal selling and managing a sales team (e.g., how to hire effective salespeople and design a compensation plan for them), and (c) how to align marketing and sales strategy with broader corporate strategy.

Who Should Take This Course?

Students who think they will be involved in sales functions and managing salespeople, some aspects of their jobs will involve selling, or students who will be involved in B2B industries. The course will be particularly beneficial for students who plan to work in professional services like management consulting, most finance-related positions, and manufacturing.

Content

The course consists of numerous cases, short lectures on selling, and a personal selling workshop. The cases cover various industries, from electric vertical takeoff and landing machines (eVTOLs, a.k.a. flying cars!) to heavy construction equipment, enterprise software, and professional services. Below are the main topics that we will cover and examples of what is included within each topic:

1. Business marketing: Go-to-Market system, channel development and management, product line management, analyzing buying behavior and value propositions
2. Personal selling and sales force management: personal selling tactics, sales force design, sales force compensation (e.g., using salary, commission, bonus, quota, over-achievement rewards to motivate salespeople)
3. Aligning strategy, marketing, and sales in B2B markets: pricing, key account management, novel technologies in B2B marketing and sales (e.g., IoT and AI)

Grading

The grading of this course will be based on class participation (50%) and a final exam (50%).

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Educational Objectives

The course examines the ways in which firms not only react to the geopolitical environment, but actually shape it, including how they impact bilateral relationships, contribute to power shifts, and act as vectors for the promotion of values and ideologies. The course will consist of three modules:

1. Historical examples of firms impacting geopolitics, especially relations between developed and developing countries;
2. Recent and contemporary instances of business and investment decisions that have geopolitical effects;
3. Focus on the US-China relationship, and look at how business is both impacting and being impacted by the struggle for hegemony currently underway.

Grading

Grades will be based 50% on participation and 50% on a ten-page paper on a firm facing a decision with geopolitical aspects.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Overview

Between a well-served top of the socio-economic pyramid and an almost indigent bottom, lies the majority of humanity, accessing goods and services, not through government or civil society, but through markets. Yet this remains largely unstudied. Through 24 cases, module summaries and guest protagonists, this course seeks to fill the gap. Composed of the emerging middle class and low-income sectors, the base of the pyramid encompasses 5.0 of the 7.5 billion people in the world. In most nations, it accounts for the largest aggregate expenditure of the economy, yet continues to be significantly underserved. This makes possible innovative, disruptive models that dramatically expand access while generating commercial returns equal to or greater than conventional businesses. This success has drawn the attention of large multinational corporations, looking at the base of the pyramid for the growth that has become ever more challenging in their saturated, intensely competitive traditional markets.

But why do some businesses at the base of the pyramid succeed while others fail? The course examines the opportunities and the challenges of the base of the pyramid markets and seeks to identify the key factors behind commercial success and failure. How is technology and the digital age changing this space? And when businesses generate strong financial returns, does it come at the expense of social impact --- can business play a significant role in addressing social issues? When is an enterprise generating high social value or destroying it? In the process, the course delves into the intersection of business, government, and civil society.

Cases are drawn from around the world, including some from the developed economies, where 40-50% of lower-income citizens access goods and services differently than those at the top of the pyramid.

Target Audience

This is a General Management course for operating managers, entrepreneurs, investors and consultants who are interested in the opportunities of fulfilling the largely unmet needs of the growing middle class and lower-income segments. In emerging markets, this often represents a majority of people and total spending; in developed economies it comprises the lowest two quintiles of the population. The course focuses on business at the base of the pyramid as a core commercial activity of the enterprise. Accordingly, it is not for those primarily interested in corporate social responsibility or in serving the ~10% lowest-income population of the world that is near indigence and for whom market solutions are less relevant.

Course Evaluation and Grading

50% of the grade will be based on class participation, 10% on an original posting and two responses on the course blog, and 40% on a take-home final exam.

This course is offered in conjunction with Finance. It is also part of a portfolio of courses relevant to Social Enterprise. For a full listing, see the Social Enterprise Initiative website.

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Career Focus

This course is primarily designed for students who are pursuing a career in film, television, music, publishing, performing arts, sports, or other sectors that supply goods that are commonly associated with artistic, athletic, cultural, or entertainment value.

The course is also useful for students who are planning to work in companies that advise or support those sectors. It may further be interesting for students seeking to advance their knowledge of general management, strategy, and marketing in the context of a challenging, rapidly changing, and fun environment.

Educational Objectives

The course starts with an examination of the properties that define the entertainment, media, and sports industries, and how those properties together introduce a unique set of challenges and opportunities for managers. Subsequent modules explore:

1. How can entertainment businesses best allocate resources across a portfolio of projects and for one project over time? For example, does it pay to pursue a "blockbuster" strategy?
2. How can entertainment businesses best approach the management and marketing of creative talent? In particular, how should companies invest in and capture value from "superstars" and the teams to which they belong?
3. How are digital technologies changing the entertainment industries? For instance, how are creative businesses affected by - and how can they benefit from - the rise of online channels?

The course ends with an examination of firms that fall outside the core entertainment industries but that seemingly face similar challenges or opportunities.

Cases focus on established and emerging firms, products, and personalities in media, sports, and other entertainment industries. Examples include The Walt Disney Studios, Live Nation, FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, American Ballet Theatre, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Roger Federer, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Shonda Rhimes, Ninja, Spotify, the NFL, MRC’s House of Cards, Disney versus Netflix, Nike sneakers, and Magnolia Network.

Grading

Grading is based on class participation (50%) and the final project (50%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

This course will examine the similarities and differences between being CEO in the private sector versus the public sector. Too often leaders from one sector think they are well-equipped to lead in the other without appreciating some critical differences.

Case studies and videos will be used to direct class discussion. Students will discuss strategies for leading and accomplishing defined goals. Topics will include an examination of the customer, defining quality, developing financial strategies, managing change, including technological innovation, and leading turnarounds. In all of this, the class will discuss leadership qualities and the decision-making process.

The focus will be on general management and understanding the interrelationships among all of the disciplines. Students will leave the course with a better understanding of the challenges, constraints, and opportunities, existing in both the private and public sector, and an appreciation of the job of CEO. I also hope that students leave the course with the confidence that they can run or turnaround any organization of any size.

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This course seeks to explore the theory, history, and state structures of capitalism; examine its manifestations in several national contexts; and understand the ways in which systemic changes to market capitalism are likely to both demand and cause systemic political change as well.

Course Content and Objectives

Capitalism today is under attack, criticized from many quarters as being the source of societal ills that range from inequality and systemic racism to climate change and labor market disruption. The goal of CATS is both to examine these criticisms and, more importantly, to interrogate the deep and fundamental connections between the market structures of capitalism and the political structures of the states that seek to support and nourish this system. What are the political prerequisites of a working capitalist system, the course will ask. What are the political risks inherent in a market economy, and what kinds of solutions, both economic and political, are best suited to address the current slate of concerns?

CATS is considerably more theoretical than most courses at HBS. The materials are non-case based, and draw from a combination of book chapters, academic articles, journalistic essays, videos, and podcasts. The reading load is relatively heavy (particularly for the first several sessions of the course), and students should be prepared to engage in conversations that are both philosophical and practical. After an introductory class that highlights several contemporary critiques of our market system, the course dives deep into some of the foundational theories of capitalism (John Locke’s Second Treatise; Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto) and the capitalist state (F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom, and Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation). We will then examine several critical tenets of market economies – including property rights and competition – and several of the most pressing problems that are allegedly inherent in their development. After reviewing some of capitalism’s most important international variants, the course will conclude by examining a range of solutions currently being offered to address capitalism’s ills, and discuss their feasibility within various political structures.

Course Administration and Grading

Students will be asked to write a final paper on a topic of their choice (worth 50% of their grade). The remainder of their grade (50%) will be based on class participation.

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Note: Andy Pforzheimer (Harvard College ’83) is the co-founder and former CEO of Barteca (Barcelona Wine Bar and Bartaco). He is currently a board member of US Foods and multiple privately-owned restaurant groups.

Uniquely within the HBS EC curriculum, this course is industry specific. Despite its universal appeal and reach, the restaurant industry has been lightly studied academically -- and yet its entrepreneurial and management learnings have broad application beyond restaurants. Sited within General Management, this course explores exactly that.

We will run the gamut from planning for the first restaurant to scaling to leadership of multinational chains, and evaluate opportunities inherent in typical restaurant business models as well as those created by disruptive changes affecting and shaping the industry.

Michael and Andy will co-teach the course using written cases, as well as “live” cases with protagonists facing real-time challenges. We will draw on industry executives, HBS alumni active in the industry, industry analysts and investors, and well-known chefs and restaurateurs.

9 in 10 consumers say they enjoy going to restaurants and half of consumers consider restaurants to be an essential part of their lifestyle. Restaurants are an important source of employment: the industry is the 2nd largest private employer in the US, projected to employ 15.5 million people in 2023, with over 60% of adults and 70% of millennials in the US having worked in the restaurant industry at some point in their life and 1 in 3 Americans having their first job experience in a restaurant. Restaurants have provided significant management and ownership opportunities for women and minorities.

Restaurants are also big business. In 2023, US restaurant industry sales are projected to reach $997 billion representing a $3 trillion economic impact and approximately 10% of the US gross domestic product. While business schools have occasionally studied large, national restaurant chains, approximately 70% of restaurants in 2019 were single unit operations. Restaurants have also attracted significant interest from venture capital and private equity and the industry has spawned a number of “unicorns.”

We hope to engage not only with students interested in the restaurant industry, but also those interested in food and sustainability, applications of technology and, given the labor-intense characteristic of restaurants, the complex interaction of food and labor costs with consumer value. The course may also appeal to future consultants, investment bankers and venture capital/private equity professionals, as well as to students interested in general management, particularly regarding an industry subject to hugely disruptive forces and spawning compelling investment opportunities.

Grading will be based on class participation (40%), the two exercises (30%), and a final exam (30%). Cross registrants will be accepted.

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This course is designed as a capstone for graduating MBA students.

Our mission is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. As you prepare to leave Harvard Business School, the critical question is: “What do I need to do to make a difference?” To answer this question, we will study—and learn from—the life choices of a variety of remarkable people who left a lasting legacy that changed the world.

Each week, we will analyze case-length biographies to understand the choices that these high-impact individuals faced in their lives and the paths they followed. Here is a list of the biographies that will be included in your case packet:

Business:

• Mary Kay Ash
• P.T. Barnum
• Sarah Breedlove
• Walt Disney
• Henry Ford
• Steve Jobs

Authors

• Ayn Rand

Education

• James Conant

Entertainment

• Leonard Bernstein

Government/Military

• Dwight Eisenhower
• John F. Kennedy
• Ronald Reagan
• Margaret Thatcher

Humanitarian

• Mahatma Gandhi
• Helen Keller
• Bill Wilson

Scientists

• Marie Curie
• Albert Einstein

Sports

• Muhammad Ali
• Jackie Robinson

The goal of our in-class discussions will be to discover the recipe for their outstanding achievements. We will start by defining the personal characteristics that are needed. Then, we will consider how different starting points in life affected the paths that people followed. Next we will consider the building blocks of a successful career. Finally, we will analyze how each individual navigated forks in the road and ultimately found purpose in their life.

During the second half of the course, students will work on a project to test and apply what they are learning. This will require students (either alone or in pairs) to interview someone they admire and write-up their findings. Scheduled classes will be freed-up to give students time to work on the project. Grading will be based on class participation, short polls and hand-ins, and the completed project.

You will find this course appealing if:

1. You enjoy learning about the lives and times of interesting individuals in a wide variety of settings;
2. You want to understand, and be inspired by, the choices that these individuals made and the paths they followed to rise to positions of prominence;
3. You enjoy engaging in a spirited discussion about controversial topics; and
4. You want to be challenged to think about your own life and the choices you will confront if you want to make a difference in the world.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course prepares students to invest in, advise, or lead organizations in the context of increasing pressures of global urbanization, resource scarcity, and perils relating to climate change. The course takes a finance and real assets point of view focusing on houses, buildings, infrastructure, and cities as individuals, businesses, and global society make choices about who and what to protect. There are perils and also extensive opportunities in the analysis of situations and the deployment of tools, data science, and capital leading to success even in the face of these tensions.

Educational Objectives

The course starts with fundamentals of analysis of buildings, infrastructure, and economic development of cities. The content then progresses into how to incorporate considerations of urbanization, resource scarcity, and climate perils with proactive interventions that meet financial and societal returns on investment. The course concludes with opportunities at the level of individual actors.

1. What are the core tools and skills for analysis of green and healthy buildings, sustainable infrastructure, large project finance, and public private partnerships?
2. How do legacy and new cities realize both economic growth and equitable opportunity for residents? How does private investment help to accelerate beneficial outcomes?
3. What are the timeframes and impacts in various geographies of increases in river flooding, extreme heat, sea level rise, wildfires, and drought? What are the policy and private sector tools to assess investments in reinforcement, or response, or recovery and when are these best used?
4. How will capital markets, mortgages, property casualty insurance, and public health considerations, combined with data science, influence both investing and behavior?
5. Where are the entrepreneurial and investment opportunities relating to climate adaptation, including for example analytics, sensors, membranes, equipment, real estate development and relocation, and the finance and delivery of resilient infrastructure?

Cases are drawn from the USA and also extensively from emerging markets including Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.

Cross-registrants are welcome with prior permission of the instructor. Prerequisites are HBS Finance 1 and Finance 2, or HBS Real Property, or equivalent. Complementary courses include Real Estate Private Equity, Risks and Opportunities Investing in Climate Change, and Global Climate Change.

Grading

Grading is based on class participation (50%), several polls and short assignments (20%), and a final exam (30%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course provides a general management perspective on corporate finance and is designed to improve your ability to create value. It should appeal to students who want to work as finance executives within organizations (both for-profit and non-profit); as strategy consultants or investment bankers who advise organizations; or as private equity, public equity, venture capital, or hedge fund investors. The course should also appeal to students who simply want to deepen their understanding of corporate finance in a range of topics and settings not covered in the required curriculum courses.

Educational Objectives

The goal of the course is to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and judgment required to make good investment, financing, and operating decisions. The course emphasizes the development of practical insights rather than formal theories. We will refine and extend the analytical tools covered in RC Finance 1 and 2 and apply value-based management techniques to a broad set of business decisions.

Course Content and Organization

Most class sessions will be case-based. While the Fall and Spring versions of the course will utilize many of the same cases and cover many of the same topics, each will have a different emphasis.

The Fall version of the course emphasizes the activities performed by the chief financial officer (CFO). This focus intends to expose you to what these activities are, to engage you in rich discussions about the key considerations behind fundamental choices CFOs face, and to teach you financial decision making frameworks and processes that firms often use. The key modules include

• Measuring and Driving Performance
• Managing Funding Sources and Cash
• Managing Risk
• Managing Investment

In the Fall version, we will have numerous guests over the course of the semester, most of whom are CFOs and HBS graduates. In addition to hearing from several case protagonists, we will be joined by CFOs who are subject matter experts on topics we will discuss. In the past, guests have included Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft; Eleanor Laurans, CFO of Boston Public Schools; Doug Maine, former CFO of MCI and IBM; Jonathan Mariner, former CFO of Major League Baseball; Byron Pollitt, former CFO of Visa; Helen Riley, CFO of Google X; Robert Ryan, former CFO of Medtronic; Dhivya Suryadevara, CFO of GM; Scott Ullem, CFO of Edwards Lifesciences, and several other current or former CFOs and CEOs. We will use part of our time with these guests to discuss their career paths and explore career options.

The Spring version of the course is intended to be a capstone course for the MBA program by integrating and extending topics covered in various RC courses particularly strategy, finance, and leadership. It will place more emphasis on strategic analysis-the financial implications of major strategic decisions. It will utilize more strategy concepts (creating and sustaining competitive advantage, managing competitive interactions, etc.) than a typical RC Finance class, and will utilize more financial concepts (measuring value, assessing risk, and analyzing cash flows) than a typical RC Strategy class. In short, it is designed to teach a set of quantitative tools (microeconomics of supply and demand curves, the strategic value of optionality, and the concept of price elasticity) and frameworks that can help you make important strategic and operating decisions. In the end, the goals are to improve your financial acumen, deepen your strategic thinking, and unify the knowledge you’ve learned across multiple functional silos. The key modules include:

• Understanding Value Drivers
• Creating Competitive Advantage
• Sustaining Competitive Advantage
• Driving Profitable Growth
• Setting Corporate Objectives

NOTE: Because there is considerable overlap between the fall course, Corporate Finance: Corporate Financial Operations (CFO) 1416, and the spring course, Strategies for Value Creation (SVC) 1417, students cannot take both of them.

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Who should take the course?

This course should be of interest to most, if not all, students. Many of you will serve as a CEO or other senior executive working with a board of directors. Others will be entrepreneurs needing to build a board for your company as a private entity and later as a public company. Still others will be investors or investment professionals needing to assess the governance of the companies you invest in. And of course many of you will serve on one or more boards during your careers, either as an investor, executive, or independent director. The goal of the course is to prepare you to deal with all of these situations, as well as to be an informed shareholder.

What are the course objectives?

The primary purpose of the course is to develop your understanding of corporate governance and the functioning of boards and, importantly, to equip you to work with boards and to serve as a director. In the course, we will examine

• the complex dynamics among boards, executives, and shareholders;
• the changing rights and powers of shareholders;
• different theories of corporate governance and their practical implications;
• the work that boards do and the critical decisions they make;
• the legal, financial, managerial, and behavioral issues that directors must contend with in order to be effective;
• the classic dilemmas that boards confront;
• the costs and rewards of board service and the challenges faced by individual directors.

The course considers these issues in the context mainly of listed companies, though we will also examine the governance of private companies such as private-equity, venture-backed, and family-controlled firms. Roughly two-thirds of the sessions concern companies based in the US; the other third are about companies based in other parts of the world, including Europe, the UK, the Middle East, South Africa, and Latin America.

Throughout the course, we will explore differing conceptions of “good governance” and what they mean in practical terms for boards, executives and companies. We will consider, for instance, the implications of departures from the long-standing norm of “one-share, one-vote” as seen in many recent IPOs such as the Snap, Inc., offering. We will also examine contemporary debates about shareholder activism, board diversity, board leadership, executive compensation, environmental and social factors in governance, hostile takeovers, and the market for corporate control. We will consider the role of stakeholders other than shareholders in corporate governance and examine new corporate forms such as the public benefit corporation or B-Corp. The course will give students an inside look into the dynamics of the boardroom, a realm that is generally opaque and often misunderstood by outside observes.

What is the course content and structure?

The course has five main modules and a short concluding module. The modules are organized around the following topics: the purpose of governance, including the role of shareholders; building an effective board; the board-CEO relationship, including the board’s role in hiring, firing, and compensating the CEO; boardroom dilemmas in M&A and other change-of-control transactions; the board’s oversight role in areas such as financial reporting, compliance and culture, sustainability and ESG; and the challenges of succeeding as a director.

The class sessions will involve case discussions, role-playing exercises, and other activities. We expect to have guests in a number of sessions.

What are the course requirements?

The basic learning for the course takes place through preparation and participation in class discussion. Thus class participation quality as well as frequency will count for 50% of the grade. A final exam will account for the other 50%.

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Class meets weekly on Tuesdays as a section. There are 12 section meetings during the semester, on all Tuesdays, except for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (11/22).

Class meets weekly on Wednesday nights -- almost always from 5:30-7:30pm -- to enable unique interactions with HBS alumni and other guests. There are 10 Wednesday sessions, every Wednesday night during the semester except the 2 Open Wednesdays (10/25, 11/15) and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (11/23). On two other Wednesday nights these sessions will be longer – 5:30-8:30pm – to accommodate unique opportunities. Tentatively, these two longer sessions will be held on 10/11 and 11/29.

Paper (Individual)

Educational Objectives

Crafting Your Life: The First 10 Years Post MBA (LIFE) is fundamentally a course about you. It is about preparing and equipping you to better handle the choices, tradeoffs, and surprises that you will inevitably face after graduating from HBS. Throughout the course, you will define what a life well-lived means to you, and discover and implement tactics and practices to enable you to live consistently with what matters most to you. In addition, you will consider how to adapt along the way when life inevitably does not go according to plan.

A unique feature of the course is the emphasis on community – with your fellow students as well as alumni. You will have access to alumni and their lived experiences. There are a multitude of interactions with both alumni 10+ years out reflecting on their lives to date as well as the over 250 former students of the course (known as LIFERs) who continue to be involved and share their current experiences. Alumni and LIFERs interact with students as part of the class in more traditional ways as case protagonists, and panelists, but also as part of small group discussions and one-on-one conversations. These interactions are meant to help inform you about others’ experiences and what they learned from them – and in turn to help you think more deeply about what you want out of your life and how you want to best equip yourself for what lies ahead.

The course strives to help you think deeply and intentionally about the following questions:

1. Defining Your Compass
• What are my values? Who am I at my best?
• How has my past shaped me? What assumptions do I have about my life – which do I want to keep and which do I want to revise?
• What does it mean to me to live a good life? What is important to me, and how will I prioritize my time and energy towards what matters most?
2. Owning Your Actions
• How do I approach decisions and tradeoffs across different areas of my life?
• How do I use my time on a daily and weekly basis? How do I create and change habits that enable me to continue making progress towards the life that I want?
• How do I think about my choice of geography?
• How do I create structures for navigating life, with all of its twists and turns, with a life partner?
• How do I think about career/family choices? What does it mean to be part of a dual-career couple? Would I ever consider opting out of the work force?
3. Equipping Yourself for What You Cannot Control
• How do I take care of myself, and especially take care of my mental health? How do I build my capacity for resilience?
• How do I develop relationships that will sustain me – both at work and in life?
• How do I think about making a “difference” in the world? In what ways can I craft my life and my job in ways that will enable me to achieve my goals?

With this in mind, LIFE is not your typical HBS class. When you sign up for LIFE, you sign up for:

• A Laboratory. We think of life as a laboratory, and crafting your life as an ongoing discovery process of experimenting, learning, and adapting over time. Similarly, the LIFE course is not and never will be a finished product. The first version of the course was developed in close partnership with EC students and we continue the process of co-creation with students every year—and expect you to play an active role in shaping the course for future generations. By getting comfortable with trying new and different ways of learning, providing feedback, and sharing ideas to improve the course, you will also practice a “test-and-learn” mindset and develop skills that you can apply in your own life laboratory.
• A Community for Life-Long Learning. When you join LIFE, you are joining a broader community of students and alumni invested in learning with and supporting each other in the pursuit of a life well-lived. Throughout the course, we will build shared language, skills, and norms about what it means to craft your life, thereby enabling you to engage with one another deeply on personal topics that might otherwise be undiscussed in an academic or professional setting. LIFERs (graduates of the course) will interact with you throughout the semester, and in the final class they will welcome you into the LIFER community.
• Intergenerational Learning. HBS has a tremendously broad and diverse alumni network with a wide array of professional and personal experiences. LIFE is a platform to unlock the potential of the alumni network by facilitating intergenerational learning. Throughout the course, you will engage with alumni in a variety of ways, including: one-on-one interviews, panel discussions on specific topics, and two unique events—a reception featuring small group conversations between students and alumni and a celebration at the end of the semester where LIFERs will welcome you into the LIFER community.

Course Structure and Requirements

LIFE has two sections of 40 students each. This class size is designed to foster deep connections through class discussion, small group conversations, and pair-and-shares.

Time

LIFE has a unique class structure designed to create the best possible learning environment for each topic and experience. Each section meets separately on Tuesdays during a regular X schedule block, and both sections will come together on Wednesday nights from 5:30-7:30 pm except on two Wednesday nights (tentatively 10/11 & 11/29) for special events that will last from 5:30-8:30. These evening sessions are classes, and you are required to attend all of them.

The two special events include:

• Alumni Reception —10/11 (tentative date). We will host approximately 80 local HBS alumni for a reception and small-group conversations around topics of mutual interest. Before the reception, you will have the opportunity to identify the topics that you would most like to discuss with alumni.
• Relationships Workshop — 11/29 (tentative date). This workshop consists of two parts: the first part focuses on who are you in a relationship and how to find and commit to the partner that is best for you. The second part is designed to help you think about—and practice—how to productively structure conversations about important life decisions with your partner. For the second part of this workshop you will be encouraged to bring a guest who knows you well. They need not be a romantic partner! You are welcome to invite a friend, a parent or a sibling, or anyone else whom you would like as your guest for this workshop. Please note: This workshop has been carefully designed to be inclusive of all students and will help those not in relationships think about how to find the right relationship for them, for those in relationships to consider their commitment in those relationships, and for those fully committed to focus on how to thrive in their relationships.

Assignments During Semester

Weekly Readings. Each week you will read cases and/or vignettes about alumni as you do in a traditional HBS class. However, the intent of these cases/vignettes is to help you understand what the person being described did, and for you to reflect on your own reactions and what you would do – not to judge what they did.

Weekly Exercises. Most weeks you will have exercises that accompany the readings to learn more about you, whether it’s looking back at your past, or tracking how you spend your time, or playing a life simulation to uncover the choices and tradeoffs you are inclined to make.

Module Reflections. At the end of each of the three modules of the course you are asked to stop and reflect on what you have been learning about yourself. These reflections are not graded, and rather are built in for you to pause and explore your insights. They all form the basis of your final paper so the more you invest during the semester the easier your task come the end of the term.

Interviews. Throughout the semester you are required to conduct 4 interviews. The first interview is with a former Crafting your Life student (LIFER) and the remaining 3 are with alumni five or more years out of HBS. You can choose your own alumni or use the LIFE Connect tool developed for this course to match you with alumni that are prepared to talk about the topics you are hoping to discuss.

Final Paper

Your final paper is an opportunity to compile all that you have done throughout the semester. Essentially, you will be “writing” your final paper throughout the semester through the weekly exercises, module reflections, and alumni interview summaries. The purpose of the paper is to meaningfully reflect on all that you’ve learned about yourself, and to create something to which you can refer back throughout your life. The final paper integrates what you have learned, and you will also create an artifact as a tangible companion piece to the paper to remind you daily of what you have learned about yourself and wish to stay true to going forward.

Design Partners

LIFE is unique in that it is an EC course created by EC students, for EC students. The course originated in 2019 through a partnership between EC students and HBS alumni and continues to evolve (in both form and content) in collaboration with our students – who we consider to be our design partners. If you sign up for LIFE, you are not just electing to take a course—you are choosing to pick up the baton from those students who came before you, and continue the course development process with all the attendant joys of leaving a legacy that will be part of HBS students’ experience for years to come. Note, however, that this also requires the full awareness that some aspects of LIFE are in the process of being designed, in partnership with you. Your ongoing feedback and help will be part of the experience, and part of the learning that you (and we) take away from the course.

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Career Focus:

This course is designed for students who plan to create, unlock, or invest in value created through brands in the consumer and retail space. It is appropriate for:

• Marketing professionals charged with creating, nurturing, and managing brand value;
• Entrepreneurs looking to create their own brands in the consumer/retail space;
• Consumer/retail general managers and consultants engaged in stewarding brand strategy; and
• Venture capital or private equity investors seeking to identify brand asset potential.

Educational Objectives:

In the consumer/retail space, brands are often companies’ most valuable assets and sources of their sustainable competitive advantage. But, managing brands to achieve their full value potential has never been more difficult. Consumers are increasingly diverse, skeptical of marketing, and empowered by digital technologies that easily connect them to others who share their tastes. They co-create the meaning of the brands that shape their lives and play a participatory role in brand management that can make them allies or adversaries. The contemporary brandscape is crowded with new competitors vying to stake claims to rich, meaning-laden value propositions that reflect and leverage the zeitgeist. Iconic brands are toppled everyday by young upstarts telling new types of stories in authentic ways. Firms are aggressively buying consumers’ brand loyalty at the same time they are firing their customers. Customer relationship management (CRM) investments have failed to deliver on their promise and are often hurting rather than helping the development of strong consumer-brand relationships. Brand managers are losing control as consumers hijack brand meaning and engage in open-source branding. And, the next brand crisis is just around the corner in a 24/7 news cycle driven by social media.

This course takes a contemporary view of branding as a collective and collaborative meaning-making process among firms, consumers, and other cultural producers, and of brands as meaning-based, relational assets that must be carefully designed, curated, and negotiated to unlock their considerable value. As branding becomes more participatory, experiential, social, and experimental, the role of the brand manager requires cultural and relational prowess. Today’s managers must be able to author resonant stories that spark conversations that capture attention, generate engagement, and provide culturally-relevant meaning to consumers. Learnings will focus on how brands and the stories that define them can be crafted, communicated, and managed in ways that nurture relationships that create value for both consumers and firms.

Course Content and Organization:

The course is organized into four modules:

Module 1: The Value of Brands
Key questions will include:

• What, exactly, is a brand? What “jobs” do brands do for consumers?
• How do brands create value for consumers and for firms?
• How can brand be used as a competitive advantage?
• What is competitive brand positioning and how can firms big and small use it to their advantage?
• How relevant are brands in today’s marketplace and what are the forces that are making brands more or less relevant to consumers?

Module 2: Brand Storytelling
Key questions will include:

• What is consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) and how is it built and maintained? How may it be measured?
• How can brand managers use consumer research to inform their brand strategy?
• How is brand meaning created and who are the multiple authors that narrate it? How can brand managers best manage brand meaning co-creation alongside consumers?
• What makes a good brand story?
• How can managers use cultural branding techniques to craft culturally resonant brand narratives?

Module 3: Brand Management
Key questions will include:

• How should brands be best managed over time for continued growth?
• How flexible are brands and how can this flexibility be leveraged for growth? What are the opportunities and challenges associated with geographic, target market, product line, and brand extensions?
• How can brand portfolio strategy and brand architecture increase the value of a firm’s brands?
• What's the best way for brands to go global? How are global brands best managed?
• Under which conditions should a firm pursue a global branding strategy versus a portfolio of local brands?

Module 4: The Social Value of Brands
Key questions will include:

• What roles do brands play as relational partners? How do different relational roles contribute to differential costs and benefits to firms?
• How does a consumer-brand relationship form and evolve over time? Why do some relationships decline and dissolve while others intensify and endure?
• What is brand loyalty and how does it manifest itself? How is it best nurtured and negotiated?
• What is customer relationship management (CRM) and how do brands and their consumers enact their relationships?
• Who is responsible for an unprofitable relationship? Should firms “fire” their customers? Under which conditions?
• Why do consumers join brand communities? What types of value do they provide?
• How can brand communities be crowdsourced to help build brands?
• How are brand communities valuable to and dangerous for brands? How are they best managed?
• What is the role of influencer marketing in building brands?
• What happens when consumers hijack brand meaning? How can brand managers work with online and offline influencers and brand communities to create rather than destroy value?
• How do brand experiences deliver brand myths and bring customers closer to each other and to the brand?

Grading:

Grades will be earned through the following activities:

• 50% Class Participation and in-class Exercises
• 50% Final Exam

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Career Focus

This course provides students with skills and knowledge that will prepare them for a variety of careers including all types of investing (particularly in companies with debt), special situations investing, financial advisory, and general management.

Educational Objectives

Corporate restructuring is a common and significant event affecting not only lenders, shareholders, and employees but also the web of relationships between companies and their corporate customers, suppliers, and competitors. Restructuring is the process by which companies renegotiate the financial contracts and commitments they have entered into with their creditors and other stakeholders, usually in response to some financial challenge or crisis. This process of renegotiation and re-contracting - the “re-slicing of the corporate pie” - is the central focus of the course.

An additional objective in dissecting the complex finances and operating challenges that confront companies in financial distress is to deepen student understanding of corporate debt financing, including the rights of secured creditors, subordination agreements, and debt covenants. By understanding how to fix a “sick” capital structure, students will better understand how to optimally finance a business, and more effectively manage financial risk, when times are good.

Lastly, there are important lessons to be learned through studying companies and industries that have struggled. Through understanding a variety of reasons why “things go wrong”, students will be better able to identify the patterns of behavior that often lead to trouble.

Content and Organization

The course is organized around two modules. The first module focuses on the restructuring of debt – and provides a foundation to understand the fundamentals of corporate restructuring and then applies these tools to explore the many offensive and defensive strategies employed by debtors, creditors, and other constituents. The second module focuses on the restructuring of other sections of the balance sheet such as mass tort claims or employees’ claims.

The cases that students study in this course tend to focus on large companies, with complex capital structures, facing extremely challenging business situations (including threats to their survival). Restructurings are often extremely complicated, and involve multiple issues around valuation, bond indentures, subordination agreements, bankruptcy law, employment law, taxes, litigation, regulation, etc. In analyzing the cases in the course, emphasis will be placed on drilling down into the details and "fine print" of these and other issues.

Topics covered in this finance course include Chapter 11 bankruptcy, out-of-court workouts, distressed exchange offers, "Section 363" asset sales, prepackaged bankruptcy, debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing, mass tort clais, restructuring of retiree health care/pension plans, and corporate layoff/downsizing programs. While the course focuses on U.S. corporates, it also applies the core principles of U.S. restructuring to corporate restructurings in other countries as well as infrastructure, municipal, and sovereign restructuring.

Although CVCR is primarily a finance course, students will also often have to take an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving, drawing on their training in strategy, accounting, law, and negotiation. The primary pedagogical approach is case discussion. Cases will be supplemented with mini-lectures and outside readings. We will also be joined by a number of visitors who were involved in the cases.

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Educational Objectives

This seminar will bring together students in Year 3 of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government / Harvard Business School joint degree program. Meetings will be held on ten Mondays in fall term, from 4:30-7:30 PM

This 3.0-credit course is open only to students in the HBS/HKS Joint Degree Program, and is a required course for all joint degree students in the fall semester of their third year. Its purpose is to integrate on the one hand, the perspectives and analytic tools provided by the HKS core curricula in the MPP or MPA/ID programs, and, on the other, the perspectives and analytic tools provided by the required HBS curriculum in the MBA program.

The course features a series of integrative modules on specific topics. In each of the modules, pairs of faculty members, one from HBS and one from HKS, teach as a team, bringing their distinctive perspectives and analytical approaches to bear on a specific subject area. These subject areas may be defined by: policy realms (for example, finance, tax, health, education, environment, or national defense); methods (for example, decision making under uncertainty, project evaluation, performance measurement, or negotiation); or other topics (for example, international trade, technological innovation, economic development, infrastructure, insurance, management styles and processes, or risk management).

It is intended that students will emerge from this course with an understanding of questions such as: how a regulation is developed and promulgated, and how business can seek to influence the outcome; how legislative battles are fought and how business organizes to shape provisions in legislation; and how business and government can work together to shape an international environment that is conducive to economic growth. The aim of the course is to cultivate in students the capacity to view problems comprehensively from multiple perspectives: how various business interests view an issue, and how government officials in a variety of agencies and institutions view the same problem.

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Educational objectives

This course aims to give students a mastery of all aspects of competitive advantage to make them more effective at diagnosing and developing superior strategy. The course will examine the role and structure of competitive advantage, how it interacts with and influences competition, the different sources of competitive advantage and their properties, the creation of competitive advantage, and the different drivers that determine whether competitive advantage is sustainable or not. In the process, the course will also pay attention to the role of organization and leadership in the creation of competitive advantage and how that affects the general manager's role in formulating and executing strategy.

Course Content

The course will start by exploring the structure of competitive advantage and how the key drivers of advantage combine to determine a company's ability to deliver superior returns over the long term. We will address questions such as: What levers can a manager use to improve competitive advantage? How do you measure competitive advantage? How do competitive advantage and competition interact? When does being a first mover give you a competitive advantage or disadvantage? Why exactly does it matter to ‘be different’ and what does that imply? How sustainable is competitive advantage that is rooted in economies of scale or in the learning curve? While the focus will be mostly on value creation, we will not overlook the strategic aspects of value capture – esp. pricing and bargaining.

As the course progresses, attention will shift from the structure of advantage to the process of creating and sustaining advantage. Here, we will also consider how effective competitive advantage may depend on organization and leadership. We will ask questions such as: When is it advantageous for a company to give up flexibility and commit to a strategy? When and how can a company credibly commit to a competitive position and to a strategy? When should you change your strategy? What limits a manager's degrees of freedom when developing strategy or changing strategy? Should a new leader come up with a new strategy? What is the role of personal convictions versus analysis in developing a strategy? How do all these considerations affect a company's choice of competitive advantage?

Course Format

Most class sessions will be 2 hours – a few will be regular length (80 min). There will also be a simulation of which the timing remains to be determined. The number of sessions will be adjusted to reflect the longer class time and the simulation.

Grading will be based on class participation and a project (in small groups) that analyzes the competitive advantage and position of a company of your choice.

Due to overlap, you should not take both this course and Ben Esty’s (Spring) Strategies for Value Creation (SVC) course.

Career Focus

The frameworks and concepts of the course are valuable for students who expect to be actively involved in developing, advising on, or assessing a company's strategy, and should be of interest to leaders of both established firms and new ventures.

Creating the Modern Financial System offers a vital perspective on finance and the financial system by exploring the historical development of key financial instruments and institutions worldwide. The premise of the course is that students will gain a richer and more intuitive understanding of modern financial markets and organizations by examining where these institutions came from and how they evolved. The course is ideal for students who want to deepen their understanding of real-world finance.

Course Organization and Objectives

The course content covers seminal financial developments in a diverse set of countries - but with a special focus on the United States - from the 18th century to the present. Reaching across the chronological arc of the course are three broad topics: (1) financial markets and instruments, (2) financial intermediaries, and (3) financial behavior. Although nearly every case touches on all three topics, each case also has a primary focus. Whereas some cases highlight the introduction of new financial markets (such as the Dojima futures market in early modern Japan) or the creation of new instruments (such as mortgage-backed securities), others trace the emergence and maturation of critical financial institutions (including banks and insurance companies). Still others focus on the behavior of financial actors and groups, particularly in the context of financial bubbles and crashes. Because the course highlights the origins of financial markets and instruments as well as the fallout from numerous financial crises, government also looms large as an actor in many of the cases.

Throughout the course, the goal is to provide students with the broadest possible grounding in real-world finance by exposing them to some of the greatest (and, at times, most devastating) moments in modern financial history. Although the past is unlikely to repeat itself exactly, business managers who have a strong background in financial history are likely to be better prepared for the full diversity of financial innovations, shocks, and crises that they'll face in the future.

Course Administration

Course grades will be based on class participation (50%) and a final paper (50%).

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View a short video overview of the course.

Course Overview

Data and experiments are increasingly used to guide managerial decision-making. Large tech companies run thousands of experiments per year to test everything from product design to pricing to which markets to enter and how. Human resource and people analytics departments use experiments to understand which incentive systems are most effective. Marketers run experiments to understand which advertisements increase sales. Governments run experiments to evaluate policies in areas ranging from education to encouraging entrepreneurship. More broadly, industries ranging from consulting to tech depend on systematic data analysis to complement managerial judgment.

Effective strategy and managerial judgment in today’s world requires a foundational understanding of data and experiments, which is a core component of the modern analytics toolkit. The overarching goal of the course is to help students gain effective tools and leverage data and experimental insights to inform managerial and strategic decisions in an increasingly complex and data-driven world.

Course Structure

The course has three modules:

Module 1: Finding signal in the noise

The world is increasingly filled with data, and we are regularly bombarded with facts and figures. Being a good consumer of data analytics starts with gaining a basic understanding of data. Drawing on research from behavioral economics and applied econometrics, this module will introduce MBA students to a set of common mistakes people make when interpreting data, and how to avoid these mistakes. It will help them be good consumers of data, and to diagnose whether or not a fact is compelling. Students will learn to recognize common challenges of observational data. The module will also introduce students to being producers of basic visualizations and summaries of data, allowing them to transparently communicate using data. The goal is to help students become more fluent in thinking about data.

Module 2: Leveraging experiments

Armed with a basic fluency in data, module 2 will help students to develop a toolkit around a powerful approach to identifying causal relationships – experiments. This module will help students gain an appreciation of the value of experimentation. It will provide a foundational understanding of how to interpret and design experiments in an organization. And, it will more broadly help them to approach questions with a causal lens.

This module focuses on three broad questions:

• When should organizations run experiments? Through case studies, the course will help students to approach managerial problems with an experimental mindset, and shed light on the types of insight that can be gained from experiments, as well as the disasters that can be avoided through careful experimental analysis.
• What are the core concepts involved in designing and interpreting an experiment? The course will develop frameworks for interpreting, designing, and analyzing experiments, provide a solid understanding of experimental methods, and offer insights on how to identify the mistakes even smart leaders and managers make when they try to gather and interpret data that will guide their strategic decisions.
• How should managers incorporate experimental evidence into managerial decisions? This course will develop frameworks for students to better understand and address the challenges that arise in using experiments to inform managerial judgment. Examining real-world experiments that organizations have run, students will gain an understanding of how experimental evidence fits into the broader picture and how managers can move from experimental evidence to decisions.

Module 3: Creating a culture of data driven decision making

This module will look at the broader role of data and experiments within organizations. It will go through cases of organizations - ranging from Airbnb and StubHub to the UK tax department to the National Basketball Association - that made the transition to taking a more data driven approach. This module will explore lessons that these and organizations learned along the way, and develop a toolkit for creating a culture of data-driven decisions.

Course format and focus

The focus will draw heavily on the tech sector (which has been an early adopter of data analytics). However, the lessons will apply more broadly, and the course will explore a variety of contexts, such as platform design, strategy, operations, human resources, and marketing. The course will consist of a combination of case studies, book chapters and articles, as well as guest discussions and panels. The course will involve a final project. No technical background is required.

Excludes enrollment in Behavioral Economics for Managerial Decision Making (2236) in Spring 2024

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Notes:

• This course is a prerequisite for the DSM2 course offered in Q2 and Q4.
  
• DSM1 and DSM2 together replace the 2020-21 Applied Business Analytics EC course.

Career Focus

As Michael Chui, partner of McKinsey Global Institute, once said: “We believe that big data and data analytics are going to be incredibly important…It is becoming a basis of competition in every industry. Companies that learn how to use data effectively are going to be more likely to win in the marketplace and those that don’t are going to fall behind.”

DSM1 is intended for students who want to build an understanding of how data and analytics can help managers make the best decisions. The course is designed for students with little or no background in data analytics, and is suitable for students who plan to work in any industry/sector—from financial services and manufacturing to technology companies—that uses data for decision-making. DSM1 can be taken as a stand-alone course to learn the basic principles of data-driven decision making, or as a building block to more advanced data science courses such as DSM2.

The course will expose students to a range of managerial decisions, from expanding into new customer segments and forecasting future sales, to predicting consumer behavior and evaluating the efficacy of product changes. Students will use the widely-deployed computing software R to conduct analyses and will be guided with “starter code.” Although few HBS MBA students will be actively engaged in coding post-graduation, the course faculty believe that having some exposure to basic, hands-on coding and techniques will allow our students to more effectively manage and interact with data scientists. DSM1 will not delve deeply into technical details, but will require students to engage with some code

Educational Objectives

The educational objectives of DSM1 are to provide students with the necessary foundations to effectively derive and evaluate data-driven insights to inform managerial decisions. Students will learn how to frame and solve business problems while complementing judgment with data-driven insights and gain valuable hands-on experience with R, with the overarching goal of helping students build a robust data analytics mindset. Developing a data analytics mindset requires combining the fundamentals of statistics and computer science with substantive domain knowledge. The course will focus on business applications, including managers’ roles in hypothesis generation and testing, model design, interpretation of results, and the formulation of actionable recommendations.

Content and Organization

The DSM1 course comprises five modules:

Module 1: Exploratory Data Analysis: This module will teach students a variety of approaches (e.g., descriptive statistics, graphs) to explore and gain insights from a data set. Descriptive statistics about key business metrics are aggregations of data that should form the information backbone of every enterprise. For example, sales, revenue, and customer churn are examples of important business metrics.

Module 2: Statistical Inference: Statistical inference, one of the fundamental pillars of data science, is the practice of using a sample to learn something (i.e., draw inferences) about the full population. Using hypothesis tests, we will determine if differences across different groups in the sample (e.g., the two sets of customers in an A/B test) are due to random fluctuations or systematic differences in the underlying populations. We will also use regressions to determine whether relationships seen in the sample hold more generally in the population.

Module 3: Prediction: Prediction is a process that uses historical data to forecast future events. In this module, we will focus on three fundamental prediction methods: regressions, decision trees, and random forests. Mastering these methods will allow students to develop predictions that apply across various business problems and industries.

Module 4: Causal Inference: Causal Inference studies how actions, interventions, or treatments (e.g., launching a new predictive algorithm) affect business metrics (e.g., engagement, click-through rate, or daily units sold). In this module, students will learn about the design of randomized experiments (e.g., A/B tests), the primary method for establishing causal relationships.

Module 5: Data Science Strategy: We will conclude the course with a discussion of how firms can develop their data science capabilities, including how different types of organization and culture might support or hinder a data-driven company.

Course Pedagogy
The classroom sessions will utilize a problem-solving strategy that gives students a clear outline for solving any data science business problem. Emphasis will be put on communication, rigor in analysis, ethical reporting of results and dealing with messy issues such as missing data, nonresponse of participants and study design. Throughout the course, reproducibility of results will be emphasized.

Grading

The course grade will be based on class participation (including posting one lab notebook), a written assignment, and a final exam.

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Notes:

• Successful completion of the RC IDS course offered in Spring 2021 or the EC DSM1 course is required to enroll in DSM2.
• DSM1 and DSM2 together replace the 2020-21 Applied Business Analytics EC course.

Career Focus

DSM2 is designed for students who already have some exposure to basic data science. DSM2 allows students to build a deeper understanding of how data and analytics can complement judgment for managerial decision making. The course builds on concepts learned in DSM1 and is specifically suited for students who want to continue their career at companies such as technology companies, where data collection, aggregation, and analysis permeates the entire organization.

In the course, students will learn to “data wrangle” (collect and clean data that suit their purposes) and expand their machine learning repertoire to include gradient boosting, neural networks, unsupervised algorithms and natural language processing. As in DSM1/IDS, students will be guided through data analysis with “starter code.” In addition to the computing software R, students will gain familiarity with SQL to manage relational databases.

Educational Objectives

DSM2 builds on the foundations developed in DSM1 to provide students with an understanding of how to create, design, and manage data science projects from inception through data collections, analysis, and reporting. Students will be introduced to new tools (such as SQL) and new techniques (such as K-Means clustering, natural language processing, and Monte Carlo simulation). The course will also explore essential notions of data privacy, algorithmic fairness, and agile project management to prepare students to manage and lead data science projects at any organization level.

Content and Organization

The DSM2 course comprises four modules:

Module 1: Data Wrangling: Students will learn SQL (Structured Query Language), commonly used to store, manipulate and retrieve data from a relational data base.

Module 2: Inference: This module’s topics include probability distributions, Monte Carlo simulation, Clustering, K-Means, and variable transformations and interaction terms in linear and logistic regression.

Module 3: Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence: This module will examine several concepts key to machine learning: e.g.,

autocorrelation, time series, Lasso and Ridge regressions, confusion and payoff matrices, ROC curves, neural networks, gradient boosting and algorithmic bias, as well as NLP (Natural Language Processing), including sentiment analysis, naïve Bayes classification, and LDA (Latent Dirichlet allocation)

Module 4: Data Science Strategy & Agile Development: This module will focus on essential strategy questions around data privacy, algorithmic fairness, and agile product development.

The course consists of two types of class sessions: Laboratory sessions in which students practice analyzing assigned problems and class sessions with case discussions. Teaching fellows will be available at each lab session to answer questions and provide both technical and conceptual support. Teaching fellows will also hold office hours and review sessions outside of class.

Course Pedagogy
The classroom sessions will utilize a problem-solving strategy that gives students a clear outline for solving any data science business problem. Emphasis will be put on communication, rigor in analysis, ethical reporting of results and dealing with messy issues such as missing data, nonresponse of participants and study design. Throughout the course, reproducibility of results will be emphasized.

Grading
The course grade will be based on class participation (including posting one lab notebook), a written assignment, and a final team project.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course is designed for students who expect to analyze or present data during their career—and these days, data is everywhere, from finance to management consulting. For anyone working with complex information, visualization is a power tool that can drive insight and understanding. It can also be a compelling ingredient in clear and persuasive communication.

The course will also be useful for students who are planning on managing or advising teams that work with data. We will discuss how to critically evaluate visualizations, and how to use them as a bridge between quantitative analysis and decision-making.

Because the course will require hands-on work with data, students should have taken DSM 1 (or have equivalent expertise).

Educational Objectives

Students will learn to use data visualization as a tool to gain actionable insights from data, and then communicate those insights to others. The format will be a departure from the standard case study method. Instead, we’ll focus on weekly projects that will require building visualizations in Tableau as well as extended in-class critiques.

Specific objectives include:

1. An understanding of the basic theory behind data visualization: perceptual science, design, and technical underpinnings, as well as how to match different techniques to different data sets.
2. The ability to create visualizations using Tableau
3. Knowledge of how to apply visualization techniques for both exploratory data analysis and communication of data
4. Ability to critique visualizations made by others, and understand common pitfalls that can lead to ineffective or even deceptive visualizations

Grading

Weekly homework will involve building and critiquing data visualizations. In some cases students will be expected to find, clean, or prepare their own data sets. There will be a two-week final project.

Grading is based on:

• 35% weekly homework
• 30% final project
• 35% class participation

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Objectives

How should managers measure, and increase, the social impact of their projects and businesses? How should donors assess the impact of potential beneficiary organizations? Unlike profits, metrics of societal impact cannot be inferred from accounting statements. Yet measurement is critical not only for demonstrating impact, but also for massively amplifying it. Fortunately, tools from data science and econometrics have been developed to navigate the nuances of assessing impact.

Data for Impact (DFI) is intended to train students to become informed and discriminating consumers of evidence so as to enable the more effective management of impact. The course aims to develop data literacy even amongst managers who never plan to implement statistical analyses themselves.

DFI will be of core interest to students with aspirations in social entrepreneurship, socially responsible business, nonprofits, government, impact investing, and effective philanthropy. Indeed, DFI presents students with numerous examples of companies of all types that use data to achieve outsized impact. But, while class discussions will center on social impact, the methods utilized in class extend to any question of causal inference, including questions about whether a particular endeavor increases a firm’s profits, raises customer engagement, etc. It will therefore also be of interest to any manager that aspires to commission and evaluate data analysis as a part of their workflow.

This course requires an openness to -- but no prior background in -- statistical analysis and quantitative thinking.

Course Content and Overview

DFI rests on two foundations: rigorous frameworks for assessing social impact, and an introduction to the tools required to measure it. The course will provide a broad exposure to a variety of analytical methods, presented so as to be accessible to students with no prior background in statistics. Students will learn the conceptual underpinnings and limitations of methods such as randomized controlled trials, difference in differences analyses, regression discontinuities, and statistical prediction among others. Students will also benefit from abundant practice interpreting existing evidence and applying it to pressing managerial challenges.

Grades will be based on in-class participation, several at-home statistical exercises, and a final paper (completed in groups of up to 3), in which students will assess the impact of an existing or aspirational enterprise.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course provides students with the skills and knowledge essential for a career in managing, developing, or investing in real estate. Real estate is a multidisciplinary industry that requires strong analytical rigor as wells as broad strategic thinking.

Educational Objectives

Students will learn about the interplay of capital structures, building characteristics, stakeholders, and legal parameters. The class goals are to illustrate the process of sourcing, underwriting, and ultimately acquiring real estate investments.

Content and Organization

The course is organized into three modules.

Deal Making Fundamentals – The first module focuses the mechanics of real estate deal making and provides a foundation to understand the fundamentals of deal structuring, property types, negotiation and sourcing techniques.

Stakeholder Motivations – Students will learn to understand the various stakeholders’ economic incentives, legal constraints, moral and ethical motivations and fundamental human behavior. Negotiation games and role play will be an important part of this section.

Success and Failure The last module will reflect an investment committee style organization highlighting key decision-making characteristics that may lead to success or failure.

Pedagogical Mix

Real estate lends itself to case method teaching as virtually every subject requires quantitative and qualitative analysis, judgment calls, quick thinking and development of practical action plans. "Cold calling" and active participation are frequent and important components of class. We expect that students will be prepared as most classes will have the case protagonists or other industry leaders present.

Most homework assignments are required to be completed in groups. Additionally, polls will be used frequently and are considered an important aspect of class participation. The course will have a final exam.

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This advanced negotiation course examines complex corporate deals. Many of the class sessions will be structured around actual corporate deals, selected for the complex issues of law and business that they raise. Students will research and analyze these transactions in order to present their most important aspects and lessons to the class.

Topics developed throughout the course include: how negotiators create and claim value through the setup, design, and tactical implementation of agreements; complexities that can arise through agency, asymmetric information, moral hazard, and adverse selection; structural, psychological, and interpersonal barriers that can hinder agreement; and the particular challenges inherent in the roles of advisors as negotiators. The course will also explore the differences between deal-making and dispute resolution; single-issue and multiple-issue negotiations; and between two parties and multiple parties.

The class will be comprised of approximately an equal number of students from HBS and HLS.

Evaluation will be on the basis of class participation and a final paper or project.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

This advanced negotiation course examines complex corporate deals. Many of the class sessions will be structured around actual corporate deals, selected for the complex issues of law and business that they raise. Students will research and analyze these transactions in order to present their most important aspects and lessons to the class.

Topics developed throughout the course include: how negotiators create and claim value through the setup, design, and tactical implementation of agreements; complexities that can arise through agency, asymmetric information, moral hazard, and adverse selection; structural, psychological, and interpersonal barriers that can hinder agreement; and the particular challenges inherent in the roles of advisors as negotiators. The course will also explore the differences between deal-making and dispute resolution; single-issue and multiple-issue negotiations; and between two parties and multiple parties.

The class will be comprised of approximately an equal number of students from HBS and HLS.

Evaluation will be on the basis of class participation and a final paper or project.

Copyright © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course is primarily designed for students who are pursuing a career in businesses that are family owned - i.e. the majority shareholders are family, investment roles in family offices, or students that might invest in or wholly purchase a family owned business through a private equity firm, search fund model or a public company that through dual class stock is still family controlled.

90% of the GDP in the world is created through family owned businesses. Family businesses are frequently thought to be exclusively mom-and-pop, small businesses. Most fail to realize that Walmart, Fidelity, Cargill, Koch Industries, and Ford, to name a few, are all family-owned or controlled businesses. Family businesses can be private or public, sometimes with a dual-class stock structure. They can also be 100 percent family-owned or have outside investors; value is certainly affected not only by management quality, but also by the level of Family control and ownership. Family businesses come in all shapes and sizes, and they are here to stay globally, gaining power and influence by the day.

The course is also useful for students who are planning to work in companies that advise or support family owned businesses. It may further be interesting for students seeking to advance their knowledge of general management, strategy, succession and governance issues in the context of a challenging and sometimes emotionally driven work environment.

Educational Objectives

Learning how to work in or run a family business, create and run a family office, invest in a family business and work within any of these structures. Course focuses on interpersonal dynamics of employees - both family and non-family professionals.

All three Family organizations, the Family, the Operating Company, and the Family Office should have (1) their own set of goals, (2) their own governance structures, and (3) their own contribution to supporting a Family’s legacy. There is great value that can be created through Family businesses. In fact, wealth creation in Families is becoming a powerful disruptor in all of the global markets as Families professionalize and deploy capital across a variety of industries and sectors.

Modules explore:

1. Module one focuses on the Family, the bedrock of the organizations that comprise the collective Family organization, specifically, the virtues that define the Family members’ rules of engagement and the Family governance structure necessary to support it.
2. Module two deep dives into the Operating Company and the Corporate governance structure necessary to support the Family Organization. In Module two, we also study non-Family minority partners of Operating Companies and non-Family acquisitions of Operating Companies.
3. Module three examines the Family Office and its role in managing not only the Family’s assets but also the wealth governance that accompanies it. In Module three, we examine different best practices of (a) when and how to set up a Family Office, (b) how to bring in professional management and (c) how to compensate these professionals.
4. Module four brings it all together by exploring what it takes to build an enduring Family legacy by creating excellent stewards of Family wealth and its impact on Society. The stewards struggle through both external and internal factors to achieve Family unity through (1) the Three Virtues and Family governance, (2) control through corporate governance, and (3) competence through wealth governance, to propel a Forever Legacy.

Cases focus on established and emerging companies, products, and personalities in family businesses and family offices both domestically and internationally. We will have a large number of case protagonists and other guests that have been successful and failed.

Family Businesses are not only meaningful but can also be emotional-exciting and scary at the same time. This course will journey through many successes and failures within this space and examine best practices to help mitigate common pitfalls.

Families vary significantly in how they structure themselves, but the common link among Families that succeed in building multiple generations of wealth creation is that they all have policies and procedures that serve as a roadmap. Taking the time to create these documents-mission statements, shareholder agreements, succession plans, inheritance policies, distribution rules, outlaw / in-law procedures, hopefully lead to a more educated and cohesive group of Family members.

Course Content and Organization

The course consists of 28 sessions and includes a final project. Grading is based on class participation (50%) and the final project (50%).

Office Hours: The instructor welcomes the opportunity to meet with students outside of class. Please contact her assistant, Mads Tolsdorf (mtolsdorf@hbs.edu) to arrange a meeting.

Note For Demystifying Family Business:

This course is one of two courses that comprise the newly established HBS Family Curriculum, which provides a foundation for understanding the nuanced dynamics of the increasingly important landscape of family organizations. The material in each course is self-contained, and they can be taken independently. However, they are complementary, and taking both will provide the best preparation for entering and succeeding in the space. For the Spring Course, please see the course description for “How to Not Bankrupt Your Family” linked here.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Description

Launching a successful startup requires a business model that defines the venture’s customer value proposition; plans for technology, operations, and marketing; and a formula for eventually earning profit. It also requires an organization that can execute that business model. Students will learn the attributes of effective tech venture business models and organizations—and how to design them. They will employ system dynamics modeling using simulation software to inform business model choices, and gain practice with organization design methods to diagnose misalignment and resolve tradeoffs (e.g. efficiency vs. effectiveness, decision speed vs. quality).

Enrollment is limited to second-year students in the MS/MBA: Engineering Sciences program.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

Digital Innovation and Transformation is designed to equip students to confidently help conceive, lead, and execute digital innovation initiatives and develop new business models for existing and insurgent organizations. The digital revolution is rapidly transforming the fundamental nature of many companies in various industries. Executives, entrepreneurs, and general managers must understand the economics, technology paradigms, and management practices of innovating in digital-centric businesses to ensure corporate and personal success. The course is intended for students pursuing business careers in which digital technologies will be critical to developing new products and services, e.g., entrepreneurial start-ups, consulting and venture capital, and senior positions in marketing, R&D, and strategy. Visits by case protagonists and industry experts will enable students to understand the career options in this rapidly evolving space.

Educational Objectives

Today firms are establishing market leadership by mastering digital innovation. The principal objective of the course is to expose students to various frontier business processes exploiting big data, AI, platforms, and the basic tools of digital technology. For example, traditional dentistry has begun to change the diagnostics of x-rays by adopting AI-enabled tools. What business processes and architectural features must change to use AI at scale? How does an entrepreneurial effort to automate diagnostics scale its processes for AI? Related, large data can support and encourage testing and experiments at a massive scale to support novel organizational initiatives. There are examples of digitally-enabled experiments in far-flung areas of the economy, such as entertainment, travel, and biotechnology. What must firms do? How do they build infrastructure to enable fast deployment, archive lessons, and coordinate employees? Many new businesses realize their future by using platform models that facilitate partnerships. What can management do to encourage trust among participants in a platform? How do platform designers create and support processes that automate the personalization for a large community of manufacturers and graphic designers? Fremium models first grow large communities of users and generate revenue later. What about a fremium model for AI services? With most of it substantially aimed at business usage? In practice? These are some of the issues we confront and discuss.

The course introduces you to the critical elements of designing and developing digital products and services, how these can be configured and led, and how the results are managed. These elements include economic and technological principles underlying digital transformation, identifying and integrating diverse user needs, organizing and leading product and service innovation initiatives, and harnessing crowdsourcing and distributed innovation networks. Why does one size of strategic approach not fit all settings, and where do leading firms experiment most?

Course Content

The course materials intentionally cut across functional boundaries, focusing squarely on the managerial skills and capabilities needed for effective practice. So while many situations you encounter emphasize the role of (new) technology, you will approach these as a manager rather than a technologist. However, the managerial perspective will be enriching if you are a technologist! But it's important to note that this managerial perspective is not undifferentiated. Depending on the situation, you will be assuming the role of team manager, project manager, marketing executive, CTO and CIO, general manager, or CEO. This array of roles suggests how fundamental digital innovation is to firms at every level and how excellence in its management is critical to competitiveness.

Specifically, the course will help you learn:

• The economic and technological factors that are at the heart of the digital revolution taking place in the economy;
• The clash between existing business models and new digitally enhanced and led business models emphasizing platforms and ecosystems;
• The competitive interactions among firms with different digital business platforms;
• How to best organize and lead product and service innovation initiatives in the digital space;
• The principles and practices of leveraging AI for innovation and how various AI technologies are executed.

Grading

Grading will be based on class participation and blog posts.



Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Instructor: Ben Kirshner, Former CEO and Founder of Tinuiti. Tinuiti is the Largest Independent Performance Marketing Agency in North America. With over 1000 employees, 500 customers and over 3B in Media under Management.

Instructor: Jake Cook, CEO and co-founder of Tadpull. Tadpull works at the intersection of data science and digital marketing with various global clients such as Jackson Hole Resort, Caterpillar, and Vivint, along with portfolio companies of private equity firms. In addition, Jake has over 16 years of experience creating and teaching digital marketing, data science, and design thinking across undergraduate and graduate courses.

Course Overview

Digital marketing has transformed the 21st century and has upended the playbooks of every major corporation. This elective course will teach you how to unleash your digital marketing prowess over seven weeks of hands-on exercises and data analysis straight from the trenches. You will be taught by the best of the best experts from the leading performance marketing firms in North America, who collectively manage over $10B of media spend annually.

This is a half-course based on lectures and custom-built hands-on exercises for HBS students to help build foundational knowledge of the modern tools of digital marketing and analytics. The course was tailored for aspiring entrepreneurs and marketers curious about emerging methods and tactics to build effective brands in the modern age. Students will apply the learnings from each class with world-class experts while assembling their own toolsets and frameworks for executing best-in-class digital campaigns.

In addition, the course will offer optional experimental labs on cutting-edge topics for students interested in going deep in areas like generative AI via ChatGPT4 with SEO and paid media, 0 and 1st-party customer data and privacy considerations, and multivariate testing methods for pricing new products online.

Finally, students will have access to guest speakers and instructors for the below topics in a private Slack environment for asynchronous learning opportunities to augment pre-read assignments and Q&A follow-up from class exercises for completing assignments.

Educational Objectives

The Digital Marketing Workshop will teach you how to effectively assess and deploy digital marketing strategies and accompanying tools to be effective at designing high-performing online campaigns and measuring their success in near real-time. Specifically, the course will cover Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Search Engine Management (SEM), Influencer Marketing, Selling on Amazon and Retail Platforms, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Email and SMS Marketing, Programmatic Display and Connected TV Ads, Media Planning, Web Analytics, and Data Visualizations along with basic Data Science fundamentals for identifying and predicting opportunities in the online marketing mix.

Course Content and Organization:

Module 1: Digital Marketing Overview

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Prepare for the upcoming seven weeks of hands-on exercises

2. Familiarize yourself with the final presentation expectations

3. Understand the Digital Marketing and Analytics landscape

Module 2: Search Engine Optimization - Part I

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Understand how SEO works

2. See how SEO fits into the overall Digital Marketing channel mix

3. Perform a basic audit of a site of a B2B or B2C site

Module 3: Search Engine Optimization - Part II

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Analyze keyword portfolio for value

2. Identify emerging content opportunities and rankability against competitors

3. Guide brand content strategies

Module 4: Search Engine Marketing

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Understand how PPC works and when to use it based on business models

2. Tie keyword portfolio strategy into budgeting forecasts

3. Map SEM to the customer journey

Module 5: Digital Analytics - Basics

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Understand how digital campaigns are measured

2. Analyze digital cross-channel performance from a live e-commerce dataset

3. Grasp challenges of modern attribution in a post-iOS world

Module 6: Display/Programmatic/CTV Advertising

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. How ad tech tools work and where it fits in the digital marketing mix

2. Display and attribution considerations

3. Effective CTV strategies in the age of streaming

Module 7: Amazon & Retail Marketing

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. How to sell on Amazon & strategic tradeoffs for data

2. Similarities & differences with SEM

3. Mix modeling of Amazon/DTC/Wholesale for inventory

Module 8: Conversion Rate Optimization

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Shocking ROI math of conversion rate optimization lift

2. How to rank opportunities across creative and engineering

3. Frameworks for managing digital property improvements

Module 9: Digital Analytics - Intermediate

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Understand 0, 1st, 3rd party customer datasets

2. Communicating cross-channel campaign performance to non-digital stakeholders

3. Grasp basic fundamentals of machine learning for predictive analytics in digital marketing campaigns

Module 10: Email and SMS Marketing

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Why email and SMS are owned channels in the digital mix

2. How to build, segment, and maintain lists

3. Scaling with automation based on the customer journey

Module 11: Influencer Marketing

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Early mover advantage on emerging platforms like TikTok with influencers

2. Identifying influencer's ROI based on reach and engagement

3. Key considerations for attribution for measuring campaigns

Module 12: Paid Social Media Marketing

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. How paid social media works in comparison to SEM

2. Power of testing creative and user-generated content

3. Considerations with generative AI

Module 13: Media Planning

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. How media strategies are developed and deployed in market

2. Mix media modeling fundamentals

3. Introduction to incrementality

Module 14: Retention and Personalization

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to:

1. Customer heterogeneity and what to look for and fix

2. Predicting which customers are most valuable and in what digital channel

3. The tradeoff for privacy and personalization with 0/1st/3rd party datasets

Final Presentations

After completing this week, you should be able to present the ideal digital marketing mix for a DTC e-commerce website along with scenarios on future returns for the brand.

Grading:

Grades will be earned through the following activities:

• 60% Class Participation and In-Class Exercises

• 10% 2 quizzes

• 10% weekly polls

• 20% Final Exam

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Note: EC MBA students who are interested in earning an additional 1.5 credits through a related Independent Project are encouraged to reach out to Prof. Kirby at term start.

By 2035 China will be the largest economy in the world and an innovation superpower. Engagement with China—as entrepreneurs, investors, or partners—is part of our collective future.

But in 2024, Chinese firms—and foreign firms in China—face challenges and opportunities under President Xi Jinping. We will delve into China's domestic business environment and the changing relationship between the private sector and the Chinese Communist Party. Students will gain an understanding of the dynamics between state-owned enterprises and private firms, the regulatory environment, and the role of the government in business activities.

Furthermore, as relations between the world's two largest economies, the U.S. and China, deteriorate further, companies must find creative solutions to counter ongoing global trade and technology wars while still responding to ever-changing policy directions in Beijing, Washington, and Europe. Our course will examine case studies of firms that have faced these challenges and will equip students with strategies for managing geopolitical risk in a deglobalizing business environment.

Ultimately, how can you succeed in doing business in and with China in the coming decade and beyond?

In our course, we consider these questions:

• How do foreign businesses succeed and fail in Chinese markets?
• How can Chinese firms, such as Huawei and ByteDance, navigate investment restrictions that threaten to "decouple" the U.S. economy from China's?
• What happens to firms caught in the cross-fire of deteriorating US-China relations?
• Will China's ambitions to become a "self-sufficient" superpower succeed or flounder? What about the United States’ attempt to “re-shore” semiconductor manufacturing?
• How do the Communist Party and Chinese governments—local, provincial, and national—shape market opportunities?
• How do Chinese firms expand overseas?
• How do family businesses survive and thrive in an economy where the state still plays such a large role?
• Will Chinese universities lead the 21^st century?
• What are the opportunities and risks for businesses in Taiwan, as "greater China" becomes integrated economically but with greater tension politically?
• In short, where is China going—economically and politically—and what will it mean for you?

We will be joined in this course by CEOs of many of the enterprises we study, in industries such as telecommunications, healthcare, consumer products, agribusiness, semiconductors, education, and automobiles.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

This class is intended for students with a wide variety of interests, who are seeking a better understanding of the role of energy in business and society. It will examine the energy transition in a time of surging global energy demand and in the era of climate change. The course aims to drive an understanding of energy from both the supply side and demand side and will unlock smarter perspectives in other domains, such as finance, real estate, and technology that all rely on energy. Students will learn about new technologies and choices impacting their financing, development, and deployment. Students will appreciate the interplay between market, regulatory, and societal influences on firm opportunities and choices.

Career Focus

Entrepreneurial Finance is primarily designed for students who plan to get involved with a new venture at some point in their career -- as a founder, early employee, advisor or investor. However, the course is also appropriate for students interested in gaining a broader view of the financing landscape for young firms, going beyond the basics of venture capital and angel financing to look at venture debt, bank finance, corporate venture capital and receivables financing.

Course Content and Educational Objectives

The goal of Entrepreneurial Finance is to help managers make better investment and financing decisions in entrepreneurial settings. The course covers all stages of the venture's life cycle from startup to exit, and delves into issues such as deal structures, incentives, business models and valuation in much greater detail than TEM. Approximately one-third of the cases concern technology-based businesses, though the emphasis is on gaining insights into entrepreneurial management, not technology per se. Typically, case protagonists have participated in over half the class discussions.

The first two modules of the course address key issues faced by entrepreneurs: how much money should be raised at each stage; when should it be raised; what is a reasonable valuation of the company; and how should funding, employment contracts and exit decisions be structured. They aim to prepare students for these decisions, both as entrepreneurs and as investors.

The next three modules look at a variety of financing models across the venture's life cycle, with an aim to understanding the incentives of each type of investor, the relative costs and benefits of each source of funding and the connections between a venture's financing strategy and its product-market strategy.

Inevitably, there will be some overlap with courses such as Launching Global Ventures, Financial Management of Smaller Firms and Venture Capital and Private Equity. We are aware of the content of each of those courses and will be sensitive to differentiation.

Career Focus

Entrepreneurial Finance is primarily designed for students who plan to get involved with a new venture at some point in their career -- as a founder, early employee, advisor or investor. However, the course is also appropriate for students interested in gaining a broader view of the financing landscape for young firms, going beyond the basics of venture capital and angel financing to look at venture debt, bank finance, corporate venture capital and receivables financing.

Course Content and Educational Objectives

The goal of Entrepreneurial Finance is to help managers make better investment and financing decisions in entrepreneurial settings. The course covers all stages of the venture's life cycle from startup to exit, and delves into issues such as deal structures, incentives, business models and valuation in much greater detail than TEM. Approximately one-third of the cases concern technology-based businesses, though the emphasis is on gaining insights into entrepreneurial management, not technology per se. Typically, case protagonists have participated in over half the class discussions.

The first two modules of the course address key issues faced by entrepreneurs: how much money should be raised at each stage; when should it be raised; what is a reasonable valuation of the company; and how should funding, employment contracts and exit decisions be structured. They aim to prepare students for these decisions, both as entrepreneurs and as investors.

The next three modules look at a variety of financing models across the venture's life cycle, with an aim to understanding the incentives of each type of investor, the relative costs and benefits of each source of funding and the connections between a venture's financing strategy and its product-market strategy.

Inevitably, there will be some overlap with courses such as Launching Global Ventures, Financial Management of Smaller Firms and Venture Capital and Private Equity. We are aware of the content of each of those courses and will be sensitive to differentiation.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

‘Nothing happens until a sale is made’

Nothing happens until a sale is made. That simple point underlines the critical importance of sales. Every operating model and business plan ‘assumes’ a certain amount of sales, but that assumption is the tipping point. Without sales, the entire model is an exercise in frustration and futility.

The purpose of this course is to demystify sales and help you understand how to sell products and services within entrepreneurial settings. The course material is applicable whether you become an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, management consultant, general manager, product manager, salesperson, or sales manager. The course is geared toward entrepreneurial settings, specifically execution required by the founder. However, the best practices are applicable to larger company requirements as well.

“The #1 skill HBS alums wish they had spent more time understanding at school was how to sell.”
-Dean Nohria

Entrepreneurs and general managers must not only understand the sales process but also embrace that the ability to sell is the single most critical success factor of any new enterprise. This course does not approach sales from the vaunted perspective of ‘strategy’. It gets right into the very practical and tactical ins and outs of how to sell as a founder. In a larger sense, the entrepreneur and general manager must “sell” his or her vision to prospective employees, to angel and venture investors, and to strategic partners. While all true and all necessary, this course focuses mainly on selling to customers, whether that is through a direct sales force, a channel sales force, or building an OEM relationship. Sales is the one function that cannot hide behind the veil of corporate doubletalk; sales goals are either made or not made. Every organizational activity leverages off that single fact. Markets are not totally rational organizations and the firms with the best sales teams will usually win.

“Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The converse is not true. No matter how strong your product, even if it easily fits into already established habits and anybody who tries it likes it immediately, you must still support it with a strong distribution plan.”
-From “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel

One common misconception is that product innovation alone is a winning tactic. It is not. Often the critical success factor is exactly how a firm goes to market – with its sales force. But the rules have changed – innovations like ‘product-led-growth’ models and social media are changing the status quo and forcing managers to consider new way to structure and incent sales teams.

CLASS REQUIREMENTS

Preparation and class participation are a requirement. We will cold call students to open each class. Every class is associated with a short assignment, and all students are required to be ready to discuss the assigned material.

Sales is a highly experiential, hands on skill that requires role playing and iterative practice to master. As such, Founder Selling uses a more experiential pedagogy during the semester. Unlike most courses at HBS, there is no final exam or final project. Instead, we will run seven experiential assignments, largely executed outside of the classroom, in parallel with the classroom sessions. You will learn how to book appointments, run the first sales meeting, demonstrate your product and service, close large complex deals, and run renewal and expansion calls. In addition to the course faculty, students will be assigned to a sales coach who will review assignment submissions with the course faculty and be available for one-on-one coaching after each assignment.

Class sessions will be 80 minutes long and will be largely be executed in three parts: a cold call opening in which a student presents his/her course of action as outlined in the case, class discussion of the case, and a presentation by the professor to emphasize the key leanings from the case. More than one unexcused absence will affect your final grade.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

‘Nothing happens until a sale is made’

Nothing happens until a sale is made. That simple point underlines the critical importance of sales. Every operating model and business plan ‘assumes’ a certain amount of sales, but that assumption is the tipping point. Without sales, the entire model is an exercise in frustration and futility.

The purpose of this course is to demystify sales and help you understand how to manage go-to-market functions within entrepreneurial settings. The course material is applicable whether you become an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, management consultant, general manager, product manager, salesperson, or sales manager. The course is geared toward entrepreneurial settings, specifically execution required by the founder, investor, or advisor. However, the best practices are applicable to larger company requirements as well.

“The #1 skill HBS alums wish they had spent more time understanding at school was how to sell.”
-Dean Nohria

This course explores the complex subject of how to build, manage, and scale the first sales force including how to:

• Hire your first salesperson and sales leader
• Develop a scalable demand generation program
• Pay your first salesperson
• Train, manage, promote, and fire your first sales team
• Establish your first sales plan
• Manage the board’s expectations on revenue
• Instrument an accurate forecasting model

“Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The converse is not true. No matter how strong your product, even if it easily fits into already established habits and anybody who tries it likes it immediately, you must still support it with a strong distribution plan.”
-From “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel

One common misconception is that product innovation alone is a winning tactic. It is not. Often the critical success factor is exactly how a firm goes to market – with its sales force. But the rules have changed – innovations like ‘product-led-growth’ models and social media are changing the status quo and forcing managers to consider new way to structure and incent sales teams.

CLASS REQUIREMENTS

Preparation and class participation are a requirement. We will cold call students to open each class. Every class is associated with a short assignment, and all students are required to be ready to discuss the assigned material.

Sales management is a highly experiential, hands on skill that requires role playing and iterative practice to master. As such, Entrepreneurial Sales 102 uses a more experiential pedagogy during the semester. Unlike most courses at HBS, there is no final exam or final project. Instead, we will experiential assignments, largely executed outside of the classroom, in parallel with the classroom sessions.

Class sessions will be 80 minutes long and will be largely be executed in three parts: a cold call opening in which a student presents his/her course of action as outlined in the case, class discussion of the case, and a presentation by the professor to emphasize the key leanings from the case. More than one unexcused absence will affect your final grade.

Entrepreneurial Sales 101 is recommended but not required to take this course. There is minimal overlap between Entrepreneurial Sales 101 and 102.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview

The world has a seemingly infinite supply of problems, from climate change to pandemics. The basic premise of this course is that entrepreneurs view problems as opportunities. If healthcare is expensive and ineffective, entrepreneurial teams create ventures (for-profit or not-for-profit) to deliver better health outcomes at lower cost. If burning fossil fuels creates damaging greenhouse gases, then there are opportunities to find new, cleaner ways to produce energy or mitigate its negative impact. If education at all levels costs too much, takes too long, and is mediocre, entrepreneurial teams explore ways to deliver better learning outcomes faster and less expensively. The course will focus on entrepreneurial efforts in healthcare, education, and the environment. Most of the cases are US-centric, though the challenges are global.

This course was first introduced in the fall of 2020. The course will feature background readings, cases, guests - protagonists and subject experts, and raw data.

The course includes newly written and updated cases on companies like Iora Health (primary care for Medicare patients), Guild Education (education as an employment benefit), and Carmichael Roberts (venture investments in cleantech).

Grading will be based on class participation and a case/paper based on an entrepreneurial response to a pressing global challenge.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Objectives

Entrepreneurial activity has been a potent source of innovation and job generation in the global economy. In developed economies, the majority of new jobs are generated by new entrepreneurial firms. The ability of high potential startups to raise economic well-being globally has become a dominant trend in many countries. Over the last decade, new entrepreneurial ecosystems have emerged in places where it had not existed. These new entrepreneurial ecosystems, whether in emerging markets or in new geographies in developed markets, need to overcome historical impediments to high potential entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Outside the Valley will examine these impediments from the perspective of entrepreneurs, investors, and policy makers. These barriers include depth of the talent pool, access to financing, access to markets, infrastructure, legal and regulatory environment, culture, and exits. The course will explore the different strategies around addressing these barriers and how they affect the firms that operate in those markets.

Audience

This course develops financial and managerial skills that are important for students who are interested in pursuing careers in an entrepreneurial setting, particularly students interested in these new entrepreneurial ecosystems. This group includes individuals who might be interested in starting a company, purchasing a business, financing startups in a venture capital setting, or anyone interested in providing support for such firms.

Course Content and Organization

The course will be organized around the barriers to high potential entrepreneurship, emphasizing the dynamic nature of the issues confronting entrepreneurs, investors, and policy makers. The course will highlight firms from the start-up phase through exploitation of growth opportunities to exiting, restructuring, and renewal of the firm.

The predominant pedagogical approach will be case discussion. Cases will be set in many different countries globally and cover geographies from many different markets. Cases will be supplemented with technical notes, outside readings, and guest speakers. The content of this course will differ from Entrepreneurial Finance in its focus on emerging markets and new entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

EGC is best seen as a journey, which grows in complexity and depth as students debate contested and sensitive topics. The course challenges students to think of business not in a vacuum, but in a rich context considering competitive landscapes, information asymmetries, conflicting interests, institutional and legal gaps, geopolitics, and cultural differences across countries. The five modules of the course provide a dynamic framework for exploring the challenging decisions entrepreneurs have faced in the different eras of globalization. The roles of business leaders in inflection points, including Nazi Germany, the struggle for Indian independence, apartheid-era South Africa, and conflicts in the Middle East, are examined. The cases, set across centuries, continents and industries, explore how different contexts and regulations have provided incentives for entrepreneurs to develop businesses in either productive or unproductive ways. Cases of stellar business success are accompanied by cases on morally-challenged figures, and conflicting views on the responsibilities of business are debated in widely differing settings. A highly diverse set of business leaders emerge as important actors shaping how local economies and the global economy have evolved. A typical class will try to get into the minds of the protagonists, establish the context in which they took decisions, debate the legacy of those decisions, and discuss how the class would have acted in those circumstances.

The four modules of the course are: First Global Economy; Globalization Reversed; Origins of Second Global Economy; Second Global Economy and the New Deglobalization.

Course Content and Organization

EGC is best seen as a journey, which grows in complexity and depth as students debate contested and sensitive topics. The course challenges students to think of business not in a vacuum, but in a rich context considering competitive landscapes, information asymmetries, conflicting interests, institutional and legal gaps, geopolitics, and cultural differences across countries. The five modules of the course provide a dynamic framework for exploring the challenging decisions entrepreneurs have faced in the different eras of globalization. The roles of business leaders in inflection points, including Nazi Germany, the struggle for Indian independence, apartheid-era South Africa, and conflicts in the Middle East, are examined. The cases, set across centuries, continents and industries, explore how different contexts and regulations have provided incentives for entrepreneurs to develop businesses in either productive or unproductive ways. Cases of stellar business success are accompanied by cases on morally-challenged figures, and conflicting views on the responsibilities of business are debated in widely differing settings. A highly diverse set of business leaders emerge as important actors shaping how local economies and the global economy have evolved. A typical class will try to get into the minds of the protagonists, establish the context in which they took decisions, debate the legacy of those decisions, and discuss how the class would have acted in those circumstances.

The five modules of the course are: First Global Economy; Globalization Reversed; Origins of Second Global Economy; Second Global Economy; New Deglobalization.

Course Administration

Course grades will be based on class participation (50%) and a final self-scheduled exam (50%). A paper can be substituted for the final exam. Throughout the semester, Professor Jones will be available to meet with students. To arrange a meeting, please contact Professor Jones directly, preferably by email (gjones@hbs.edu). You can also contact his assistant, Conor Riley (criley@hbs.edu).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

Life Sciences ventures face high levels of scientific, clinical and commercial pathway uncertainty, and these uncertainties present many opportunities for entrepreneurial innovation. This course is primarily designed for students who are interested in exploring entrepreneurial opportunities within the life sciences, including exploring ideation, generating and/or licensing intellectual property, business models, resourcing ventures with the appropriate financial and human resources, and scaling. The course will explore which areas of the life sciences are ripe for innovation and entrepreneurship. Example topics of exploration may include emerging opportunities in pharma & biotech, medical device & diagnostics advances, and related topics such as digital therapeutics, platform technologies, use of real-world evidence, data and computing, decentralized clinical trials, the role of life sciences incubators, contract research organizations etc.

Educational Objectives

This course has been specifically designed for students who are considering founding or joining life sciences ventures upon, or soon after, graduation. While the course is focused on the life sciences, students need not have a scientific background, merely a passion for making an impact through participation in these ventures. The primary objective of this course is to enable students to explore entrepreneurship within the life sciences. Students will explore opportunities along various aspects of the R&D and commercialization lifecycle, along science, clinical, regulatory and commercial areas of the lifecycle.

Key Learning Objectives include:

• Understand key business models for life sciences innovation
• Understand macro trends driving innovation in the life sciences, including the impact of emerging bioconvergence topics at the intersection of the life sciences, data and computing
• Define roadmaps for life sciences R&D and products, incorporating intellectual property concerns, clinical and regulatory pathways to commercialization.
• Explore financing sources, including early grants and non-dilutive financing sources, to equity financing
• Identify best practices for building life sciences teams

Class tools include case and/or lecture-based discussions based on a variety of life sciences ventures, including those in biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, and related supporting technology and services organizations. In most classes, we will have case protagonists and guests, including life sciences entrepreneurs, investors and domain experts so you can engage directly with these practitioners from the burgeoning life sciences venture ecosystem.

Grading

Grading will be a combination of class participation (50%), and a final written paper (50%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Objectives

The nonprofit arts and culture industry generates more than $166.billions of economic activity in the US—approximately $64 billion in spending by arts and cultural organizations and an additional $103 billion in event-related expenditures by their audiences. This activity supports 4.6 million jobs. A recent report by the Conference Board noted that in addition to the enormous financial impact of the sector, “companies consider the arts to be important in building quality of life, stimulating creative thinking and problem solving, and offering networking opportunities and the potential to develop new business and build market share.”

All arts leaders are entrepreneurs who are tasked, by Howard Stevenson’s definition, with “the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources.” Arts and Cultural Entrepreneurship (ACE) is designed to introduce students to the key issues faced by managers in this important economic sector. This year the course will place a special focus on the challenges the industry’s leaders face in guiding the response of their organizations to the Covid-19 pandemic. Canceled performance seasons and closed museums and libraries have had a devastating impact on the sector and a recent survey found that more than one-in-ten arts leaders were not confident that their organization would survive the pandemic.

Course Content and Organization

The course will utilize three approaches to learning—traditional case-based classes, talks by key arts leaders, and consulting assignments with Boston-area arts institution focused on helping the organizations devise and implement strategies to survive and thrive during the pandemic and afterwards.

Cases: Cases and required background reading will cover entrepreneurial issues encountered by an extensive range of arts and cultural institutions both in the United States and abroad.

Guest Talks: Students will hear firsthand from a number of arts and cultural leaders who will discuss the entrepreneurial challenges and opportunities they face.

Projects: Students will assemble into five-person teams to work on projects throughout the course. Project partners will include a wide variety of Boston-area arts and cultural institutions with different missions and a range of resources. Each project will focus on solving a specific and well-defined entrepreneurial challenge related to dealing with the consequences of the pandemic. The projects will require extensive data collection and analysis.

Non-Disclosure Agreements: Partner organizations will provide student teams with confidential information. Students will be required to sign a confidentiality and intellectual property assignment agreement.

Course Requirements and Grading

Deliverables: The course will have five deliverables: (1) Team Launch Document (2) Situation Analysis, (3) Preliminary Draft of Partner Presentation, (4) Final Partner Presentation, and (5) Individual Learning Reflection.

Grading: Each student’s grade will be based on (1) Class Participation, (2) Quality of Team Deliverables, (3) Partner Input, (4) Team Member Peer Evaluation, and (5) Quality of Individual Learning Reflection.

Pre-Requisites

None

Cross-Registration

A limited number of places will be held for students from the Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Design. The mix of students from diverse disciplines will contribute to both student learning and the range of solutions proposed for the entrepreneurial challenges faced by the course partners.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

This course teaches specific practical skills that are required to become an effective entrepreneur through acquisition. The course is not a case-based course. It will meet weekly and students will be required to complete assignments on topics relevant to buying a small company such as how to screen potential acquisition targets, the likely types, terms and amounts of debt financing, the typical deal terms and the items open to negotiations, the sources of equity investments, including search funds, private equity partnerships and individual investors. We will also learn about the due diligence process and legal concerns when buying a smaller company. We will have guests in most classes who have practical, hands-on experience.

The course will have practical exercises designed to help entrepreneurs complete their acquisitions. These include pitching to potential equity investors, prospecting for potential targets, seller cold calls and negotiating bank loans.

The seminar is designed for students with a serious interest in buying a small company early in their careers.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Objectives

The course is designed to enable students to develop and grow their businesses. Doing so while on campus has several advantages, including access to resources (faculty time and attention, library and computer access); advice from your peers in a structured environment; and devoted blocks of time during your EC year to move your business forward while your team is all in one location. The course employs a combination of field methods, classroom exercises, cross-team interactions, and access to faculty, guest experts, and other advisors. The largest single allocation of time is for working with your team to make meaningful progress on your own business.

"Joiner" students who are interested in taking the class by joining a business with one or more existing members are strongly encouraged to do so. We will create opportunities for businesses with one or more members to meet and combine with joiners.

Students can expect to:

1. Summarize and critique their existing business, its strengths and weaknesses, and set priorities for moving the business forward, including the most pressing priorities to be addressed during the course itself.
2. Develop a strategy for taking the business to the next level, including a plan for funding, and a plan and timeline for reaching scale.
3. Give and receive feedback from other highly motivated student teams.
4. Meet frequently as a team with the faculty advisor.
5. Receive feedback and counsel from outside business advisors.
6. Have opportunities to pitch your work to angel, seed, and venture capital investors.

This course can be thought of as occupying a space between an IP and a traditional course, giving you an opportunity to work on something of great interest to you, while preserving many of the benefits of a larger course, including opportunities for guest speakers, feedback from your peers, and clearly delineated deliverables and milestones that act as commitment devices to push the business forward.

In the past the School has provided each Field X team with a modest grant of around $2,000 to help launch their business. While we cannot guarantee the grant program will continue this year, we hope and expect that it will.

A substantial number of Field X businesses have been funded by mentors and investors they met through the course. Several dozen teams from last year are running their businesses full-time now, most of whom have received funding of $500,000 or more; in some cases far more.

In terms of requirements, "in between an IP and a course" means that there will be almost-weekly class meetings, but there will not, in general, be substantial weekly homework or required preparation for class, other than that you work to push your business forward.

Who Should Enroll?

Students who are sufficiently excited about a business they are running, or a business they want to start immediately, that they want to focus on it in a serious way. Some, because they treasure the lessons they are learning from building a business. Some, because they think their business has a legitimate opportunity to grow rapidly and create a successful career path for them. And some because they believe their business can do a substantial amount of good for the world and so they want to continue working on it during their EC year and perhaps after graduation.

Course Deliverables

The main deliverable will be the team’s final presentation and the supporting slide deck and report. There will also be intermediate deliverables building up to that point. In short, expect to produce a Word document and a Powerpoint deck with descriptions of your business at the beginning of the course and a (perhaps similar, perhaps very different) version at the end of the course.

On the final day of class, students who wish to will have the opportunity to present their businesses to an audience of angel, seed and venture investors at our Pitch Day event. At our most recent Pitch Day, the first run over Zoom, around 350 investors attended.

Short FAQ:

Q: Can I take Field X if I am the only person involved in my business?

A: Yes, Field X welcomes teams of all sizes; including solo founders, multiple team members in the class, and teams with multiple members, only one of whom attends HBS and takes the course.

Q: What are classes like?

A: Most weeks the class consists of an hour-long interactive talk/discussion with a luminary, followed by an hour of "mini office hours" in which student teams pair up with mentors who can help their business. Past speakers have included venture capitalist Tim Draper, Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, stellar entrepreneurs like Yvonne Hao of PillPack and Charles Curran of Armored Things, and many others with wisdom to share.

Q: How will the course be different due to Covid-19?

A: The course has now returned to meeting in person, with a Zoom option still provided for mentors who wish to visit remotely and students who may need to be physically absent. "Mini office hours" with mentors are still offered via Zoom - students post their person Zoom links on the course Google Sheet for the mentors to join.

Meetings with the Professor and TA can still be in person if students wish, or they can be by Zoom for students who prefer that.

Q: Can I take the class if I just have an idea but I haven't started yet?

A: Yes, this is typically the situation of between a quarter and a half of the teams in the course.

Q: What if I don't even have an idea yet?

A: If you want to start a business but don't have an idea, we'd welcome you as a "joiner" in Field X -- we will match you up with a team that is doing something you find exciting and that is looking to add talent. If you want to start your own business and have a nascent idea, we can work with you to build it into something real.

Q: How about the other side of the coin, what if it's an old family business I'll be taking over, something like that?

A: Yes, that's also fine.

Q: Is Field X aimed at any particular sector, like tech?

A: No, Field X teams run the gamut, every year we have consumer, healthcare, finance, real estate, tech, arts and entertainment, social enterprise, you name it.

Q: What if my business has modest goals?

A: That's fine, in Field X we're happy to work with teams that want to serve a small need as well as teams with enormous ambition.

Q: If I take Field X, can I take Field Y? Do I have to take Field Y too?

A: You can take just X, just Y, or X and Y.

Cross Registration

Cross-registrants are welcome to take the course.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Objectives

The course is designed to enable students to develop and grow their businesses. Doing so while on campus has several advantages, including access to resources (faculty time and attention, library and computer access); advice from your peers in a structured environment; and devoted blocks of time during your EC year to move your business forward while your team is all in one location. The course employs a combination of field methods, classroom exercises, cross-team interactions, and access to faculty, guest experts, and other advisors. The largest single allocation of time is for working with your team to make meaningful progress on your own business.

Several dozen teams from last year are running their businesses full-time now, most of whom have received funding of $500,000 or more; in some cases far more.

NOTE ALSO: BECAUSE THIS COURSE HAS MANY CHARACTERISTICS OF AN INDEPENDENT STUDY, THIS CLASS, UNLIKE FIELD X, COUNTS TOWARD THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF IP CREDITS A STUDENT CAN RECEIVE. Thus if the rule is that you can do three IPs in your EC year, if you take Field Y you can only do a maximum of two other IPs (6 credits total).

Students can expect to:

1. Summarize and critique their existing business, its strengths and weaknesses, and set priorities for moving the business forward, including the most pressing priorities to be addressed during the course itself.
2. Develop a strategy for taking the business to the next level, including a plan for funding, and a plan and timeline for reaching scale.
3. Give and receive feedback from other highly motivated student teams.
4. Meet frequently as a team with the faculty advisor.
5. Receive feedback and counsel from outside business advisors.
6. Have opportunities to pitch your work to angel, seed, and venture capital investors.

This course can be thought of as occupying a space between an IP and a traditional course, giving you an opportunity to work on something of great interest to you, while preserving many of the benefits of a larger course, including opportunities for guest speakers, feedback from your peers, and clearly delineated deliverables and milestones that act as commitment devices to push the business forward. In terms of requirements, "in between an IP and a course" means that there will be some class meetings, but not every week. Coursework will be focused on improving and growing your business.

Who Should Enroll?

• Students who took Field X and who are still running and growing their businesses

• Students who are starting and/or running businesses in Spring of their EC year and who did not take Field X.

Course Deliverables

The main deliverable will be the team’s final presentation and the supporting slide deck and report. There will also be intermediate deliverables building up to that point. In short, expect to produce a Word document and a Powerpoint deck with descriptions of your business at the beginning of the course and a (perhaps similar, perhaps very different) version at the end of the course.

We will work hard in the course to connect students with sources of funding, including angel, seed, and venture investors. At the end of the semester there will be an opportunity for each team to present their business to a room full of such investors; in the past many fruitful relationships have been initiated through these presentations.

Short FAQ:

Q: Can I take Field Y if I didn't take Field X? If I did?!

A: Yes to both. Field Y is open to both students who took Field X and those who didn't. If we are above capacity we will give priority to students who took Field X.

Q: Can I take Field Y if I am the only person involved in my business?

A: Yes, Field Y welcomes teams of all sizes; including solo founders, multiple team members in the class, and teams with multiple members, only one of whom attends HBS and takes the course.

Q: What are classes like?

A: Most weeks the class consists of an hour-long interactive talk/discussion with a luminary, followed by an hour of "mini office hours" in which student teams pair up with mentors who can help their business. Past speakers have included venture capitalist Tim Draper, Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, stellar entrepreneurs like Yvonne Hao of PillPack and Charles Curran of Armored Things, and many others with wisdom to share.

Q: How will the course be different due to Covid-19?

A: The course has now returned to meeting in person, with a Zoom option still provided for mentors who wish to visit remotely and students who may need to be physically absent. "Mini office hours" with mentors are still offered via Zoom - students post their person Zoom links on the course Google Sheet for the mentors to join.

Meetings with the Professor and TA can still be in person if students wish, or they can be by Zoom for students who prefer that.

Q: Can I take the class if I just have an idea but I haven't started yet?

A: Yes, this is typically the situation of between a quarter and a third of the teams in the course.

Q: What if I don't even have an idea yet?

A: If you want to start a business but don't have an idea, we'd welcome you as a "joiner" in Field Y -- we will match you up with a team that is doing something you find exciting and that is looking to add talent. If you want to start your own business and have a nascent idea, we can work with you to build it into something real.

Q: How about the other side of the coin, what if it's an old family business I'll be taking over, something like that?

A: Yes, that's also fine.

Q: Is Field Y aimed at any particular sector, like tech?

A: No, Field Y teams run the gamut, every year we have consumer, healthcare, finance, real estate, tech, arts and entertainment, social enterprise, you name it.

Q: What if my business has modest goals?

A: That's fine, in Field Y we're happy to work with teams that want to serve a small need as well as teams with enormous ambition.

Cross Registration

Cross-registrants are welcome to take the course.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Whether you are a founder, CEO, general manager, private equity or Venture investor, you will all

experience the same problem: how do you increase sales in your company?

This field course will enable you to work with a company to help develop their sales and go to market strategy. You can work with an existing company or your own startup. Your objective will be to experiment with different alternatives and grow revenue. You could learn various go to market sales tactics , when they should be used and the pros and cons of each. You could define a new route to market, build a modern sales playbook, or pursue some other strategy. This field course will be designed to put into practice the tactics and strategies covered in Entrepreneurial Sales (ES), although taking ES is not a requirement for the field course.

Groups of three or four will work closely with a selected company, or on your own venture. Course will have five in-person classes where experts in specific go to market functions will speak to the field course group. Grades are based on the final project deliverable and class participation.

Course objectives include:

1. What is the best go to market model for the sponsoring company? Direct sales, indirect channel sales or another model. Why?

2. What go to market/sales playbooks are used by similar companies? How are they similar or

different? What drives these differences

3. How should you implement your recommendations?

Companies that are participating in the field study:

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Overview and Requirements

Problems with health care quality, access, and costs bedevil all countries. This course focuses on the creation of a business plan for a global business innovation in health care that can better meet these needs. Students generally already have ideas for business plans that they want to pursue.

Prerequisite

One member of the team, at a minimum, must be enrolled in the Spring Term 2108 - Innovating in Health Care.

Career Focus

For those interested in entrepreneurial health care management, consulting, or investing. Students interested in careers in financing, leading, or creating innovative health care services, health insurance, health IT, digital health , consumer-based innovations, or medical technology.

Educational Objectives

Additional field -based experience in innovating new health care ventures on topics chosen by the students or from those made available by the faculty. Students will gain exposure to the key players in their chosen research topic with the help of Prof. Herzlinger’s network , the course advisers, and that of their classmates.

Course Content and Organization

The students in this course meet six times as a group in the classroom. Between these meetings, they meet with their mentors to discuss their progress.

Day 1
Introduction to the course – what can the Field Course do for you?
Assignment: Present your preliminary business plan interest and partners/contacts you are looking for.

Day 2
Assignment: Present refinement of your preliminary business plan interest and partners/contacts you are looking for.

Day 3
Assignment: Present your progress to date in completing your business plan and your plans for completion.

Day 4
Assignment: Present your progress to date in completing your business plan and your plans for completion.

Day 5
Assignment: Present your final business plan and include questions you would like the class to answer.

Day 6
Present your final business plan and include questions you would like the class to answer.

Students are reminded of the Attendance Policy.

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Educational Objectives

As impact investing has emerged as a new, fast-growing category of private investing, so too has the awareness of the stark disparity between access to capital among small business owners. The educational objective of the field course is to understand why certain business founders lack access to capital and work to understand whether and how small investments of $25,000 to $50,000 (made from an intermediary partner) might help these businesses grow. Specifically, the field course will seek to focus on three things:

• To provide hands-on experiential learning in thinking about the financial, commercial, impact and operational diligence of small businesses, as well as to provide hands-on experience with the investment process, from working with founders, negotiating with co-investors, engaging advisors to presenting to an investment committee and moving into the mechanics closing an investment.
• To understand the barriers in access to capital (financial, social and human) that have historically hindered growth small businesses led by under-represented founders in the Boston region, and nationally
• To increase familiarity with and collaboration among HBS students and businesses in communities in and around Boston that they might not otherwise be familiar with.

Course Content and Organization

The course primarily involves teams of 4-5 students conducting investment diligence on small businesses who are looking for flexible capital to scale their businesses. In partnership with a number of Boston-area intermediaries (e.g. Boston Impact Initiative, Foundation for Business Equity, LEAF, Mill City Community Investments, and Visible Hands), teams will work to understand and make the investment case for the business to be made to an alumni investment committee and/or to an intermediary partner’s fund. Students may also provide advisory support for companies that have been supported with investments in prior years.

Course Requirements and Grading

The final deliverables will be a due diligence plan to assess the business from a commercial, operational and impact perspective; a final investment memo that summarizes the diligence and recommends an investment (or not); a financial model that is the basis for informing the investment decision; and an impact plan that outlines how the business will deliver impact. The course grade will have the following components:

• Interim Diligence Deliverables: 20%
• Investment Memo (with financial model and impact plan): 40% + Investment Committee Presentation: 10%
• Class Participation: 30%

Pre-Requisites

None

Cross-Registrants/Auditors

The course is open to MBAs and Kennedy School of Government students enrolled in a joint MBA program.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Through project work students will get the opportunity to "practice private equity" in a setting as close to real as possible. Projects will entail many different aspects of private equity and students will work directly with private equity firms and/or portfolio companies. Class sessions will include several external guest speakers addressing a variety of PE topics including deal sourcing, portfolio operations, PE CEO's, first time funds and also raising of capital.

Some team projects may involve travel and limited travel funding will be available through an application process. Private equity firms hosting student projects for the 2020 year will be Abry Partners, Advent, Bain Capital, CD&R, KKR, L Catterton, New Mountain, Odyssey, Summit Partners, and TH Lee.

Due to the nature of some EC Field Courses students may be required to sign a legal agreement requested by project/business partner organizations. Additional requirements and documentation may also be requested of students by organizations. While students are typically not charged a course fee for taking an EC field course it is possible that students will be responsible for minimal out-of-pocket costs (varies per course), however funding is provided for local travel to partner locations.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview Video

Course Overview

This course represents a unique opportunity for students to apply the skills learned in the classroom to a real-world public-market investment setting. Students will partner with an investment firm to work directly and deeply on an investment theme or question. In conjunction with their sponsor, students will develop a process and plan and execute it during the 14-week semester.

Dynamic weekly seminars supplement the project work and allow the class to come together to engage with industry leaders, protagonists, and asset allocators.

Students will learn first-hand the challenges and issues surrounding the diligence of an investment idea, the sourcing of opportunities, implementation, and portfolio and risk management. Students will develop and refine their investment process organization, creating a framework for investing. This should allow them to better utilize and develop pattern recognition and allow them to ponder:

What is this firm's edge? How do they add alpha? How is the investment industry changing?

Is the industry in a crisis?

This experience will not only help students shape their skills as investors-- modeling, pitching, participating on an investment committee--but also continue to build perspective on the eco-system of investment management.

Learning Objectives

• Pattern recognition: Refine and develop a framework for investing
• Investment process organization: Expose students to the investment process beyond research, from sourcing to implementation
• Develop more robust modeling and pitching skills
• Participate in an investment committee setting
• Work and develop relationships with incredible investors

Course Content

Field-Based Work: Teams of three will work with an investment firm on a specific investment theme or question; students will be allowed to rank top choices from a curated list of projects. Students will meet with their sponsor at least three times during the semester-- an introductory meeting, an in-person, and a final presentation. Students are expected to check in weekly with their sponsor. A final presentation will be given to their sponsors-- presented in front of the investment committee and senior management team. Students are expected to use their time with sponsors to think through and develop a research process, to plan out time management, to better understand other issues surrounding an investment such as legal, trading and risk management. Students should also spend time shadowing other functions within the firm to better grasp the investment process.

The majority of the work on the projects will be done independently by the students using the resources at HBS and from the sponsoring firms. Students must be proactive and motivated; sponsors are giving their time for these projects and students must respect this commitment and deliver a strong product.

Classroom Setting: In addition to the project work, we will meet weekly over the course of the semester. Classroom time will be used for a mix of skill building, guests and time to come together to share challenges, learn from each other and seek feedback across teams. Interactive guest lectures will provide focus on building skills in the investment process from data sourcing and research to risk management and operations to asset allocation. The content of these sessions will help support project work and a deeper understanding of eco-system of investment management. Students will be expected to present once during the semester. There will be a presentation mid-way through the semester to update the class on the project and their firm. Presentations will simulate an investment committee, allowing peers to actively participate in an investment committee-like setting. Teams will be expected to have regular meetings with faculty.

Course Requirements and Grading

In addition to attending all the classroom discussions, students are expected to spend 3-5 hours a week working on their projects. Students will present once over the semester to their peers and give one final presentation to the investment committee of their sponsoring firm.

Students will be asked to submit their final presentation. These materials in combination with classroom participation will determine a student's grade.

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Educational Objectives

Black-owned businesses are important components of the US economy and in 2016 employed over a million people and generated more than $104 billion in sales. They are essential contributors to the economic vitality of the Black community and their need for help during this turbulent time is both acute and urgent. Ensuring that these businesses survive in the current circumstances will require fundamental shifts in how private-, public-, and social sector organizations come together to support them.

‘Scaling Minority Businesses” is designed to meet that challenge and leverage the intellectual power and community of Harvard Business School to address the vital needs of Black-owned enterprises as they face the twin tasks of surviving and growing. It will provide students with the opportunity to draw upon and strengthen their learnings from a range of RC courses including, but not limited to, TEM, Marketing, Strategy, and TOM. Students will receive hands-on experience wrestling with key issues in scaling a small business and will gain an understanding of the historic and systemic barriers to growth faced by Black businesses.

Course Content and Organization

The course is a mix of traditional case-based classes and hands-on consulting assignments with Black-owned businesses in the greater Boston-area. There are three course modules:

• Challenges of systemic racism and inequities in business and society
• Challenges of access to capital
• Challenges of access to customers

The cases and background readings will examine the range of issues faced by Black businesses including racial discrimination, limited access to capital, and difficulties in establishing government and corporate supplier relationships. Students will also hear from a range of speakers, including policy experts and prominent businesspeople, who will discuss the challenges and opportunities faced by Black-owned businesses.

The hands on projects will entail students working in small teams directly with a scaling Black-owned business (typically > $1m in revenue) to tackle a well-defined challenge or growth opportunity. To facilitate collaboration, students will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement covering their work in the course.

Course Requirements and Grading

Deliverables: The course will have six deliverables: (1) team launch document, (2) situation analysis, (3) draft presentation, (4) final presentation, (5) peer evaluation, and (6) individual reflection.

Grading: Each student’s grade will be based on (1) quality of team’s final presentation and viability of recommendations, (2) class participation, (3) peer evaluation, (4) situation analysis, (5) draft presentation, and (6) personal reflection.

Pre-Requisites

None

Cross-Registrants/Auditors

The course is open to cross-registrant students.

Copyright © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Applications will be accepted through 5pm ET on August 11, 2023

A maximum of 20 teams/55 students will be accepted into the fall cohort

Application can be found here.

Accepted students will be notified by August 21, 2023

Application FAQ can be found FAQ.

All ventures enrolled in the course may be eligible to receive non-dilutive grant funding.

Career Focus

Startup Operations is designed for three types of students:

1. Those who have already launched or are about to launch a startup. See the course FAQ for more details about company stage expectations.
2. Those who are curious about working for early stage startups or know they want to found a venture but don't have an idea yet.
3. Those who are interested in investing in startups.
   

There is no specific industry focus for this course - all sectors and business models apply - including social enterprise, nonprofits and bootstrapped businesses.

This field course complements concepts covered in Launching Tech Ventures, Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing, and Founders Journey.

Educational Objectives

This course is designed to provide hands-on guidance through the early stages of building your business. Students will test assumptions and hypotheses to evolve their product, build their strategic and operating roadmaps, create organizational plans and develop skills necessary to manage the many complexities of operating a startup. Sessions will feature skill-building exercises led by the instructor and outside experts as well as weekly peer-to-peer critiques on work-in-progress. Students are encouraged to work as a cohort to support each other through their networks and to offer insights based on their own experiences.

Course Content

Through a series of class exercises and intimate conversations with startup founders and experienced startup leaders, students examine operational challenges in early stage startups. Taking the perspective that there is more to just “build it and they will come”, the course will explore four modules:

1. Getting To Product Market Fit: Exploring best practices for customer feedback, solution iteration, metrics that matter and developing a product and operations roadmap.
2. Establishing The Startup Organization: Structuring early teams and the processes by which to operate your business. Topics will include: Who to hire and when - from technical hires and managing freelancers/first hires to product managers, operations, support and other key team members. Cross-functional communication from across and between the organization to external communication with customers, partners and investors - and role shifting as the organization scales.
3. Startup Business Operations We will explore legal matters, budgets, contracts and early go-to-market strategies such as pricing and product marketing.
4. Startup Evolution As companies grow and scale, operations and products will evolve. We will explore when and how to pivot, shift and adapt to these changes as your companies evolve.

The course is highly focused on ensuring each team’s business evolves towards success criteria unique to their product and organization. Therefore, each team will build a Goals & Milestones plan as their first deliverable. The work to achieve these milestones will be a large percentage of the course grade. Session participation, including weekly peer-to-peer critiques, routine session deliverables, and a final reflection will make up the remaining elements of the individual grade. Light weekly readings, podcasts and films will be required in prep for each session. All readings and deliverables are designed to move student companies forward.

Students who have successfully completed Field Course: Startup Operations in the fall term as either founders or joiners will be eligible to apply for enrollment in the Startup Operations Studio.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

At the root of the transformation occurring in the health care industry—both in the United States and internationally—is the fundamental challenge of improving clinical outcomes while controlling costs. Addressing this challenge will require dramatic improvements in the processes by which care is delivered to patients and the successful adoption of transformative technologies such as digital tools and personalized diagnosis and treatment. This, in turn, will involve fundamentally different approaches to care delivery, the development of new technologies, a rethinking of incentives for stakeholders in the health care system, and a fundamental shift in the roles played by individuals and organizations throughout the sector. While the current COVID-19 pandemic has created a sense of urgency around many of these topics, they will remain salient issues as the health care system settles into its "new normal" mode of operation. This course will equip students with strategies and tools to help navigate the ever-changing landscape of the health care industry.

Prerequisite

In order to enroll in the Q4 field course, students must have participated in the Q3 case-based course.

Career Focus

This course is appropriate for students interested in understanding the fundamental improvement challenges facing the health care sector and developing strategies for addressing them. Students may have career interests in organizations that provide health care (e.g., hospitals, medical groups, retail clinics) or in firms that partner with, supply, consult to, or invest in such organizations (e.g., payers, biopharmaceutical and device companies, health information technology, venture capital and private equity).

Educational Objectives

This course will help students develop the managerial skills required to identify and implement transformational change. It will draw upon the approaches presented in the Q3 course including improving value in healthcare delivery, including continuous improvement, organizational redesign, population health management, precision medicine, patient engagement, digital health, payment reform, and the creation of appropriate incentives for innovation. The Q4 course will provide students with hands-on experience in working on health care delivery innovation and improvement projects with Boston-area hospitals.

Course Faculty and Format

The course will be taught by Professor Ariel Stern. Professor Stern is the Poronui Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She studies topics related to the drivers of innovation among health care organizations, firms, and policy makers as well as the determinants underpinning how new medical technologies are adopted and used in practice. She is a faculty affiliate of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science. She has served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the German Federal Ministry of Health, and currently advises several private health care companies.

THCD has two components, of which this is the first (Q3):

• A 1.5-credit case-based course covering Q3
• A 1.5-credit field course covering Q4

THCD consists of two halves: a case-based course which can be taken as a stand-alone course in Q3 and a field course built around strategic projects with local Boston-area hospitals that can be taken in Q4. The Q3 class can be taken alone, but the Q4 class will have Q3 as a prerequisite, so a student can either take the class as a full-semester course (Q3 + Q4) or during Q3 only. Project partners will include hospitals and other health care delivery organizations. Projects will be sourced for students by the faculty with students allocated to projects and teams based on preferences submitted early in the semester.

Typically, students in THCD have formed a close-knit community to support each other's interests in learning more about the health care industry. To that end, Professor Stern will host optional, small-group "coffee chats" about current topics in health care.

Course Content and Organization

The Q4 course is field-based and will involve 2-3 in-class sessions in April for final project presentations, but will not involve any additional case discussions.

In Q4 students will be evaluated on the basis of their team project presentations and associated deliverables (slides and a brief individual write-up) and will be expected to attend 2-3 in-class sessions during the month of April.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

This field course teaches specific practical skills that are required to become an effective manager, CEO, or operator of a small or medium enterprise. The course is not a case-based course. It will meet weekly and students will be required to complete assignments on topics relevant to creating enterprise value in a company such as: how to communicate with employees of a newly acquired firm, improving the financial reporting and metrics capabilities, selling your service/product, having difficult conversations with employees, recruiting and building an “A” team, managing ongoing capital structure, and allocating capital over time. Creating value through follow-on acquisition, building sales teams, and building a repeatable product/service offering will be explored. Guests who have practical, hands-on experience will be a part of each class.

The course will feature practical exercises designed to help entrepreneurs create value in small and medium enterprises. Class sessions will include robust student discussion and debate, presentations, role playing, and guest immersion.

The course is designed for students with a serious interest in buying or operating a small or medium enterprise early in their careers.

Grading will be 50% based on class participation and in-class exercises and 50% final paper/project

Please see this video for more on this course.

Application:

An application will be due in January. Faculty will conduct interviews (virtually or in person) and will then let students know decisions on applications by mid-January.

Course Description

Taught by practitioner Jeff Bussgang (Flybridge co-founder and general partner), Field Course: Venture Capital Journey (VCJ) is designed for a group of EC students who are serious about pursuing a career in venture capital – most of our students will enter the course (1) with previous VC experience as pre-MBA analysts, summer associates, or VC interns/scouts; (2) actively pursuing a VC job post-graduation; (3) having already secured a VC job post-graduation; or (4) starting their own VC fund.

Note that one of the goals of the course is to expand access and inclusion to the field of venture capital. Thus, the selection of students in the course will be intentionally diverse and include both students who came from the field as well as those who are keenly interested in the field, having had exposure during their time at HBS through RC courses like TEM and Finance 101/102 and fall EC courses like VCPE.

The focus of the course is to provide students with frameworks, tools, a network, and hands on experience in preparation for a career in venture capital (VC), ranging from seed to growth stage. The course will help students more deeply understand the conceptual underpinnings of venture capital investing and startup company financing. In so doing, we aspire to prepare students for a career in venture capital, with a particular focus on their personal and professional growth and fulfillment. Further, we will provide a “systems thinking” lens to the industry and prepare them to positive actors in the global VC / startup ecosystem as future investors and entrepreneurs.

The course builds on eight years of running the popular Rock Venture Partners (RVP) program, which had been organized as a series of year-long independent projects for students. The RVP program and the collection of IPs associated with it will cease to exist and will be superseded by this course.

In VCJ, students will learn all aspects of the venture capital process, including:

• Deal sourcing
• Developing an investment thesis
• Conducting due diligence
• Investment decision making
• Determining valuation and negotiating terms
• Constructing and managing a portfolio
• Managing a firm

Further, students will have the opportunity to step back and learn about:

• Navigating a career in VC, including how to select a firm to join (with particular considerations to firm size, sector, geography, corporate vs. institutional), negotiate compensation, get promoted, and build a career and life in the industry.
• Brand building, community/content creation, and the opportunities and risks of leveraging various social media channels.
• The VC “tech stack” and relevant tools of the trade (e.g., Affinity, Carta, CB Insights, Pitchbook)
• Fundraising with high net worth and institutional Limited Partners (LPs) and how funds evolve over time.
• Recent innovations, including the role of incubators and accelerators, investor/operator funds, rolling funds, the globalization of the industry, and specific investment trends and innovation waves (e.g., web3/NFTs, blockchain, creator economy, tough tech, CRISPR and personalized medicine, health tech, fintech, investing in emerging markets).
• Ethical considerations, biases, and the racial/gender capital gap in the VC ecosystem

The course will consist of three components:

1. Classroom activities – classes will be a mix of case discussions, interactive workshops, and expert panel sessions.
2. Projects – students will work on projects at VC firms (typically sourcing deals, developing investment theses, and/or assisting with due diligence) or at an early-stage startup where their primary role will be to assist the startup in raising VC or – under the supervision of a VC mentor or faculty member – independent, self-guided thesis development focused on a particular sector.
3. Networking / Site Visits – students will meet in the field with VC partners and principals to get a sense of the different strategies that different firms employ as well as to build their individual networks, with a particular focus on deeper exposure to the Boston and NYC startup ecosystems (in person) as well as Miami and SF (virtually).

The class will meet for 90 minutes once a week during both the spring term (Q3 and Q4) and require a project as described above.

The course will be capped at 25 students and will be application-based.

Grading will be as follows:

• 30% class participation
• 30% projects/independent research (based on bi-weekly summaries of activities, learnings, and reflections)
• 20% writing assignments (e.g., investment memo, industry reflections)
• 20% final paper (e.g., sector analysis, personal reflection)

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course is suitable for anyone who is interested in owning, managing or investing in smaller businesses.

Educational Objectives

The course focuses on how to manage smaller businesses with an emphasis on the financial aspects of buying and growing these businesses. The cases are designed to give students practical knowledge that will be immediately helpful if they plan to own or manage a small business, provide consulting or financial services to these businesses, or invest in smaller businesses. These smaller businesses are privately owned, are typically led by a CEO/entrepreneur supported by a very small management team, produce a service or product for which a current profitable business model exists (as distinct from many VC-backed developmental businesses), and frequently the businesses are of a scale that they can be acquired and owned by individuals instead of institutions or families. The managerial and financial challenges for these firms are different from those of larger, public firms and often require a different approach because of their small scale, lack of liquidity and the difficulty of attracting and deploying capital. The careers of small business entrepreneurs are also very different from the employees of larger firms, and we explore those differences through numerous guests and a few cases that focus on the advantages and disadvantages of the career choice.

Click on this link to see comments of former HBS students who discuss why they chose a career in entrepreneurship through acquisition: https://courseware.hbs.edu/video/?v=0_cteitfd6

Course Content and Organization

The course first focuses on how to buy a small business. We begin with a case of two HBS MBAs who chose to purchase a small business using a search fund instead of pursuing a more traditional career path. The case tracks their search process and highlights the challenges encountered when acquiring a small business. We then learn about different ways to fund a search through five other acquisitions by HBS graduates. We then focus on the market for smaller firms including cases about a private equity firm that operates in the small business market and a case about a merchant bank that combines consulting with financial services for smaller firms.

We then focus on how to successfully manage the financial aspects of smaller firms. We explore the difficulty of growing these firms and explore which business models are more likely to succeed. And, of course, we explore how these businesses finance themselves as they grow. These smaller firms, unlike bigger firms, often face tradeoffs between liquidity and profitability, and a common feature of successful firms seems to be a willingness to sacrifice profitability for liquidity. These tradeoffs are particularly relevant to acquisitions made by recent MBA graduates as they navigated through the Great Recession and we discuss three recent acquisitions that faced significant financial hurdles.

We study capital investment decisions made by smaller businesses, decisions that emphasize financial capacity and lifestyle choices instead of maximizing market value. We study alternative growth strategies including approaches to sales force management in the context of a smaller firm. We also learn about the special problems that confront smaller business like customer concentration and different objectives between outside investors and managers.

We conclude the course with integrative cases that follow the experience of two recent MBA graduates as they search for a smaller company, acquire it and grow it successfully. They confront the decision of when to sell the business so that they can realize the benefits of their entrepreneurial venture.

The course is a prerequisite for the EC field course, Entrepreneurship through Acquisition, which is offered in the spring term.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

COURSE OVERVIEW

Founder Mindset examines the critical decisions founders make when starting and building a venture, and provides helpful frameworks and practical tips and tools for founding, scaling, and eventually exiting the business. These critical decisions are often made without careful consideration of the range of options available and tradeoffs between them. How do you assemble, motivate and lead a team when you have big ambitions, limited resources, and a compass instead of a map? We walk you through practical actions, such as committing to an idea, choosing and negotiating with a co-founder, selecting a team, securing a first customer and initial investor. You will learn tactics for dealing with difficult situations, like firing an employee, pivoting your business model, or selling the business. The course supplements case studies and discussions with simulations and role-plays, where you will be faced with challenging situations and forced to make difficult decisions with imperfect information. You will gain a sense of the intense pressures, difficult decisions, incredible learnings and extremes—highs and lows—that every founder confronts in some way.

The goal of the course is to increase the probability of entrepreneurial success by providing prospective founders with a tool kit to make better decisions. It provides students with practices and frameworks for succeeding in the face of uncertainty and for increasing their resilience while pursuing difficult challenges. Students will be introduced to founders and seed investors and will be given the opportunity to pitch and debate their ideas and ventures. This course is targeted to those students who have a strong desire to become founders.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Global Climate Change explores the impact of human-induced climate change on modern society and economy. The premise of the course is that a changing climate, and the way we respond to it, will ultimately affect and even transform every aspect of modern capitalism. Thus, while the course should be of interest to students contemplating careers in climate-adjacent sectors and firms, it is intended as a broader introduction to frameworks for thinking about climate change that will be relevant to all areas of business.

Educational Objectives

This course explores the causes and consequences of climate change for business and society. It evaluates the impact of climate change on geopolitics and the global economy. It addresses the stakes for firms confronting the challenges of climate change, and introduces the tools and concepts that firms and policymakers use to evaluate and address climate change. Students will explore the role of business in global decarbonization, and the challenges and opportunities this transition will create for society and for markets.

Organization of the Course

GCC meets in 25 sessions divided into five modules. These address 1) the causes of climate change, 2) national and firm mitigation strategies, 3) the green energy transition, 4) strategies for climate adaptation, and 5) opportunities for climate entrepreneurship. The course uses a combination of country and company cases to explore these topics with a focus on the intersection of public policy and firm strategy. Written work will include a quiz (10%) and a final paper (40%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

Global Tech Entrepreneurship (GTE) is designed for diverse interests and career choices and for those who will:

• start a technology venture outside the US – mostly in emerging markets;
• start a technology venture in the US and have the vision to expand globally;
• join a startup based outside the US;
• invest in startups outside of the US;
• launch venture capital funds outside the US;
• work in venture capital outside the US; and,
• are interested in learning more about startup ecosystems outside the US, either as consultants, bankers or as competitors to startups.

We will study a wide range of industries such as fintech, cleantech, healthtec, ecommerce, digital transformation, and proptech, among others. And both in the for-profit and non-for-profit sectors. We will also analyze the venture capital industry outside of the US. We will have the high-quality case protagonist in class for most sessions and will study cases in Asia, Africa, the MENA region, Latin America and Southern Europe.

Educational Objectives

Context is a key foundation when you analyze technology ventures in developing ecosystems. In GTE we define context as the existing infrastructure that a startup can leverage to build its business. Many times, in developing ecosystems, the reality is the lack of existing infrastructure on top of which founders can build their venture. Such lack of infrastructure has immense implications in the business model design and funding needs for startups in developing ecosystems.

When we analyze context, we also include the ecosystem under which startups develop. The ecosystem includes the available funding for startups, the legal system, regulations, services such as lawyers and accountants, mentors, etc.

In the US main metropolitan areas, the context is mostly a given; but in less developed ecosystems it is not. In GTE we analyze the implications for your startup when you want to build it in a different context, including challenges and opportunities for a technology venture. We also go into questions such as: what this context is; how it is built; and who should build it.

In addition, the uncertainties faced by global startups and investors are different from the ones faced in the US. In addition, the opportunities abroad are contrasting because the pain points and the needs are quite divergent from the US. The course will look to generate a better understanding for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists when operating abroad.

The course will consider how the business model design, and especially the founders, team, investors and partners involved, need to be adjusted for developing and emerging markets. Entrepreneurs in these markets often need to build the missing infrastructure (for example, payments and logistics) needed for their ventures to thrive. The nature of competition and government interaction also differs dramatically. These challenges, which also include regulations and laws and consumer habits, are often faced by US startups when expanding globally.

When operating outside the US, financial capital needs and strategies require to be adjusted for markets where venture capital and funding sources is less developed. This lack of funding in those markets present important choices. One of those choices is the path for exit.

GTE helps students learn important lessons to be a successful entrepreneur and startup investor outside the US.

Course Content

Through a series of case studies and intimate conversations with startup founders, GTE students examine the challenges and opportunities faced by startups that operate in less developed ecosystems. We will explore four modules:

1. Context: We will examine what an entrepreneur or startup investor should take into consideration in terms of context when operating in a less developed ecosystem. We will study how a startup needs to create the infrastructure when it does not exist. Also, how the same business model needs to adapt when going to a different context. In terms of digital infrastructure, when it does not exist, we will tackle the questions of who should build it and who should pay for it and the business implications if the founders decide to build such infrastructure. We will also study how an entrepreneurial ecosystem is built when it does not exist and the importance of a network of entrepreneurs and mentors for it to thrive.
2. Business model. Business models designed on a desk change significantly in emerging markets when confronted with the reality in the streets. How to adapt to those local realities? Also, how a business model that is attacking the same pain point can be completely different in two different contexts. Also, when operating in less developed entrepreneurial ecosystems, we will explore the importance of leveraging partnerships with larger companies. We’ll analyze business models that are viable in emerging markets, but not necessarily in the US or vice versa and how to develop a platform business when many of the components do not exist. Also, some of the choices a tech entrepreneur needs to make when looking to grow, such as concentrate in one line of business or diversify product offering or grow geographically or not. We will also study tech ventures that need to develop the infrastructure and the challenges it faces when doing that, but once they have built it, the opportunities that they have
3. Funding. Tech entrepreneurs in less developed ecosystems face a much more challenging environment to fundraise. This has implications on their business model design and choice of geography. We will look into tech startups that have to make tough choices when looking to fundraise; for example, expand geographically because it is an investor requirement or how much to raise and therefore what kind of startup can you build. Also discuss how should entrepreneurs build their startup for a successful fundraise when you have local less developed investors or international investors that are not familiar with the local context. We will also look into the venture capital perspective when investing in less developing ecosystems.
4. Exits. The path to exit is different in less develop ecosystems – many times with less choices for an exit. We will explore the tough choices entrepreneurs need to make when thinking about an exit.

The course has 14 cases. In nearly all of the cases, the protagonist will be a class guest. Case protagonists are female, male, and racially diverse.

Grading

Grading is based on class participation (50%) and the final exam (50%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Objectives

The majority of economic growth is now occurring in countries that are not historically wealthy high-income democracies, and where many of the textbook assumptions regarding how markets function—such universally low or absent tariffs, governments acting as referees rather than players, anti-trust laws, and the enforcement of contracts—often do not hold. These trends and characteristics provide a unique set of opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors in the developed world and within emerging markets themselves, as well as for politicians and stakeholders searching for paths to development. But they also introduce significant risk for those doing business and guiding change in the developing world. Furthermore, observers worry that emerging markets have suffered a productivity slow-down in the last decade and that globalization is in retreat, two factors with profound implications for the entire global economy. GEM provides frameworks to understand the processes of economic growth and development; to develop contextual intelligence regarding emerging markets; to manage within a weaker or less formalized institutional environment; and to think globally and dynamically about capitalism.

Course Organization

GEM consists of three interrelated modules that consider growth and business opportunities in emerging markets from complementary perspectives. First, we work through a framework for understanding the process of economic growth and development, and in so doing develop the ability to analyze an emerging market at the level of the country. Second, we examine companies that need to understand this macro view in order to make cross-industry investment decisions as well as navigate the unique contexts of emerging market. The final module turns to the process of globalization itself, looking at the dynamic relationship between states and markets and between the developed and developing parts of the world economy. The course uses a variety of country and company cases from more than 20 different emerging and frontier markets to accomplish these objectives. The cases range from country cases on some of the fastest-growing economies in the world to cases on education, mining, oil & gas, retail, technology, tourism, and hedge fund companies operating in emerging markets among others.

Expectations, Grading, and Engagement

Students are expected to follow the school’s norms and rules regarding attendance, absence reporting, and classroom conduct. Gadgets and electronic advices are only allowed for those with a documented need to use them for note taking purposes.

Grading will be assessed as followed. 60% Class Participation; 40% Group Paper

Participation: Student are expected to come to class having read the case and contemplated the assignment questions. Participation assessment will be based not only on quantity comments, but also on quality, relevance and contribution to collective learning.

Final Exam: For the final exam students will download a case and respond to two questions in the form of a written essay.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

A Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy is a comprehensive plan to deliver a winning value proposition to customers. Its goal is to achieve a competitive edge in the market to acquire and grow customers to fuel growth. Whether you’re an entrepreneur launching a new startup or a manager introducing a new product, your GTM plan is your roadmap to success and a critical piece of your pitch deck. This course is designed to address the challenges of product and service innovations, customer experience design, marketing, selling, and managing following years of digital transformation and disruption and to help students uncover and explore today’s successful GTM strategies.

In this course, we will dive into the five crucial components of a GTM strategy:

1. Strategic customer selection that attracts the right customers and repels those who may be unprofitable,
2. Product-market fit optimization for early traction generation to quickly obtain initial customers and then, over time, increase their lifetime value,
3. Evolving monetization strategies and pricing plans to align with the firm’s maturation process and to balance customer acquisition and profitability,
4. Innovative channel designs and customer experiences (CX) that increase adoption and promote diffusion, and
5. Efficient and effective marketing communications strategies that combine the best of brand marketing and performance marketing.

Through case discussions and interactions with executives, founders, and case protagonists, students will gain practical insights and processes to help design their own GTM strategies.

This course explores GTM strategies in a variety of industries and product categories (e.g., apparel, beauty, furniture, food and beverage, healthcare, retail, gaming, and technology). While most cases will focus on early-stage firms, firms in various life stages (e.g., startup, early traction, fast growth, maturity) will be covered.

In addition to the case discussions, we will have a hands-on in-class exercise that highlights analytic tools that are helpful in designing GTM strategies. No prior technical experience is required.

Career Focus

The course is particularly appropriate for:

• Entrepreneurs and founders writing pitch decks and designing GTM strategies;
• Product managers and marketing managers;
• Consultants engaged in growth strategy roles; and
• Investors seeking to evaluate the GTM activities of portfolio companies.

Grading:

Grading in the course will be based on class participation (50%), and an Exam or Paper (50%).

Students can choose to take a final exam (alone) or complete a final paper (alone or in pairs), both up to 1,500 words (or 5-6 pitch deck slides). The final paper takes one of the following approaches or addresses a topic approved by the instructor:

• Using course frameworks, build a GTM strategy for a business of your choice.
• Propose a new GTM case: identify a specific company, its main challenges, and interesting dilemmas.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview:

This course will give students a toolbox for how to begin and manage a family office (FO) from both the family and the family office managers’ perspectives throughout the office’s lifecycle. From the initial opening of a family office, through the ups and downs of overseeing its investments and governance, to the final days of a family office, this course will introduce students to all aspects of how to help a family office thrive. Students will meet many case protagonists and discuss family office issues firsthand with those with deep experience in the space.

Career Focus:

It is a first-of-its-kind MBA course focused on equipping MBA students with the tools, familiarity, and skills they’ll need to productively interact with families and family offices – which are quickly becoming a larger part of *every* market: from private equity, to venture, to philanthropy, social impact, and even large governmental- and non-governmental organizational partnerships.

Educational Objectives:

1. Appreciate the growing importance of family businesses and family offices as a central actor in the investment, asset management, private equity, venture capital, philanthropic, search-fund, impact investing, and public policy worlds.
2. Know the various components of a family office and contrast family office business-, organizational-, and governance-models with other financial and business settings.
3. Recognize common managerial problems within the family office environment and applicable solutions.
4. Offer students the unique opportunity to meet – and interact with – global families and global family office key players
5. Expose students to professional opportunities and career paths within the explosively growing and dynamic family office sector worldwide.
6. Challenge students to use the course learnings and interactions with families and family offices to formulate action-plans and strategies to engage with families and family offices in the most powerful way possible in their future career settings.

Course Content (modules):

Module 1: Family Office Basics

Students will learn the nuts-and-bolts of why to choose a family office versus a private bank, optimal strategies for setting up a family office, how to separate operating assets from family office assets, and how to build institutionalized and digitized systems within a family office. This module will serve as the foundation for the rest of the course.

Module 2: Investments in the Family Office

Students will examine cases of various investments, old and new, from private deals, to impact investing, to cryptoassets in the context of family offices. They will learn the unique investing characteristics of and imperatives for family and private wealth investing.

Module 3: Governance, Staffing, & Relationship Management in the Family Office

Students will analyze best practices in building and maintaining a family office’s underlying infrastructure. From finding the right expertise for your family to considering personal family challenges, to defining your family’s values and legacy, this module will leave students with an understanding of the softer issues behind sustaining a family and its wealth over multiple generations.

Module 4: How to Wind Down a Family Office

When does a family office no longer address a family’s needs is as important as the question of setting one up in the first place. In this module, students will discuss various cases in which families questioned the value of maintaining a family office and its associated ventures and how to wind those ventures down after their time had passed.

Enrollment Notes:

Spots will be held for cross-registrants across the Harvard and MIT community. In particular, the course invites students who are involved – or plan to become involved – in their family’s business or related enterprises. Global family business students have been important members of the class in the past and will no doubt continue to be.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Immersive Field Courses: IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS scholarship, or a combination of both depending on your individual circumstances. The Add/Drop process at the start of the term is the mechanism for any IFC enrollment changes, and, after that point, the course fee is non-refundable. Refer to the GEO website for full details on IFCs and be sure you understand the Course Policies and Course Fee & Financial Aid. Visit IFC Financial Aid for a quick assessment to determine your eligibility and process or contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Enrollment: Limited to 45 MBA students (due to the nature of IFCs , auditing is not permitted)

Career Focus

Decarbonization and sustainability are becoming an essential part of business agendas, and the Netherlands and Denmark are decades ahead of much of the rest of the world in experimention and implementation of green technologies for energy generation and storage, sustainable production, and efficient management and utilization of "waste" as inputs for other processes.

The Netherlands is home to one of the world's largest offshore wind farms, and is playing a leading role in the energy transition via LNG to sustainable fuels like hydrogen. It is a global leader in material reuse and food system sustainability. Denmark has a world-class energy system and is a leader in making buildings more energy-efficient. Danish companies are among global market leaders in efficient water and heating applications, and the Kalundborg Symbiosis is a best-in-class industrial partnership that pioneered a circular approach to production using by-products from one company's process as a feedstock for a neighboring company.

This EC Field Course offering a unique educational experience, where students will get to observe and interact with business leaders engaged in decarbonization including renewable energy production and storage, and sustainable production of industrial and consumer goods.

Group papers will be required, with preliminary work and presentations in the Fall, and refinement and final submission in January.

Educational Objectives

Students will gain insight into the opportunities and challenges associated with designing, producing, distributing, and storing renewable energy, as well as developing and implementing sustainable production technologies in industries ranging from consumer goods to food and horticulture. We will visit firms and projects that have pioneered or are experimenting with sustainable technologies.

Course Content and Organization

Fall class sessions will be discussions—based on cases, readings, and student presentations—designed to establish a grounding in basic technologies. We may also engage with guests brought in remotely.

The January 2023 trip will includes visits to a wide range of unique sites that will illustrate the breadth of opportunities. This two-minute video will give you a taste for these visits, and reflect our preliminary plan (some substitutions might occur): https://bit.ly/2022DecarbonizationIFC

Paper Preparation and Presentation

Students will be asked to work in small teams to prepare a presentation and paper on a topic related to our visits chosen from a list of options.

Prerequisites

None.

The Immersive Field Course Model

Immersive Field Courses are designed to offer second-year students an off-campus, experiential learning opportunity during the January term. A cornerstone of these courses is the expertise of faculty, who develop course content focused on teaching objectives that are met primarily through student-centered active learning opportunities including project work, site visits and participating in discussions with key contacts. As such, these courses provide students with an opportunity to apply first-hand the knowledge and skills gained from their on-campus MBA coursework in an off-campus setting.

Due to the nature of Immersive Field Courses students may be required to sign legal agreements requested by host organizations. Additional requirements and documentation may also be requested of students by organizations.

Course Credit and Fees

HBS will provide logistical support for this course (including accommodations, select meals, and local travel arrangements). Students will be charged a course fee toward defraying a portion of these costs. Students are responsible for their round-trip air travel and any costs associated with required visa documentation and immunizations. Students need to ensure adequate processing time for all visas, and travel fees will not be refundable if a student does not secure visas in time. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS Scholarship, or a combination of both depending on the student's individual circumstances. Please review the quick self-Assessment tips to determine your eligibility. Contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Though we will be in countries that have rich tourism opportunities, students who are mainly interested in a trek would be better served doing that independently from this course.

For detailed information about what the course program fee includes and excludes, as well as information about student accommodations, please visit the GEO website or email geo@hbs.edu.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Immersive Field Courses: IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS scholarship, or a combination of both depending on your individual circumstances. The Add/Drop process at the start of the term is the mechanism for any IFC enrollment changes, and, after that point, the course fee is non-refundable. Refer to the GEO website for full details on IFCs and be sure you understand the Course Policies and Course Fee & Financial Aid. Visit IFC Financial Aid for a quick assessment to determine your eligibility and process or contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Enrollment: Limited to 45 MBA students (due to the nature of IFCs, auditing is not permitted)

The continent of Africa is often misunderstood, and the opportunity for both impact and profit are underappreciated. The Africa IFC will highlight the many opportunities and potential challenges for students interested in business on the continent. Students will visit and work with companies in Ghana and gain firsthand experience of business in Africa, by meeting and working with other young Africans. We will reflect on a changing international environment marked by COVID, the decline of globalization, an oncoming global recession and a new Cold war ignited by the Ukrainian crisis. How are these factors affecting Africa, how are countries reacting to these challenges. How are these events impacting companies and how are companies reacting to these new difficulties. For students it will provide an opportunity to see and be part of problem solving and crisis management within an African corporate setting.

Our sessions will begin with a look at the major political, economic and social trends that are dominating the continent. We will then examine the business environment and look at the peculiar features of business on the African continent as well as the impact of technology. How business is conducted in a continent where infrastructure is often poor, data absent, and capital constrained. Many of the lessons in this IFC are applicable to Global Emerging Markets, especially those in Asia and Latin America..

While in Ghana and while on campus, students will have the unique opportunity of meeting with and learning from leaders in politics and business from across Africa. In Ghana there will also be opportunities to discover the social and cultural landscape of Africa, including the changing role of women in the society and how the issues of ethnic diversity and inclusion are tackled on the continent.

I graduated from Harvard business school in 1980 and have worked on the continent for the last 42 years in both business and government. I hope to share with students the perspectives, network and experiences that I have gained over the decades. And with the network I have developed over those decades, I seek to place students within companies and projects where they can experience Africa first hand in both its difficulties and challenges, side by side its excitement and newness and its unique possibilities ...

The main deliverables will be

a) report at the end of the time in Ghana to be submitted to the company.

b ) a piece of written work to done in Boston which looks at the main themes covered in the classes and in the readings

Course Credit and Fees

Students will receive 3 credits upon successful completion of this course.

HBS will provide logistical support for the immersion (including accommodations, select meals, and local travel arrangements). Students will be charged a course fee towards defraying a portion of these costs. Students are responsible for booking and paying for their own round-trip air travel and any costs associated with required visa documentation and immunizations. Students should ensure adequate processing time for all visas, as travel fees are not refundable if a student does not secure visas on time.

For detailed information about what the course program fee includes and excludes, as well as information about student accommodations, please visit the GEO website or email geo@hbs.edu.

Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS Scholarship, or a combination of both depending on the student's individual circumstances. Please review the quick self-Assessment tips to determine your eligibility. Contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Immersive Field Courses: IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS scholarship, or a combination of both depending on your individual circumstances. The Add/Drop process at the start of the term is the mechanism for any IFC enrollment changes, and, after that point, the course fee is non-refundable. Refer to the GEO website for full details on IFCs and be sure you understand the Course Policies and Course Fee & Financial Aid. Visit IFC Financial Aid for a quick assessment to determine your eligibility and process or contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Enrollment: Limited to 45 MBA students (due to the nature of IFCs, auditing is not permitted)

This course overlaps with SIPs, and therefore students will be unable to attend both.

The global race to eliminate greenhouse gases from the atmosphere has started. The stakes are high; emissions released by human activities are taking a catastrophic toll on the planet, prompting an irreversible climate crisis. As a result, countries have committed to decarbonization initiatives and announced net zero targets. While there are significant climate-related problems that are common across the world, there are some unique challenges and opportunities that are faced by developing economies. IFC India presents an opportunity for students to advance their knowledge of decarbonization and net zero in the context of a broader development agenda. The course will address and unpack the fundamentals of decarbonization, the science and impact of net zero, and the need and ways to build a sustainable future. Students will explore the balance of maintaining basic development goals, such as improving energy access and providing safe and quality transport services, water, food security, education, and healthcare —while prioritizing decarbonization and net zero initiatives. This course will integrate learning across BGIE, finance, general management, technology, leadership, and more!

This is a research-based course consisting of case and research-based learning in Boston and field research in India. Students will work in teams of 3, focused on a particular research work stream. Examples of work streams include energy generation, mobility, clean-tech, agriculture, carbon sequestering and real estate. Students will be able to select which research work stream they work on and form their own 3 person teams. In Fall 2023, students will address the opportunities and challenges presented by these work streams during four class sessions. These sessions will include cases, guests, and collaborative student assignments. In January 2024, students will visit ten to twelve organizations in India. These organizations include private companies, government entities, and non-governmental institutions from climate-related sectors.

Students will be graded on class (20%) and field work (20%) participation, a 5-page site visit primer and 10-minute class presentation (20%), and a 5000-word final research memo (40%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Immersive Field Courses: IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS scholarship, or a combination of both depending on your individual circumstances. The Add/Drop process at the start of the term is the mechanism for any IFC enrollment changes, and, after that point, the course fee is non-refundable. Refer to the GEO website for full details on IFCs and be sure you understand the Course Policies and Course Fee & Financial Aid. Visit IFC Financial Aid for a quick assessment to determine your eligibility and process or contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Enrollment Capacity: Limited to 45 MBA students (due to the nature of IFCs, auditing is not permitted)

Note: This course overlaps with SIPs, and therefore students will be unable to attend both.

IFC Israel will allow students to explore the Israeli startup ecosystem. Israel has the highest number of startups, venture capital, and patents per capita and over the last 30 years has grown to an exciting innovation and startup community. Students will be asked to work on a go-to-market project with an Israel venture capital-backed startup. The projects will provide an opportunity to integrate learning across a number of areas including finance, general management, technology, marketing, and leadership.

Additionally, working with Israeli companies will provide deep insights into factors in a non-US market that promote innovation ecosystems. Most startups will be Series B or Series C and have developed a product or service. The companies will be across a variety of sectors including cybersecurity, big data, life sciences, consumer products, and social enterprise. Students will rank projects and be assigned to teams in early September 2022. Project work will be remote in the Fall. Students will then spend approximately two weeks in January in Israel working on site with the companies. We will also have an opportunity to tour the major cultural and business center of Tel Aviv, explore the historical sites of Jerusalem, and travel south to the Dead Sea and Masada.

Students will work remotely on the projects in the fall and on the ground in Israel in January during the immersion. The expectation is that field work will be part of the course requirement during the fall semester. Deliverables include a final presentation to senior management on recommendations from the project as well as a five to ten page reflection paper on the experience in the IFC.

This will be the sixth year that Professors Gompers and Ruback have taught the Israel IFC.

Course Credit and Fees

Students will receive 3 credits upon successful completion of this course.

HBS will provide logistical support for the immersion (including accommodations, select meals, and local travel arrangements). Students will be charged a course fee towards defraying a portion of these costs. Students are responsible for booking and paying for their own round-trip air travel and any costs associated with required visa documentation and immunizations. Students should ensure adequate processing time for all visas, as travel fees are not refundable if a student does not secure visas on time.

For detailed information about what the course program fee includes and excludes, as well as information about student accommodations, please visit the GEO website or email geo@hbs.edu.

Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS Scholarship, or a combination of both depending on the student’s individual circumstances. Please review the quick self-Assessment tips to determine your eligibility. Contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

This course overlaps with SIPs, and therefore students will be unable to attend both.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Immersive Field Courses: IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS scholarship, or a combination of both depending on your individual circumstances. The Add/Drop process at the start of the term is the mechanism for any IFC enrollment changes, and, after that point, the course fee is non-refundable. Refer to the GEO website for full details on IFCs and be sure you understand the Course Policies and Course Fee & Financial Aid. Visit IFC Financial Aid for a quick assessment to determine your eligibility and process or contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Enrollment: Limited to 45 MBA students (due to the nature of IFCs, auditing is not permitted)

Educational Objectives

This is a research-based course. Our objective is to provide students with perspectives and insight into the eighth largest economy in the world. Although it is dominated by SMEs (companies with annual revenues of below €50m make up 82% of the employed population, and account for 92% of the active companies in the national economy), Italy is the second largest manufacturer and the second largest European exporter. Students will learn how Italy’s companies – that include some iconic brands that leverage the powerful “Made in Italy” label - have found a way to compete in a global marketplace through innovation, design, openness to trade, quality, as well as internationalization, and strategic flexibility. Italy’s family capitalism has shown it can evolve and adjust to a changing world. Students will analyze how it has done so even against longstanding structural, macroeconomic, political, and governance issues that have slowed economic growth, especially since the GFC. Having suffered heavily from COVID-19 in part because of its large elderly population (Italy has one of the highest life expectancies in Europe), the country will be the largest recipient of funds from the novel €795bn Next Generation EU recovery package that will allow unprecedented investment in digitalization, the green economy, education, and health.

Ranked first in cultural heritage in most rankings and endowed with historical cities, world-renowned cuisine, and geographic beauty, it is one of the top three most visited countries in Europe year in year out, with tourism making up 13% of GDP. Amid such rich cultural heritage lay the foundations of the birth and development of modern capitalism to which Italy has made unique contributions. This course will give a unique and fascinating opportunity to understand and see these first-hand.

Course Content

Classroom Sessions: The course will meet for seven on-campus sessions during the fall semester, which will include case discussions and interactive lectures. The goals of the classroom sessions are to (1) provide an overview of the historical evolution and the present business, economic and political situation in Italy, (2) explore examples of how Italian companies innovate and compete, (3) gain an understanding of the structure of the Italian industrial landscape setting, (4) analyze the opportunities and issues of investing in the country and (5) understand the role of Italy in the birth of modern capitalism, including the history of double accounting, banking and its impact on trade and the arts. While on campus, we will visit Baker Library’s Medici Collection, comprising more than 150 ledgers and other manuscript volumes from the late 14^th to the early 18^th century that shed extraordinary light on the business and personal activities of six generations of one branch of Florence’s Medici family.

Immersion in Italy in January: The immersion will take us to Turin, Bologna, and Florence. We will be meeting with CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors (fund managers and private equity), US diplomats, historians, academics, and HBS alumni for interactive sessions. We will tour selected companies, factories, and retail outlets.

Deliverables: Students will work in small teams to prepare a group presentation that examines one of the aspects of the course content to be delivered to the entire group at the conclusion of the program. Teams should expect to submit a written paper. Each student will submit a one-page reflection paper within one week after returning to campus. Students will be graded on attendance and participation, field work, peer feedback, and all deliverables.

-Class participation, including on immersion, 50%

-Paper (20 pages) or Project for a company 50%

-Students will be required to run a session with company

Course Credit and Fees

Students will receive 3 credits upon successful completion of this course.

HBS will provide logistical support for the immersion (including accommodations, select meals, and local travel arrangements). Students will be charged a course fee towards defraying a portion of these costs. Students are responsible for booking and paying for their own round-trip air travel and any costs associated with required visa documentation and immunizations. Students should ensure adequate processing time for all visas, as travel fees are not refundable if a student does not secure visas on time.

For detailed information about what the course program fee includes and excludes, as well as information about student accommodations, please visit the GEO website or email geo@hbs.edu.

Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS Scholarship, or a combination of both depending on the student’s individual circumstances. Please review the quick self-Assessment tips to determine your eligibility. Contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

This course overlaps with SIPs, and therefore students will be unable to attend both.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Immersive Field Courses: IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS scholarship, or a combination of both depending on your individual circumstances. The Add/Drop process at the start of the term is the mechanism for any IFC enrollment changes, and, after that point, the course fee is non-refundable. Refer to the GEO website for full details on IFCs and be sure you understand the Course Policies and Course Fee & Financial Aid. Visit IFC Financial Aid for a quick assessment to determine your eligibility and process or contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Enrollment: Limited to 45 MBA students (due to the nature of IFCs, auditing is not permitted)

Career Focus

Through first-hand exposure to entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial leaders who are transforming the Japanese business landscape, students in this course will deepen their understanding of strategy and innovation in organizations operating in Japan’s increasingly vibrant startup ecosystem. This course will appeal to students who wish to acquire an understanding of alternative leadership styles and business models aimed at simultaneously creating economic and societal value in a rapidly changing world. The course, which will adopt a general management perspective, aims to expose students to individuals who seem uniquely capable - in a uniquely Japanese way - of bridging the past and the future to be great leaders in the present.

Educational Objectives

The past decade has seen a remarkable surge in VC investments in Japan, with a total of $6.3 billion poured into the country’s startup ecosystem in 2021, setting a new record. This influx of capital has paved the way for greater success among startups, leading to increased returns for VCs and attracting more talented individuals to the field. As a result, the VC industry in Japan has gained greater legitimacy and maturity, with even the Government Pension Investment Fund investing in venture capital as an asset class. From cutting-edge robotics to technological art, from big data to nano-devices, Japan has become a hub for innovative projects that, despite their seemingly unconventional nature, have achieved considerable success. This course will expose students to a diverse range of pioneering organizations and business models, with the aim of achieving four specific learning objectives.

Firstly, it provides students with firsthand experiences and insights into the distinctive challenges and opportunities of entrepreneurial activity in Japan. Secondly, it demonstrates how innovation can arise from combining seemingly contradictory or paradoxical elements, such as digital and analog, old and new, or big data and human touch. Thirdly, students will have the opportunity to learn from social entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who have developed innovations with a social purpose. Finally, the course will expose students to Japanese culture and traditions, allowing them to gain a deeper appreciation of this unique society.

Course Content and Model

Overview and Introduction: Students enrolled in the Immersive Field Course: Japan will work in small teams to undertake a project with an organization led by an entrepreneur or intrapreneur based in Tokyo. The course will meet for four on-campus sessions to (1) provide students with a basic understanding of the Japanese entrepreneurial ecosystem, (2) highlight some of the challenges and opportunities faced by entrepreneurs and VCs operating in Japan, (3) discuss how some emerging business models lend themselves to new forms of organizing, and (4) allow time for student teams to work together, engage with their project partners to define and scope the projects that will take place in January, and to prepare for travel.

Projects: By the start of the course, project partners will have submitted a brief description of the business problem they would like students to address during the immersion. Before the second on-campus session, student teams will be formed. We will do our best to allocate students to their preferred project partners. In the period from October to December, student teams will engage in conversations and early work with project partners (scope the project, request/receive additional information, conduct telephone or Zoom interviews, develop early hypotheses, develop a work plan, etc.) in preparation for the field work that will take place in Japan. During the first and second weeks of January, student teams will visit and work closely with their project partners in Tokyo and vicinity. Being in Japan, will present an opportunity to assess the market/organizational environment by talking to customers, suppliers, government officials, and related organizations, as needed. Project teams will develop a set of recommendations before the last day of the immersion period in Tokyo.

Deliverables: Student teams will present their recommendations to the project partners on Friday, January 12. In addition, each student will present her or his personal take-away on an individual basis at the Capstone event on Friday, January 12 afternoon. The audience for the Capstone session will consist of project partners, JRC staff members, local team members, HBS alumni, and others. Finally, project teams will submit a final report by Tuesday, January 30. Final grades will consider: (i) participation and attendance during the four class sessions in the Fall semester; (ii) engagement with project partners during the months leading up to the Japan trip; (iii) on-site activities in Tokyo and Tohoku; (iv) feedback from partner organizations and peers on project work; and (v) the final report.

Tours: Students will have the opportunity to take part in company visits as well as various cultural activities in Tokyo and the Tohoku region throughout their 10-day stay in Japan. Students will come to appreciate unique business protocols practiced in Japanese companies - e.g., exchange of name cards, silence in elevators, empathy to co-workers, being on time, etc. - that contribute to Japan’s unique approach to entrepreneurship. They will also develop an understanding for why the Japanese live long (diet, hot spring, respect to the elders, etc.) and why many Japanese companies are long lasting (more than 600 companies over 300 years old).

Accommodations and Activities: Students will experience two different types of accommodations. In Tokyo (where the majority of overnights will take place), students will stay at a modern downtown hotel near Ginza (similar to Fifth Avenue in New York City). During an excursion to the Tohoku region, students will stay at a traditional Japanese ryokan, where they will soak in public, hot spring baths (Onsen) and eat dinner wearing a yukata. Please note that students will engage in volunteer work during their stay in Tohoku, including physical labor (e.g., collecting wood, removing rocks, or cleaning shells) and advising a mayor as well as local entrepreneurs /NPOs. In Tokyo, students will learn about Japanese culture by visiting a Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple, Akihabara (electronics center and home of geeky cafes), edgy fashion town of Harajuku and Shibuya, department store basement (depa-chika), etc. as well as by experiencing sushi-making, sumo wrestler live practice, and riding the bullet-train (Shinkansen).

Course Credit and Fees

Students will receive 3 credits upon successful completion of this course.

HBS will provide logistical support for the immersion (including accommodations, select meals, and local travel arrangements). Students will be charged a course fee of $3,000 towards defraying a portion of these costs. Students are responsible for booking and paying for their own round-trip air travel and any costs associated with required visa documentation and immunizations. Students should ensure adequate processing time for all visas, as travel fees are not refundable if a student does not secure visas on time.

For detailed information about what the course program fee includes and excludes, as well as information about student accommodations, please visit the GEO website or email geo@hbs.edu.

Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS Scholarship, or a combination of both depending on the student’s individual circumstances. Please review the quick self-Assessment tips to determine your eligibility. Contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Immersive Field Courses: IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS scholarship, or a combination of both depending on your individual circumstances. The Add/Drop process at the start of the term is the mechanism for any IFC enrollment changes, and, after that point, the course fee is non-refundable. Refer to the GEO website for full details on IFCs and be sure you understand the Course Policies and Course Fee & Financial Aid. Visit IFC Financial Aid for a quick assessment to determine your eligibility and process or contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Enrollment Capacity: Limited to 40 MBA students (due to the nature of IFCs , auditing is not permitted)

As the rise in remote work unwinds the advantages of clusters like Silicon Valley, the US can no longer take for granted a claim to primacy as the venue for launching and scaling technology ventures. Other regions – in particular Asia and Europe – have been growing relative share in recent years, and this is likely to accelerate in the aftermath of Covid-19. However, these other venues present quite different kinds of complexity for entrepreneurs and investors. The UK has always had a complex political relationship with Europe, but its liminal status is part of its appeal, as a bridge between the US and the Continent. Today, London remains the pre-eminent regional hub for capital and entrepreneurship.

This immersion course is designed to provide “a view from the bridge” between the HBS campus and Europe for those who are interested in understanding the region’s extraordinary recent explosion of entrepreneurial activity and capital deployment, who want to meet some of the people and companies making that happen, and who are seriously considering heading across the Atlantic after they graduate in search of new ventures.

Students will gain exposure to a large and rapidly growing business community during a crucial period of transition. The landscape of UK and European entrepreneurship has evolved significantly in the last decade. Several European ventures now exceed USD$50 billion in market value, and it is only a matter of time before one exceeds USD$100B. Meanwhile, the pace of venture capital deployment in the region is at historic highs, with more than USD$80B invested over the last 12 months. Accounting for 40% of all regional investment activity, London has clearly emerged as the pre-eminent focal point for UK and European entrepreneurial activity.

Students will develop an intuitive understanding of the challenges and opportunities of starting, scaling, and investing across a culturally heterogeneous and politically complex region. Unlike US start-ups, which can typically take for granted a large and homogenous home market to build scale economies and/or capture the benefits of network effects, few UK/European start-ups have the potential to deliver “venture scale” returns by selling only to domestic markets. For this reason, they must think international from the outset, which presents acute scaling challenges that demand culturally nuanced insight as well as practical intelligence.

Students will get hands-on exposure to start-up organizations and cultures in London. While many behavioral norms (e.g., open plan workspaces) cross national boundaries, others do not (working hours, attitudes to overtime). Immersion is a particularly effective way to gain appreciation of the differences and similarities between US-style entrepreneurship and what’s taking hold in the UK. In addition, this course will provide a valuable career bridge for students focused on relocating to London after graduating – particularly if they aspire to work in technology, an entrepreneurial context, or venture investing.

Course Format: Like other IFCs, the course will have a classroom component in the Fall Term (three to four sessions) and faculty office hours, followed by the January immersion experience in London.

During the fall, students will be asked to form teams of three or four, and, based on team preferences, they will be matched with London-based startup or growth-stage tech ventures. Each venture will have identified a specific project to assign each team, providing access to members of its leadership team, broader organization, and corporate materials and data. Each team will get grounded in its venture and complete foundational work prior to arrival in London for full-time, in-person engagement during the January immersion. Assignments may include product development, go-to-market strategy, market tests, analysis of unit and customer economics, organizational plans, and capitalization strategies, among other topics.

In London, the IFC will host a variety of events to maximize students’ exposure to the city’s tech scene. There will be opening, mid-course, and closing dinners with speakers from leading tech ventures and VC firms based in London. There will be opportunities to visit both VCs and ventures, as well as breakfast speakers at the hotel, on selected days. In addition, faculty will be available for office hours on a scheduled and, as necessary, ad hoc basis on the ground in London for the duration of the visit. The faculty will also host a debrief session in London at the conclusion of the immersion to capture learnings and insights from the experience of working with startup ventures in the UK.

Deliverables: At the conclusion of the immersion experience, each team will be tasked with developing and presenting a slide deck summarizing its work, results, and recommendations to project partners and to share with other students in the IFC. A final paper presenting each team’s work will be due in mid-February. The recommended limit for these papers is 3,000 to 4,000 words.

Grading: The final grade for this IFC will be composed of three components – classroom (at HBS) and immersion (in London) participation (50%); summary slide presentation (25%); and final paper (25%).

Prerequisites: This IFC will complement EC courses such as Launching Technology Ventures, Scaling Technology Ventures, and Founders Journeys, though these courses are not pre-requisites.

Course Credit and Fees

Students will receive 3 credits upon successful completion of this course.

HBS will provide logistical support for the immersion (including accommodations, select meals, and local travel arrangements). Students will be charged a course fee towards defraying a portion of these costs. Students are responsible for booking and paying for their own round-trip air travel and any costs associated with required visa documentation and immunizations. Students should ensure adequate processing time for all visas if necessary, as travel fees are not refundable if a student does not secure visas on time.

For detailed information about what the course program fee includes and excludes, as well as information about student accommodations, please visit the GEO website or email geo@hbs.edu.

Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS Scholarship, or a combination of both depending on the student’s individual circumstances. Please review the quick self-Assessment tips to determine your eligibility. Contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Immersive Field Courses: IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. Financial aid is available in the form of a student loan, a need-based HBS scholarship, or a combination of both depending on your individual circumstances. The Add/Drop process at the start of the term is the mechanism for any IFC enrollment changes, and, after that point, the course fee is non-refundable. Refer to the GEO website for full details on IFCs and be sure you understand the Course Policies and Course Fee & Financial Aid. Visit IFC Financial Aid for a quick assessment to determine your eligibility and process or contact finaid@hbs.edu for more information.

Enrollment Capacity: Limited to 45 MBA students (due to the nature of IFCs, auditing is not permitted)

Over the past decade, the rise of the Internet has blurred the functional lines between product and marketing. Some companies formed in the post-internet era have optimized their organizational structures by combining product and marketing into a single function called “growth”. The “growth” operating strategy was invented at Facebook and popularized at companies like Pinterest, Lyft, and Dropbox. While the discipline originated in the consumer tech sector of Silicon Valley, it has spread to entrepreneurial cultures such as New York, Berlin, and Singapore and to companies from non-tech industries, such as Disney, the NBA, and Adidas. Located at the intersection of experimentation, analysis, and strategy, the MBA uniquely prepares students for careers in this expanding discipline.

However, what exactly is this “growth” operating model that has spawned some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley, and the world? Current definitions and best practices have not been codified. DGSV provides students with the opportunity to explore this rising discipline by exposing them to the best growth practitioners and thought leaders in Silicon Valley and applying their learnings to an early stage venture.

Past year’s speakers are listed below. We hope to have a similar, or even better, group of speakers next year.

• Drew Houston (Founder/CEO of Dropbox)
• John Zimmer (Co-founder, President of Lyft)
• John Doerr (Chairman, Kleiner Perkins)
• Dylan Field (Founder, CEO of Figma)
• >Dan Shapero (COO, LinkedIn)
• Sid Sidbrandij (Founder, CEO of GitLab)
• Selina Tobaccowala (Co-founder of eVite, former President of SurveyMonkey)
• Dick Costolo (Former CEO of Twitter)
• Dan Springer (CEO of Docusign)
• Leah Solivan (Founder/CEO of TaskRabbit)
• Kirsten Kliphouse (President of Google Cloud)
• Jay Simons (Founding President of Atlassian)
• Brian Halligan (Co-founder/CEO of HubSpot)

Specific learning objectives include:

1. What are the best practices of a “growth” operating strategy?
2. How are the implementations of “growth” across Silicon Valley’s most successful companies the same? How are they different? What drives these differences?
3. How should “growth” be implemented in a startup context? How does the team makeup and priorities evolve as the venture matures?

DGSV is primarily focused on a field project with a scaling startup, specifically in the area of the venture’s “growth” operating strategy. In the Fall while on campus, student teams will conduct a series of virtual meetings, research, analysis, and project execution with the project sponsor and other company resources. Students will then spend 6 days in Silicon Valley meeting with executives and growth leaders of some of the most successful tech companies in the region. In the week after the trip, the students will package their project deliverables and trip reflections into a final presentation for their startup sponsor.

The class will meet four times in the Fall for two hours each. Class time will be a mix of discussing a case simulation on components of the “growth” operating strategy, framework discussions with growth thought leaders, and Q&A with leaders from successful growth implementations. The class session objectives is to expose the students to the operations and frameworks of the most successful growth thought leaders and practitioners and provide them with the opportunity to implement the appropriate best practices in their field project. There will also be two one-on-one reviews between the faculty instructor and each project team during the Fall and check in calls with the project sponsor.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Requirements

Students prepare a business plan, which uses the framework of this course, for an organization that innovates health care delivery, technology, insurance, and consumer- facing options.

Career Focus

For students interested in careers in entrepreneurial health care, consulting, and investing.

Educational Objectives

Innovating in Health Care (IHC) enables students to create successful entrepreneurial health care ventures that respond to the massive opportunities created by the escalating cost and uneven quality and access of health care systems globally.

Innovating in Health Care (IHC) enables students to:

• Identify the one primary purpose of the innovation – technology commercializing, consumer facing, or cost controlling.
• Understand how to align with the Six Factors that critically influence this kind of innovation – structure (the status quo), financing (who pays for what and why), technology, consumers, accountability, and public policy.
• Create business models that respond appropriately to any Six Factors misalignments and that feature the strategy, financing, management, and organizational structure appropriate for that kind of innovation.

The field -based cases in Innovating in Health Care cover every part of the health care sector, including bricks and mortar primary care centers, insurance, bricks and mortar and virtual health care services, AI, digital health, medical devices, biopharma, diagnostics, payment and delivery intermediaries, telemedicine, DTC and PBM pharmaceutical delivery, and SaMD. The course has a global focus with case studies set in Africa, Germany, India, and the U.S. Its cases discuss startups as well as established firms that are recreating themselves.

The CEO of the firm described in the case study typically attends the session.

Content and Organization

The course is organized into three modules:

• In the first module , Innovating in Health Care discusses the opportunities and risks for health care innovations and introduces students, through case studies, to the analytic framework of the Six Factors that critically shape innovative health care ventures and their impact on business models for three different kinds of health care innovations: consumer-focused, technology-commercializing, and cost controllers. Students present their ideas for innovative health care business models for feedback from their classmates.
• The second module discusses case studies of a large variety of health care innovations. A lecture on payment elucidates the process of coverage, coding, and payment in the US and the varieties of cost effectiveness analyses used in many other developed countries.
• The wrap up module discusses some case studies of innovations created by former IHC students. Students present their business plans for feedback.

Prof. Herzlinger has founded a number of successful, entrepreneurial health care firms; served on the Boards of directors of many large, public health care firms; wrote a number of best-selling books on health care entrepreneurialism and the health care plan of a US presidential candidate; and often testified in the US Congress.

Business Plan Requirements

Students prepare a business plan, which employs the IHC Framework, to create an entrepreneurial opportunity in health care.

Some ideas for projects are posted on the course platform, but you can devise your own project, as well, after Prof. Herzlinger approves it. Students frequently form teams with fellow MBAs and cross registrants, some of which remain as ongoing businesses( for example, the Marvin case study).

You will prepare a 5-minute presentation of your business plan idea for a health care innovation, its alignment with the Six Factors, and the resulting business model. I will randomly select people to present this in class. Those selected will email your presentation materials the day before your presentation.

Your business plan should cover the following topics:

• The type of opportunity
• Six factors alignment
• The business model
• Next steps

Grading

Students are reminded of the Attendance Policy.

Class participation will account for a significant percentage of the grade, and the business plan will account for the remainder.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

CAREER FOCUS

The course is appropriate for students anticipating a career in which sensing opportunity for new products/services/business models and successfully bringing those ideas to market are key activities. That’s the “innovation” part of the course title. A key feature of the course is that it also addresses “renovation” of the product line over time. New products are added at established price points, e.g. the horizontal Coca-Cola product line extension with Coke Zero. Or, an existing category is expanded by “trading up” (a higher priced/performance item added, e.g. an iPod with greater storage capacity) or “trading down” (a lower price/performance item added – e.g. Titleist “Tour Speed” golf balls to hit the $40 price point – as compared to the top-of-the-line $50 ball.) The course will cover a wide variety of contexts and thus be useful for those starting their own companies or joining an established organization.

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

The course is designed to build student skill in:

1. Sensing new opportunities

• Where do new product ideas come from?
• What are the most useful sources?
• How best to assess potential market size?

2. Specifying the process of new product development and role of various market research procedures

• What can target market customers tell you about their wants? What can’t they?
• How can you best learn quickly at the concept stage before prototype development?
• What new learning opportunities open up with prototype development and beta testing possibilities?
• How are data best converted into useful insights?

3. Managing the product line evolution over time

• When does the product need a refresh?
• How long should the product line be?
• When should you worry about cannibalization? When not?
• How far can you stretch a brand?

COURSE CONTENT/ORGANIZATION/GRADING

After an introductory session, anchored by a conceptual note on “From Idea to Launch: Process Design and Management” setting out the fundamentals of new product management, the course is organized around three modules. Rather than a “snapshot” in time, most of the cases have a dynamic, over time dimension, set out either in a standalone case or through a case series with class handouts.

MODULE 1: Marketing Intelligence and Sensing Opportunity

The module develops understanding of key market research procedures in two conceptual notes: “Marketing Intelligence” and “The How and When of Effective Beta Testing.” The techniques are applied in cases such as Carvana’s pioneering of the entirely on-line car buying experience and Evernote’s reconfiguration of its product line and pricing based on conjoint analysis.

MODULE 2: Product Line Extensions

Product lines tend to get “longer” over time. Some view this as “lazy marketing” while others have seen extending lines as key to satisfying customer needs more precisely and blocking competitive advances. The key arguments are set out in the course note “Product Line Extensions: Optimal or Overdone?” Cases fully exploring the issue and setting out key principles include multiple case series tracing the development of Peloton and Casper Mattress from firms with a single product offering to a broad array.

MODULE 3: Product Line Breadth/Extending the Brand

While module 2 examines line evolution within a given category, module 3 looks at evolution of the company’s offering across product categories. The module features a conceptual note on the issue. Cases include Topgolf as it extends from its golf range/bar/entertainment complexes into related categories, e.g. golf simulators leased to hotels and casinos and “pop up” events at major sports stadiums. Can it manage the portfolio so that the different categories are complementary rather than competing? How far can one stretch a brand?

The three modules taken together provide a comprehensive look at both Innovation and Renovation of the product line over time and how to Optimize Product Line Architecture. While the case lineup does tilt some toward consumer products (2/3 B2C and 1/3 B2B), the lessons derived from the cases are broadly applicable. The course was an “Innovation” in Fall 2021 as a new course offering. While the course was well received by students, the initial offering also provided useful direction to currently underway “Renovation” efforts for Fall 2022.The majority of cases are newly developed, augmented by several “classic” cases which have served as the foundation of courses on product policy at a host of business schools and companies around the world.

Grading will be 50% class participation and 50% a final exam.

Copyright © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview

This is a course about exploiting the opportunities created by the emergence of a global economy and managing the risks that globalization entails. All managers now face a business environment where international, macroeconomic, and political phenomena matter. Understanding the genesis of financial and currency crises, stock market booms and busts, social and labor unrest, the rise of populism, and major swings in politics and policies is a crucial aspect in taking informed managerial decisions. Adverse macroeconomic and political phenomena can have a catastrophic impact on firm performance: witness the strong companies destroyed by the Mexican tequila crisis and those damaged by recent protests around the globe. Yet, such episodes also create business opportunities – and not just for the hedge funds and speculators that profit from them. Managers that have and use a coherent framework for understanding and analyzing these phenomena will enjoy a competitive advantage.

Career Focus

Internationally oriented careers; careers in global financial management; senior executive jobs; careers in policy-making.

Educational Objectives

The educational objectives of the IMaGE course are threefold.

First, the course aims to provide participants with a basic understanding of how contemporary macroeconomics explains dramatic events in the international economy, such as recurrent banking and financial crises in several countries. Much of this explanation focuses on the role of confidence, expectations, and crowd psychology. These factors result in aggregate behavior - e.g., demand in the U.S. economy as a whole - behaving in a different manner than would be suggested by simply summing individual behavior. This, in turn, justifies the establishment of macroeconomics as a separate discipline, distinct from microeconomics with its focus on individual firm and household decisions.

Second, the course discusses how institutions can be developed which focus the uncoordinated actions of individual households and firms as well as voters and politicians on good, rather than bad, overall outcomes. Such institutions are key determinants of macroeconomic and political outcomes. In some countries, legal, political, and economic institutions are able to coordinate private decisions on stable and productive paths. Where institutional development is weak - as seems to be the case in much of the developing world - private actions are poorly coordinated and the result is greater macroeconomic volatility, higher political risk, and slower growth. Understanding what constitute good institutions and how institutions influence economic and political behavior is therefore crucial.

Finally, the course is intended to develop a simple framework linking institutional design and macroeconomic performance. This framework can be used to evaluate how globalization is likely to change the performance of specific markets and thus assess the associated risks and opportunities.

Course Content and Organization

Most of the cases and class discussions focus on the country level, although several cases look at specific sectors (e.g., the retail industry in Chile, or the startup sector in Israel) or particular policies (inflation targeting in Brazil), and others span multiple countries (Chinese investments in Africa, or climate change). The course itself consists of four modules.

The first module ("Macroeconomic and Financial Dynamics") uses the experiences of two famous economic policy makers (Alan Greenspan and John Maynard Keynes) and several countries which have suffered through tremendous economic dislocation to identify and develop the issues of communication, confidence, coordination, and institutional development that are central to the remainder of the course. It investigates the mechanisms underlying recent macroeconomic and financial crises and explores their institutional underpinnings as well as their economic and political consequences. Representative cases include the Mexico Tequila crisis of 1994-95; Populism, banking crises, and exchange rate crises in Argentina; and Uganda and the Washington Consensus.

The second module ("Competing Institutional Models") studies how the U.S. and other rich countries have developed institutional structures permitting the coordination of individual business decisions on good economic outcomes, as well as their influences on macroeconomic policy design and performance. Moreover, it demonstrates how institutional differences across countries ultimately rest in differences in norms and beliefs, and explores how changes in the environment can render previously successful institutional structures outmoded, thereby creating both opportunities and risks for firms and households. Representative cases include Margaret Thatcher and the Blair wealth project; Latvia navigating the strait of Messina; Eliot Spitzer pushing Wall Street to reform; and Israel between the oligarchs and the startup nation.

The third module (“Politics: Influence and Unrest”) studies the dynamics leading to the creation and fissuring of political consensus on institutions, broad policy orientations, and specific policies. It gives special attention to the role of information influencing politicians’ choice of policy and the people’s preferences, as well as factors generating information bias. It explores the interactions between all stakeholders influencing policy-making (ruling elites, companies, media, and the people) and their impact on business. Representative cases include Lobbying in the chemical industry in the U.S.; Unrest in Chile, Looting at Walmart International; and Populism, fake news, and elite betrayal in the Trump era.

The fourth module ("The Future of Globalization") uses the macroeconomic and political economy tools and insights built in the previous modules to study the latest trends in globalization and their effects. It discusses how the increasing integration of international trade and of the global capital markets can affect the economic performance and generate political turmoil within previously successful and stable nations by undermining the internal coherence of the institutional structures on which their economic performance rested and the policy options available to them. Representative cases include the Trans-Pacific Partnership; Goodbye IMF conditions, hello Chinese capital: Zambia’s copper industry and Africa’s break with its colonial past; the 2012 Spanish labor reform; and Climate change: Paris, and the road ahead.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview

Investment Management and Capital Markets is suitable for all students interested in gaining a broad perspective on investing and the asset management business. This includes both those targeting careers in asset management and those interested in learning how to manage effectively their personal wealth, current and future.

The course has an eminently practice-oriented focus. Through the evaluation of specific investment decisions and opportunities, students get a broad understanding of capital markets, assets classes, investing styles, and instruments (equity markets, bond markets, credit markets, real estate, privates, active and index investing, value and growth investing, activism, ESG investing, tail risk hedging, futures and swaps, etc.). Students also explore investing from the asset owner perspective, learning modern practices in portfolio construction for personal and institutional investors (family offices, endowments, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds): Portfolio construction and risk management, identification of investment talent and skill, investment vehicles, and costs (types of fees, taxes, etc.).

This course makes special emphasis on being current and on hearing directly from investors. The average age of each case in this course is short, sessions on capital markets and asset classes are updated every year, and there are always multiple brand-new cases (nine in Fall of 2020). Classes often feature guest speakers to help students develop an up-close perspective on the issues raised in the case discussion and enhance students’ skills in investment decision making.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

Global capital markets are vast and dynamic, with over $90 trillion in listed public equities and more than $120 trillion in sovereign and corporate bonds outstanding. Every day, public markets set prices for CEOs and CFOs, financial institutions, and investors, all seeking to raise and invest money in a way that drives the economy forward. A public exit - whether through an initial public offering of common stock or a stock-financed merger with an already public acquirer - remains a critical step in corporate transformation by private equity investors and innovation by venture capitalists. Because public capital markets play such a key role in the global economy, government regulators and policy makers continually monitor their health and pay heed to the signals they are sending.

Investment Strategies is most directly applicable to students interested in pursuing careers in finance including mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, endowments, wealth management, financial consulting, marketing and client service, sales and trading, investment banking, private equity, venture capital, and corporate finance. However, many students have found that a thorough understanding of public capital markets and the business of investment management is valuable in a wider set of careers outside of finance and in managing their personal wealth.

The focus of Investment Strategies is financial markets, principally equity markets, taking the perspective of an institutional portfolio manager and considering the efficacy of value investing, growth investing, arbitrage, macroeconomic investing, and other active investment strategies. Professors Malcolm Baker and Robin Greenwood will co-teach several sessions.

Educational Objectives

The goal of this course is for you to develop an investment philosophy, a set of guiding principles that shape your approach to understanding and investing in public capital markets. While this philosophy is directly applicable to professional investment management, it is also relevant for corporate finance, investment banking, and personal finance. A cornerstone of any investment philosophy is a view on the efficiency of markets.

An efficient market is one where prices reflect true fundamental values. In an efficient market, there is little value in the selection of individual securities. Higher returns come only from bearing greater risk. Investing in efficient markets means minimizing transaction costs and choosing maximally diversified portfolios that deliver an optimal tradeoff between risk and return.

An inefficient market, by contrast, is one where prices differ - sometimes substantially - from fundamental values. Behavioral finance is a useful framework for understanding market inefficiencies. According to behavioral finance, the combination of investor biases and institutional constraints can lead prices to diverge from fundamental value. These deviations from fundamental value create opportunities and risks for sophisticated investors in both security selection and asset allocation.

Content and Organization

The course is organized into two parts. The first part develops a conceptual framework for the functioning of markets, spread over three topics:

• Introduction
• Market Efficiency
• Execution and Risk Management

The second part puts these ideas into practice, examining specific investment philosophies and strategies such as:

• Value Investing
• Forensic Accounting
• Asset Value
• Earnings Value and Activism
• Growth Investing

The materials consist of cases, class polls, and two course textbooks. A number of classes are built around visits from successful and well-known money managers, so that topics and strategies discussed will vary from year to year.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

The MS/MBA Capstone is an intensive project that requires teams of students to apply and integrate the skills they have learned across core disciplines developed in the program curriculum. Specifically, teams will be expected to design, build and launch a new technology-based product/service venture, and thereby to demonstrate mastery with respect to three areas of knowledge: Design Knowledge: The use of human-centered design methods to understand users, identify solutions to their needs, and gather feedback via rapid, iterative prototyping. Technical Knowledge: The use of rigorous system engineering methods to plan, design, develop, build, and test a complex technology-based product/service, integrating knowledge across multiple engineering disciplines. Business Knowledge: The use of business model analysis and lean experimentation methods to develop and test a set of hypotheses that capture how the new product/service will create value, including business model design, pricing, sales and marketing, operating model and profit formula.

The Capstone is divided into two parts, the first of which is an immersive course completed during the January term of the G2 year (Capstone I). The subsequent spring course (Capstone II) follows on from and builds upon work completed in January. Given students prior coursework, a working knowledge of human-centered design methods, systems engineering techniques, and business modeling and lean experimentation is assumed. Launch Lab therefore focuses on the practical application of these skills to team projects, supplemented by content in three areas: i) seminars on advanced methods and techniques, ii) workshops that demonstrate how to put these skills and tools into practice, and iii) guest speakers who share their experience in the areas of design, technology and business.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

The MS/MBA Capstone is an intensive project that requires teams of students to apply and integrate the skills they have learned across core disciplines developed in the program curriculum. Specifically, teams will be expected to design, build and launch a new technology-based product/service venture, and thereby to demonstrate mastery with respect to three areas of knowledge: Design Knowledge: The use of human-centered design methods to understand users, identify solutions to their needs, and gather feedback via rapid, iterative prototyping. Technical Knowledge: The use of rigorous system engineering methods to plan, design, develop, build, and test a complex technology-based product/service, integrating knowledge across multiple engineering disciplines. Business Knowledge: The use of business model analysis and lean experimentation methods to develop and test a set of hypotheses that capture how the new product/service will create value, including business model design, pricing, sales and marketing, operating model and profit formula.

The Capstone is divided into two parts, the first of which is an immersive course completed during the January term of the G2 year (Capstone I). The subsequent spring course (Capstone II) follows on from and builds upon work completed in January. Given students prior coursework, a working knowledge of human-centered design methods, systems engineering techniques, and business modeling and lean experimentation is assumed. Launch Lab therefore focuses on the practical application of these skills to team projects, supplemented by content in three areas: i) seminars on advanced methods and techniques, ii) workshops that demonstrate how to put these skills and tools into practice, and iii) guest speakers who share their experience in the areas of design, technology and business.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

View this video, walking through the course overview

Career Focus

Launching Technology Ventures (LTV) is designed for four types of students:

1. Those who will start their own companies.
2. Those who will join early-stage startups (typically in a product manager, business development, sales, marketing, or growth role).
3. Those who will work at growth stage technology firms (in a similar range of roles) that try to maintain a similar, nimble operating model as a startup.
4. Those who are interested in investing in startups.

The class focus is on pre-product-market fit technology-based ventures in a range of information technology-based sectors. Business models covered range from SaaS to freemium to e-commerce to transaction-based.

Educational Objectives

The course takes the perspective of founders struggling to achieve product market fit in their early-stage startups. Our cases focus on founder decisions during this search and discovery phase, both in the experiments that they design and run as well as the organizations they build.

LTV has a tactical, implementation bias rather than a strategic one and will largely avoid concepts covered in Entrepreneurial Finance and Founders' Journey. There is a modest overlap with Product Management and Entrepreneurial Sales, but LTV is solely focused on pre-product-market fit startups and takes the perspective of the founder. In that regard, LTV is complementary to Scaling Tech Ventures (STV), which focuses more on post product-market fit startups.

LTV helps students learn the playbook for finding product-market fit while learning to design more attractive, enduring business models, answering the question why some startups are valued at only 2x revenue while others are valued at 20x and why some startups struggle to attract venture funding while others raise hundreds of millions of dollars.

Course Content

Through a series of case studies and intimate conversations with startup founders, LTV students examine management challenges in early-stage startups and the range of experiments that are conducted during this phase of development. Taking the perspective that a startup is an experimentation machine and that those experiments should cover all facets of the startup’s business model, we will explore six modules:

1. Ideation and Customer Value Proposition Experiments. What are the best methods to develop and test startup ideas early in the development process? What are the right analytical techniques to derive insight into the power of a value proposition, conduct customer discovery, and determine whether a startup has achieved product-market fit?

2. Go to Market Experiments. What is the right mix of direct and indirect selling efforts and at what phase in the startup's lifecycle should each be employed? How can founders themselves be the most effective sales engine for an early-stage company, even though it clearly does not scale as a go to market approach? What is the optimal mix of different customer acquisition methods, such as growth hacking, SEO, SEM, email, and affiliate programs? How should a startup think about working with channel partners or other gatekeepers in the face of asymmetric bargaining power and potentially divergent interests? What are the best practices for attracting and managing developers who can leverage a platform's API?

3. Business Model Experiments. When is the best time to trigger monetization experiments and how should a freemium model be best executed? What are the different pricing and business model approaches that a startup can take, particularly when trying to deploy an innovative model and drive adoption in the context of a network effect-based business opportunity? How does one evaluate the quality of the startup business model and appreciate the relative pros and cons of business model choices?

4. The Startup Organization and Hiring. What is the best design for a startup organization intended to effectively execute on running startup experiments? When should a seed stage startup recruit its first sales professional and what hiring criteria should they use? The first marketing hire? How can a growth organization be created and how should it interact with the other functions, particularly product and marketing? When is the right time to build a community team? How can modern, flexible product development techniques, such as agile and continuous deployment, be utilized to enhance the rate of experimentation and thus the chances that product-market fit can be achieved?

5. Ecosystem and Ethics. What are the important ethical considerations that a startup founder needs to consider, particularly as they face key moments such as financing and exit opportunities? How are a founder’s obligations to stakeholders challenged under pressure and uncertainty? More broadly, why does the startup ecosystem contain so many market failures that lead to biases and inequities – particularly in terms of access to capital for female entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color?

6. Financing and Exits. What is the best way to align financing needs with a startup’s operating plan, considering the key milestones and valuation inflection points ahead? If things are going well, or (all too frequently) not well, how should a founder consider and navigate exit options?

The course has 24 cases, 3 exercises, and a wrap-up session. The three exercises are: (1) startup business model deconstruction using current student’s startups; (2) startup pitch workshop; and (3) startup hiring workshop. In nearly all of the cases, the case protagonist will be a class guest. Case protagonists are 50% female, 50% male, and racially diverse. In addition to meeting the case protagonists in class, coffees and lunches are arranged to allow for more intimate exposure to a wide range of startup founders and investors, helping students build a strong network in startupland.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus:

Every MBA should understand how law affects business. In addition to serving as a Senior Lecturer at HBS, I am a Securities Litigation Partner at WilmerHale in Boston. I draw upon examples from my practice and have designed the course to develop legal literacy by honing instincts that will help business leaders avoid legal pitfalls, attain a competitive edge and promote long-term success. Expanding well beyond the basic legal concepts introduced in LCA, the course will refine students’ understanding of how law affects all aspects of business, and develop a deeper appreciation of how legal systems operate and how to operate within the boundaries of legal systems. In response to increased student interest in private equity, a module of the course focuses on contracts and understanding legal documentation relating to private equity transactions. The course will also explore legal issues involved in starting, joining or investing in start-ups and decision making from the time an entrepreneur conceives, starts to build and obtains financing through development of exit strategies. The course has a global perspective and should be of interest to both U.S. and non-U.S. students.

No prior legal training is assumed. Class discussion will be based on both business school cases and other materials including excerpts from judicial opinions, statutes, news reports and analysis, and actual deal documentation. Most of the classes will run the usual 80 minutes although a few sessions may be merged for deep dives into selected topics and interaction with class guests who will appear by Zoom or in the classroom.

Educational Objectives:

The course has four objectives:

• Explore the global legal environment, develop an approach to managing and maximizing the value of the corporate legal function, and analyze the dynamic nature of law;
• Develop literacy in: basic agency, contracts, legal documentation, torts, and the dynamics of litigation; explore intellectual property (IP), mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and the basics of bankruptcy; and examine contemporary issues in securities law, private equity transactions and regulatory responses to complex financial instruments;
• Enhance understanding of the legal life cycle of a start-up including structuring and financing issues, tax considerations, founder/investor conflicts, liquidity and exit issues; and
• Consider what’s customary and fair in various transactions and the communication challenges of translating legal advice and analysis into decision-ready advice managers can use.

Course Content and Organization:

• Day 1: Overview of the Course

Module 1: Contracts -- Basic & Complex

• Day 2: Contract Basics
• Day 3: What Does the Contract Say? What Does it Mean?
• Day 4: Complex Contracts: PE – Part I
• Day 5: Complex Contracts: PE – Part II
• Day 6: Contracts – Earnout Provisions

Module 2: Additional Building Blocks

• Day 7: Torts and Toxic Torts
• Day 8: IP – Patents and Patent Licenses
• Day 9: IP – Copyrights
• Day 10: Litigation and Litigation Strategy
• Day 11: Bankruptcy
• Day 12: Securities Law – What is a Security
• Day 13: Securities Law – Operating in the Securities Markets
• Day 14: Regulation of the Securities Market
  

Module 3: Starting & Growing Businesses

• Day 15: Breaking Away – Covenants not to Compete
• Day 16: Coming Together – Forming a Business
• Day 17: Choice of Organization
• Day 18: Financing a Start-up Company
• Day 19: Employers and Employees
• Day 20: Employment – Compensation
• Day 21: Break All The Rules? Uber/Airbnb
• Day 22: Break-down/Wash-outs: Downrounds
• Day 23: The Power of Contract: Downrounds Part II
  
• Day 24: The Start-up vs. The Incumbent

Module 4: Succession & Liquidity

• Day 25: Exit Strategies or Not
• Day 26: PE Exits
• Day 27: IPOs – Old and New
• Day 28: Fulfilling the Promise – Dealing with Lawyers and Course Wrap

The Legal Environment of Business: introduces the concept of law as incorporated in the legal systems of various countries, highlights differences among the major types of legal systems, develops approaches to managing the legal function and maximizing its utility; introduces the concepts of jurisdiction and the basics of litigation.

Contracts and Private Equity Documentation: Introduces contract law and builds on that introduction to develop an understanding of private equity deal documentation and the essential elements of the contracts underlying private equity transactions, including mergers.

Liability: Torts, Crimes, and Litigation over Major Transactions: explores the various types of liability and litigation encountered by businesses including basic torts and tort litigation, Merger and Acquisition litigation, IP lawsuits, antitrust suits, bankruptcy litigation, and criminal prosecution in the context of securities regulation and international white collar crime.

The Legal Environment for Entrepreneurship and Exit Strategies: explores the role of the legal systems in creating and sustaining a climate that facilitates entrepreneurial activity and the role of counsel in helping to launch, grow and protect new businesses. It considers the following stages in the life cycle of a start-up: Formation (pre-formation issues, different forms of business organization, NDAs, contractual arrangements and other legal protections for corporate assets and opportunities, and governance and control under VCs); Employment Relationships (certain legal aspects of developing, rewarding and retaining employees, including non-competition agreements, assignments of rights, and employment litigation); and Growth and Exits (strategies for maximizing the value of intellectual property, founder/VC disputes , wash-outs, and legal aspects of exit strategies, including PE exits and IPOs).

Grading:

50% of the final grade will be based on class participation and 50% on a self-scheduled final exam.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Leadership Execution and Action Planning (LEAP) focuses on the tenacity, tactics, and grit required to influence action across a wide range of organizational challenges. While traditional leadership courses contemplate “what” is leadership, LEAP focuses on “how” leaders must take action at critical moments to shape their organizations and their careers. The course helps transition students from a classroom understanding of leadership to the often messy reality of rolling up one's sleeves and getting things done. It takes the point of view of a leader who: (1) is new to a situation, (2) must take action, and (3) is asked to operate within a system that she or he may not fully control or has not designed.

New leaders often stumble when tasked with closing the gap between a desired end-state and executing an action plan to achieve a desired outcome. LEAP is designed to give students pattern recognition and practice in developing action plans across a variety organizational challenges they are likely to face early on in their careers, including: transactions, turnarounds, crisis management, scaling, and organizational reinvention. The course will develop skills in diagnosing, designing, and executing complex actions in organizations. It forces students to contemplate the managerial tradeoffs and constraints they will face when tasked with achieving results.

An additional underlying theme of the course focuses on managerial failure, highlighting the major missteps and early career challenges that many leaders fall into. Through the lens of a variety of case protagonists in various stages of their careers, LEAP gives students the opportunity to practice devising implementation plans and identifying execution traps. The course will ask students to evaluate their own blind spots and shortcomings with regard to leadership style, execution management, and career development.

LEAP is an integrated leadership course, building on concepts from organizational behavior, strategy, marketing, finance, and general management. It brings these themes together in a variety of case discussions and exercises that focus on the personal decisions general managers face in high-performance, high-stakes, and career-defining situations. Students will examine leaders in a variety of private and publicly owned companies, family businesses, and non-profits. The course will analyze the successes and missteps of the protagonists in each case, nearly half of whom will be present in classroom to discuss their own views and, in some class sessions, to solicit student feedback about their ongoing execution challenges.

Course Objectives

LEAP has the following key learning objectives:

1. To enable students to get things done successfully.
2. To understand the risks, trade-offs, and constraints leaders face when tasked with achieving results under conditions where they have limited skills, time, and resources available.
3. To develop the leadership capabilities and interpersonal skills required to become an effective “implementer /operator.”

Underlying Themes and Goals

The industry, organization, and protagonist settings in the course are highly diverse. Cases will focus on protagonist perspectives ranging from the CEO to initial-entry positions (i.e., of the type that many students may experience soon after graduation). It offers a manager’s perspective on how to drive program execution in a variety of settings.

This course will develop implementation and project management skills. A critical skill required of program managers is triage — developing and assigning priorities based on their urgency and importance. Successful execution also requires making tradeoffs given constraints of time, capital, talent, and political capital. LEAP will introduce students to several general tactics, common traps, and tools related to execution.

This course will focus on execution. The course focuses on the alignment of tactics required to drive performance across a range of business activities. Case Students will develop implementation approaches for existing business problems in each module. The course will illustrate how difficult projects get done, how policies and procedures get carried out, and how improvements are delivered.

This course provides frameworks to guide the process of developing and implementing action. LEAP demonstrates “how” to lead implementation efforts — from diagnosis to design to execution. It presents several frameworks to help students with various action-planning challenges:

• How to determine whether the “agreed upon” goal is actually an “achievable” goal.
• How to evaluate tradeoffs among resources.
• How to manage stakeholders in positions of power, both formal and informal.
• How to create alignment among the culture, formal organization, people, and critical tasks.

This course will emphasize learning from failure. A running theme throughout the course is overcoming adversity and learning from failure. Students are challenged to grapple with their own prior failures while analyzing management teams that have experienced major setbacks. Each module includes at least one business case where the leadership team failed to achieve their goals. Students will discuss how to manage failure, seek feedback, and make mid-course corrections. The intent is to develop the student’s ability to learn from failure, and discuss how to overcome early failures in a career in order to continue professional advancement. Frequent protagonist participation will also provide students with access to seasoned executives who will discuss their biggest execution failures.

Course Module Structure

The course is organized into six modules that illustrate execution challenges where leaders may have the right set of objectives and a sound strategy, but “getting things done” is difficult and results often fall short of desired outcomes. While there is some overlap between modules with regard to processes of action planning and execution, the distinct lessons of each segment of the course are outlined below:

Module 1: Transactions Business transactions, particularly post-merger integration, are among the most difficult of leadership challenges business managers face in their careers. Even seasoned merger experts make catastrophic (and career-sabotaging) mistakes while leading through these complex periods of change. The transactions module discusses the common leadership pitfalls of merger integration, highlights management styles that seem relevant in successful merger leaders, and it offers approaches that can serve as a starting point for leading a merger process. Other topics include:

• Rigorously designing and executing integration.
• Choosing the right leadership team.
• Addressing organization and culture issues, and retaining key talent.

Module 2: Turnarounds in For-Profit and Non-Profit Organizations Turnarounds represent a high-risk execution challenge for leaders. Leaders must make decisions about what to cut, who to cut, what to keep, and how fast it all must happen. This module focuses on the common mistakes, management styles of successful turnaround leaders, and action plans that can serve as the starting point for a leader tasked with managing a turnaround. Other topics include:

• Evaluating the conditions for change.
• Creating and communicating a turnaround narrative.
• Protecting the base business while changing direction and creating forward movement.

Module 3: Crisis Building on the turnaround module, here we examine how the added elements of restricted time and lack of information combine to create unique challenges for companies in crisis situations. Unlike a turnaround, a crisis can be a catastrophic event, or a series of seemingly small events, that often surprise leaders. Most organizations are not designed to prevent or manage crises; it is not a question of if a crisis will happen, but when, and what kind. Other topics include:

• Examining tradeoffs between taking immediate action and acting with an untested approach.
• The challenge of leading in situations where confusion and chaos often exist.

Module 4: Scaling Expansion is inherently risky to an incumbent organization’s existing architecture. Scaling a business, particularly into new geographical markets or product categories, involves addressing cultural, administrative, and economic tradeoffs. Successful leadership in these scenarios requires managers who are capable of action planning for growth, as well as exerting control and influence across cultural, political, and economic divides. Other topics include:

• Establishing systems and integrated structures across growing geographic footprints, while simultaneously allowing for local innovation and preferences.
• Developing an organizational architecture that supports the expansion into new product-classes and market categories.
• Maintaining an organization’s culture and values while attempting to professionalize and create formal systems and structures.

Module 5: Reinvention Reinvention is a process whereby established organizations respond to external environmental shifts that threaten to upend their core business model, technologies, cultural values, and/or operational norms. Reinvention represents a managerial paradox: executives must both preserve and change aspects of the business that once made them successful but could render the organization obsolete in the near future. This module will examine several mature businesses that faced a near collapse and how their leaders attempted to redefine the organization to attract new consumers and markets. Other topics include:

• How innovations affect mature organizations and how to respond to technological shocks.
• How firms both preserve and change elements of “what we do” (their strategy) and “who we are” (their organizational identity).
• How to attract new talent and infuse confidence back into a workforce that has suffered a significant downfall.

Module 6: Action Planning Your Career The career module focuses on analyzing career paths, tradeoffs between personal ethics and success, and, importantly, navigating failure. The module provides students an opportunity to contemplate their objectives, and provides students with examples of overzealous life planning and the unforeseen interpersonal or ethical dilemmas that might derail a career plan. Additional key topics are:

• The tradeoffs between mapping career goals and maintaining work-life balance.
• Career resiliency and overcoming early failures after graduation.
• Individual action plans related to career transitions that students will face in the next 5-10 years.

Format of Class Discussions

Cases, supplemental readings, and guests will form the basis of class discussion. Because LEAP is focused primarily on action, each session will devote time to dissecting a series of “micro-moments” within each case. Students will design a set of actions to address various challenges. Many of the classes will also feature a protagonist or key team member in the classroom so students develop a first-hand appreciation of their leadership style, thought processes, action planning skills, and responses to problems. In addition:

• Some classes will have a non-case protagonists in attendance to share a practitioner's perspective on the case being discussed.
• Failure presentations given by select students will highlight lessons learned from early career experiences, learning from failure, and the value of applying the course’s learning objectives in the real world.
• An alumni panel will include students 3-4 years out of HBS. These alums will talk about the challenges they faced post-HBS after reentering the workplace.

Grading and Evaluation

Course grades are based on the following components:

• Class participation comprises 50% of the grade. Participation will be evaluated for both frequency and quality. As part of the participation grade, students will prepare action planning write-ups throughout the semester that will be used during class discussions.
• Midterm write-up and a failure assignment comprise 15% of the grade. The midterm write-up asks students to outline an action plan. It will provide an opportunity to practice and apply the course frameworks. Students will also submit a short-written analysis of a failure they experienced in their professional endeavors prior or during their time at HBS. The essay will describe a significant failure, discuss lessons learned from the failure, and how the student dealt with the aftermath. Several individuals per section will be chosen to present their failures and the lessons learned to the rest of the class at the end of the semester.
• A written final exam comprises 35% of the grade. The final will be scheduled during the exam period following the last day of class. It will mirror the format of the midterm written exercise. Students are not required to be on campus to take the exam.

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Albert Schweitzer once said, “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” Was he right? Sort of. According to the best research available (which we will read in this class), to be a successful leader, you need to understand happiness and manage to it—yours and others’. Unfortunately, most leaders have to learn this fact by hard experience. Furthermore, they are never exposed to the expanding science of happiness, which contains a wealth of information on how to be happier as a leader and make others happier as well.

This class has three objectives:

1. Students will create a map of their own happiness, desires, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. In short, they will know themselves much more deeply.
2. Students will learn tactics and strategies to raise their levels of well-being and life satisfaction.
3. Students will learn how to lead others in a way that increases happiness.

Students will take the best surveys on happiness, read some of the most influential modern research on the topic, discuss the research in class, and apply their knowledge to leadership scenarios. They will leave after seven weeks prepared to use the material during the balance of their time at HBS and in the workforce. Not only will this give them a competitive advantage in the labor market; it will also help them enjoy their work and lives.

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Making decisions is integral to every manager’s job. MDD explores the kinds of decisions made by general managers (GMs): why they are especially challenging and how to make them well. The course builds on the premise that high-stakes uncertain environments call for high quality conversations, particularly in executive teams, to integrate different perspectives and arrive at the best possible recommendations. We examine cognitive, interpersonal, and organizational factors that thwart effective decision making, and introduce techniques for diagnosing and overcoming predictable pitfalls. Effective managers are self-aware, learning-oriented, and able to draw on and develop others’ skills and knowledge to achieve results. Students will gain access to frameworks and practices to help them develop their potential as effective managers.

The course views management as a crucial activity for enabling coordinated action in pursuit of organizational performance. Our emphasis is on how GMs get things done, through making and guiding both larger and smaller decisions. We show how to use decision making processes more effectively to achieve results and to move their organizations forward. Effective execution hinges on an array of factors—ranging from how a decision-making process is structured to the incentives (formal and informal) of participants—that many managers fail to take into account. But with greater awareness, managers can better influence the design, direction, and functioning of the processes that enable their executive teams and their organizations to succeed. The aim of MDD is to develop students’ understanding of these activities and their links to performance. Throughout, our focus is on high-level processes that are of interest to general managers; for this reason, case protagonists are typically division presidents or higher.

A distinctive feature of the course is the variety of teaching materials that we use, including experiential exercises, simulations, multimedia cases, and visits from case protagonists, in addition to the usual written cases. Settings are varied as well. They include a wide variety of businesses and industries, ranging from startups to large multinationals and from software development to financial services, retailing, and manufacturing, but also feature many non-business protagonists and situations, including presidential taskforces, mountaineering expeditions, wildland fire fighters, hospital administrators, and engineers involved in the space program.

Grading: The course grade will be based on class participation (40 %), completion of several brief reflections, exercises with classmates and a simulation (20 %) and a final exam (40 %). Participation will be evaluated on both frequency and quality. Students are expected to participate regularly and actively in class discussions. Good contributions are those that contain clear, rigorous analysis, present detailed substantive recommendations, describe a thoughtful perspective or point of view, move the discussion forward by posing questions or drawing links between others’ comments, present relevant examples from personal experience or constructively critique positions, sharpen the class’ understanding of issues or deepen an ongoing debate.

Attendance: Absences will be treated as excused only for those reasons authorized by HBS policies. Unexcused absences and lack of preparation will count heavily in grading. If you must miss a class for any reason, please inform your instructor in advance by email.

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Markets are everywhere - and where they’re not, you can build them!

Career Focus

Over the past twenty years, entrepreneurs have created and captured enormous value by launching new marketplaces. Examples include Airbnb, Alibaba, ClassPass, Craigslist, eBay, eHarmony, Etsy, Gerson Lehrman Group, Google, IEX Group, Lending Club, Kickstarter, OpenTable, Rakuten, Uber, Upwork, and many more.

Making Markets (M²) is intended for students who want to manage in marketplace environments and remedy market failures by building new platforms and marketplaces from scratch or by redesigning existing ones - or who want to advise or invest in entrepreneurs who pursue such opportunities.

Educational Objectives

Students will learn how to identify market failures and determine when those failures create opportunities to launch or redesign marketplaces.

First, we will explore how markets function and what makes them fail. Next, we will examine how effective marketplace design-or redesign-can address market failures and improve efficiency, liquidity, and fairness. Then, we will take the entrepreneur’s perspective, studying the key barriers to organizing new marketplaces and devising strategies for overcoming them. Along the way, we will pay special attention to settings in which marketplaces create more value for transaction partners than relying only on unmediated exchanges. As we will see, marketplace design can often “square the circle,” solving seemingly intractable problems simply by reducing transaction costs or barriers to entry.

Case contexts will range from ultra-local (e.g., the HBS EC course lottery) to truly global (e.g., container shipping); will examine private and public/social enterprise settings; will profile both online and offline marketplaces; and will span all stages of marketplace launch and development.

Course Content

Through case studies, simulations, and the occasional interactive lecture, M² will examine the design, launch, and management of marketplaces and marketplace platforms. Core lessons include:

• The Structure and Purposes of Markets: Markets create value by enabling parties to execute mutually beneficial transactions - exchanging goods, say, or sharing ideas. They are everywhere that transacting parties face incentives - from classic contexts like financial or product markets to dating, recruiting, and the sharing economy.

  Some markets are completely unstructured, but most are subject to at least some rules that shape participation. In this course, we will focus in particular on markets that are organized through marketplaces that combine rules for participation with infrastructure to facilitate interactions and transactions.

• Common Sources of Market Failure: In many markets, institutional frictions combine with incentives to produce suboptimal outcomes - socially wasteful transactions occur, or productive ones do not. When such market failures occur, entrepreneurial opportunities arise: reshaping the market to improve efficiency creates value that can be captured(!).

  To understand how to fix markets, however, we must first understand how and why market failures occur. The course will classify different types of market failures, and highlight entrepreneurial responses to each.

• Strategies for Launching and Managing Marketplaces: When launching a marketplace or other market intervention, it is essential to mobilize a critical mass of market participants so that there is enough liquidity for valuable transactions to occur. Once running, a marketplace must maintain balance between its supply and demand sides, or else participants may leave to transact elsewhere. Yet at the same time, marketplaces must avoid crowding that makes it hard for participants to find high-value transaction partners.

  The course will provide strategies for promoting participation and trust in marketplaces, especially early on. Then, we will learn techniques for growing marketplaces, and combating the problems that marketplaces face at scale, such as congestion, “unraveling” (e.g., when recruiters pressure candidates with early and exploding offers), and the risk of disintermediation.

• Types of Marketplace Mechanisms: Markets work in many different ways. Some compel participants to seek out their own transaction partners; others use centralized transaction discovery and execution systems like auctions and recommendation algorithms. The mechanisms that a marketplace uses to identify and process transactions can be the difference between success and failure.

  Choosing among marketplace mechanisms requires careful attention to market participants’ needs and transaction attributes. The course will provide guidelines for adopting mechanisms best suited for different market contexts.

Final Project

Working alone or in pairs, students will write a short paper that:

1. identifies a setting where market failures lead to shortfalls in value creation and/or capture, and
2. proposes either a new marketplace or substantive improvements to the existing marketplace that would address those failures.

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Introduction

Customer value is a proven source of profitable growth. Firms are increasingly engaging with the concept of customer-based valuation with the understanding that much of the growth dynamic of their business depends on how successfully they acquire, develop and retain their customers. At the same time, the digitization of business has led to the potential for an extraordinary atomization of customer metrics and firm decisions, with personalization and individual targeting coming to the forefront. To succeed in that space, it is vital that firms strategically align their customer management goals with the digital infrastructure — including data, machine learning and artificial intelligence tools — that enable them to grow customers profitably.

This course focuses on how customer-centric firms achieve customer growth. In doing so, we will explore the fundamentals of customer-based valuation, analyze firms’ strategies for customer acquisition, retention and development, as well as explore (and apply) customer analytics tools and technologies that enable firms take a data-driven approach to their customer management activities. Accordingly, we will combine case discussions with practical exercises using (individual-level) customer data.

Who Should Take this Course?

This course is designed for students who plan to create, build or invest in digitally-driven firms that pursue growth through customer acquisition, retention and development.

The course is appropriate for:

• Students interested in marketing- and growth-related roles, responsible for creating, nurturing, and managing customer relationships
• Entrepreneurs looking to create and grow their own customer-centric firm
• Students seeking positions in venture capital, private equity, or investment management firms, seeking to identify firm’s growth potential and better understand how to value customer equity
• Consultants engaged in strategy roles such as business development and growth

There are no prerequisites for the course. The course is designed to meet the needs of those with no prior technical experience.

Learning outcomes

• Increase the ability to identify customer-driven growth opportunities.
• Gain familiarity to leverage data to better acquire, retain and develop customer relationships.
• Understand the principles of customer-based firm valuation.
• Have an appreciation of and get experience with the key analytical tools and technologies associated with a digitally enabled marketing operation.

Tentative Assessment

Copyright © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

The Managing Human Capital course has been specifically designed to teach practical skills for the future general manager (not just the human resource practitioner) who seeks to manage both other people and their own career with optimal effectiveness. As such, at its core, this course is intended to sharpen three capabilities: people development; people management; and career management. We will explore, at a more advanced level than was possible in LEAD, those people-related issues and challenges that any good general manager should understand to be effective.

The term human capital implies that people have the capacity to drive organizational performance. The basic premise of this course is that how one manages and develops others can be the source of sustainable competitive advantage for organizations and for individual leaders within them. Any and all students who believe they will need to effectively manage other people to produce superior business results (revenues, profits, growth) while also creating a unique place to work (such that superior business results are sustainable) should take this course.

Educational Objectives

The objective of Managing Human Capital can be captured in a simple question: How can I create places where talented people will gather, produce, develop, and thrive?

While the question is simple in concept, it is remarkably difficult to execute—proven most recently by the Great Resignation. Future graduates of HBS, like the population at large, will have more and more choices about how to work and how to manage work, especially given advances in “big data,” AI, and other workplace technologies. They, and their companies--from the great global enterprises of the 21st century to the smallest entrepreneurial venture--will struggle with common questions and concerns about the people who work in their organizations, such as:

• Module 1 (Hiring): What kind of people do I need, and how do I hire them?
• Module 2 (Socialization): How do I effectively on-board them, setting them up for success?
• Module 3 (Performance Management): How do I keep them fully engaged and productive?
• Module 4 (Compensation and Rewards): How do I make sure they are properly incented to do what the organization needs them to do?
• Module 5 (Coaching Effective Managers and Talent Development): How do I develop them over time, so they are prepared to take on bigger roles down the road? How do I let go those who are not contributing?
• Module 6 (Structure): How do I architect my group, team, division, or organization to make the management of human capital easier, not harder? And, as we enter an age in which technology has made the boundaries within organizations far more fluid, how do I make sure the “organizational” or “workplace” structures upon which organizations have traditionally relied actually yield the “collaboration structures” we need to get work done?

In each module, we will intentionally discuss cases that frame both traditional and bleeding-edge “Future of Work” approaches to each human capital challenge. The ‘answer’ will often lie somewhere in-between the extremes but will, with regularity, come back to a set of guiding criteria that connect how human capital is managed with the goal of organizational performance. We will also aim to collectively answer the question: how can I be ready for the way human capital will be managed when I come back for my 10th or 20th reunion--and what experiments should I conduct in my teams and organizations the interim to stay on the leading edge (without accidentally reinventing the wheel and rediscovering things we already knew)?

In each module, and indeed within almost every session, we will explore these topics through three lenses: managing others, being managed by others, and managing our own human capital.

Course Content and Organization

We are all in the class to learn new ways to manage human capital. But we all learn differently. As a result, this course will draw on a range of different ways to learn.

Cases. A majority of classes will be case-based, using materials that highlight and illustrate issues in the management of human capital.

Workshops. Learning can sometimes be best done in exercises designed to apply and practice what I teach about the management of human capital. I have carefully selected (and, in some cases, designed) workshop exercises that relate to most modules of the course.

Research and Technical Knowledge. An article or chapter that discusses good practice for each of the levers discussed in the course will accompany most case discussions.

The Class. This is a discussion-based class, where we learn from each other. With these topics, there will be ample opportunity for people to wrestle with the best way to manage. As always, our best conversations will be when we choose to find both areas of difference and areas of agreement.

The Instructor. My career, both prior to academia and now as an academic, has been focused on exploring how to run organizations such that they make their people more effective, not less. I hope to share my own perspectives, as well as those from more general research, during our classes.

Guests. We will have a wide range of guests in our class. We will have guests who are protagonists in a case, subject matter experts, and successful C-Suite executives. My goal with these guests will be to understand their perspective on the core issues of the class.

Brief “Live Case” Assignment. I believe we learn best when we are engaged directly with organizations and the people leading them. The brief “live case” assignment will be an opportunity for you to talk directly with a small handful of the 2700+ alumni of the MHC course about their experiences, including the most and least successful ways in which their human capital has been managed by others (bosses, mentors, etc.) over their careers to date. (Think of this as a chance to hear both their best and worst stories and then make sense of those stories using the lessons of the MHC course.) We will devote one session, facilitated by an expert, to teach us how to effectively conduct such a discussion about a person’s development and career path. The final deliverable will be a short, written “live case”: a short memo that ties the alumni experiences back to aspects of the course. My hope is that seeing these concepts in action will help you understand what works well and what doesn't. (Note: The alumni interviews will be conducted by groups of students, but the memo will be written individually.)

The final grade will be determined 50% on class participation, 50% on written work.

Because of the nature of the exercises, workshops, simulations, and conversations in MHC, each section will be limited to 75 students. As a result, cross-registrants are rarely accepted but may submit a request via this link.

Please email professor Ethan Bernstein (e@hbs.edu) directly with any questions.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview

The course approaches globalization from the perspective of firms, asking students to consider the choices that managers face as they participate in and shape cross-border trade and investment.

Career Focus

This course should interest any student who plans to work for a firm with transnational interests or investments or students with significant interests in the global and domestic politics that affect trade and capital flows.

Educational Objectives

The course aims to equip students with a deeper understanding of globalization and international business by focusing on three broad themes. First, we will consider the variety of domestic institutions and the relationships between institutions, markets, and competitive advantage. We will consider how various organizations of labor markets, financial markets, and regulatory regimes, for example, create opportunities and barriers for multinational firms. Second, we will focus on the more informal domestic “rules” that shape international openness and, therefore, the strategic environment for transnational business. These informal rules and bargains include the political coalitions that sustain globalization and the dynamics of international business in different contexts of economic and political inequalities. Lastly, we will consider transnational firms as political actors, creating and shaping domestic and international politics rather than simply reacting to the decisions of policy-makers.

Course Content

The course will be divided into three modules. The first covers the multilateral and domestic institutional contexts for international trade and capital flows. The cases will allow us to consider how firms succeed and fail by understanding, or failing to understand, the political and social arrangements, in addition to economic conditions, that surround international openness. We will also consider the fragility of globalization itself by emphasizing openness to trade and capital flows as political choices that are subject to change. Students will understand and evaluate, for example, the rise of the WTO and how China’s entry into the WTO affected international trade. The second module looks at varieties of capitalisms, meaning the profound differences in market organization in different countries and regions. We will focus on cases in which an understanding of domestic rules, formal and informal, creates opportunities and constraints for transnational firms, for example examining Shell in 1990s-2000s Russia, Google in Europe, battles between financial firms and states in sovereign debt markets, and Chinese firms on the “belt and road.” The final module looks at firms in contexts of change and uncertainty. Here, we consider the profound changes to the global business landscape accompanying the rise of illiberal populisms and competition, even confrontation, between the US and China, and the interdependence of technology and digital markets. We will look at how firms confront markets and politics in technological innovation and competition (data access and management, financial technology, semiconductors), in frontier markets (platform e-commerce in Iran and free trade zones in North Korea), and amid global hostilities (the US vs. Huawei in 5G).

Service organizations are complex and diverse, and they continue to grow in prominence. They account for 63% of the global economy, 80% of the U.S. GDP, and 86% of the jobs taken by last year's graduating class of Harvard Business School MBAs.

Managing Service Operations (MSO) teaches students how to effectively design, manage, and improve service organizations. Students will learn:

• How to create distinctive and sustainable service strategies,
• How to execute service models that enable customers, employees, and owners to simultaneously thrive,
• How to productively leverage data and analytics, and;
• How to adapt to evolving customer needs and changing competitive landscapes.

A general management course, MSO resides at the intersection of strategy, marketing, and operations. It draws upon cutting-edge research and field examples from a broad array of industries, including financial services, government, healthcare, hospitality, professional services, restaurants, retail, and transportation. The course is useful for students planning to work in, advise, or invest in service organizations.

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Turbulence is a common feature of today’s business landscape: wild swings in financial markets, bank runs, global health crises, rapid changes in consumer tastes and societal expectations as well as radical technological breakthroughs create dramatic uncertainty in the lives of most managers. This course asks how to best manage risk and uncertainty in volatile environments. We will study the phenomenon at three levels: strategic, organizational and personal. At a strategic level, we will explore ways to make big decisions when the returns to these decisions are difficult—and occasionally impossible—to anticipate. At an organizational level, we will study the set of choices that facilitate the rapid decision making that is often required during turbulent times. At a personal level, we will focus on communication skills. The course will help build your ability to communicate in turbulent times and share effectively how to make sense of difficult-to-understand business situations and executive decisions.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Financial services firms play a critically important role in the global economy. They finance investment, facilitate payments, and help firms and households save and manage risk. These financial services are provided in an array of organizations – from fintech startups to multi-trillion-dollar global banks – in an industry that is always under the threat of disruption.

In Managing and Innovating in Financial Services, we examine the challenges and opportunities faced in financial services as incumbent firms and startups try to navigate and shape an environment in which competition, technology and regulation are constantly changing.

We will look at a variety of financial institutions and financial service providers including banks, insurance companies, and fintechs. We will examine decisions through the lens of these firms with government policy and regulation as an important factor that often shapes their decisions. For some of the course we will look at issue through the government’s public policy lens, particularly as it relates to policies intended to enhance financial stability.

The course is divided into five modules. In the first module, we’ll study the basic business of banking. I believe you can’t really understand innovation and tech disruption without understanding the basics of banking. Critically, unlike most firms, banks actually make money on both sides of their balance sheet, and we’ll study why and how.

Of course, banks face many challenges, and in the second module we’ll study financial crises, the interventions policymakers take to stabilize the financial system, and the regulations that emerge from crises in an attempt to make the system more stable. We will see how these regulatory reforms then shape the decisions of financial services firms, the structure of the industry, and may give rise to new problems. In the space of fifteen years, the U.S. financial system has experienced three financial crises, so understanding their impact is an important part of managing and innovating in financial services.

In the third module, we study the use of financial technology is consumer and business lending. With many firms trying to succeed in this space and a number of different business models from a variety of types of firms, we will discuss which models are most likely to succeed.

In the fourth module, we will look at the payments system and the innovations taking place in that sector. The main portion of this module will focus on innovations traditional payment systems for consumer, business, and international payments. We will also analyze the role that central bank digital currencies and stablecoins could play in facilitating real world payments.

The fifth module will cover insurance – from traditional insurance to tech enabled insurance providers (“insuretech’). Insurance accounts for about 1/3 of the financial sector, and there are many opportunities to innovate in this sector.

We will have case protagonists visiting many of our sessions.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Objectives

•Understanding and identifying the causes and consequences of entrepreneurship in one of the fastest growing large economies in the world today

•Understanding India as geopolitically salient and a petri-dish for entrepreneurship for the Global South.

•Integrative course that brings together ideas from BGIE, FIN, EM, STRAT, LEAD

Logistics

•Fall 2023, Q2

•Leveraging protagonists’ live participation

•14 sessions + project/paper

Course Content and Organization:

Modules

Institutional foundations

Example: Entrepreneurs respond to and compensate for so-called ‘institutional voids’, characteristics of fast-growing emerging markets. That’s the source of dynamism.

Example: Digital public goods & the reimagination of a 21st century national technological backbone differently from the US or China. Why does India rank #1 in the per capita use of data in the world?

Public and Social Entrepreneurship

Example: Why do the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, dairy cooperative, and literary festival originate in India? What about the second most lucrative sports franchise in the world (India Premier League, right after the NBA)?

Private Entrepreneurship

Example: Biologics

Space (Mars mission/ Cubesats)

Green energy

2. Tie keyword portfolio strategy into budgeting forecasts

3. Map SEM to the customer journey

Course Overview and Career Focus

More than ever, running a company is about managing people. This class focuses on several core themes around the future of work and people management: How will technology change work and the workforce? How can leaders harness new technologies for transformation of the people side of the business model? How do talent ecosystems matter for investment and productivity? How do different training and skilling models facilitate career development in the face of rapidly changing skill requirements? How will demographic or workforce composition issues impact labor supply? What actions should leaders take in light of the future workforce?

Students in almost any career track will touch upon these issues. Consultants or bankers will themselves see their roles change inside professional services firms and many will also sell services like workforce transformation advisory to clients. Future entrepreneurs or tech leaders may seek to develop automation technology, Ed tech, HR tech, or other businesses that build off future of work trends. Public sector leaders will confront these issues through educational or government institutions.

Course Content and Organization

The course covers the following main themes:

Technology and the future of jobs. Will automation, AI, and robotics lead to net job displacement, and if so, when? We begin by building frameworks for different paths of technology adoption and what these scenarios mean for firms and workers.

Labor markets and good jobs. What defines a good job? Where are good jobs across different industries, occupations, and geographies? What is the role of leaders in investing in good jobs that improve worker wellbeing? What role do ecosystems and local/regional economic development initiatives play?

Demographics. How will companies and labor market institutions need to accommodate demographic changes, and can firms gain a competitive edge by getting out in front of these trends?

New labor models. Will remote work and the gig economy lead to fragmentation of the employment relationship? Will it change the geography of firms? We will consider firms managing the choice between contractors and W2 employees, platforms trying to sell flexible work solutions to enterprises, and adoption of different work arrangements.

Training, reskilling, and transformation. How should firms manage workforce transformation in light of new technologies? Should leaders invest in reskilling or upskilling their workforce instead of buying talent on the market? What makes talent development or training models successful?

Public policy. How should labor market or safety net policy change under different future of work scenarios?

Grading

Grading is based on class participation, a final exam, and a short exercise.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview

This case-based course applies market perspectives to contemporary issues. The cases explore concrete situations that highlight the challenges and tradeoffs of decision-makers. Issues explored include: education, urban development, illegal drugs, rent control, housing, drug pricing, racial references, corporate political action, social media, sea level rise, employment of people with disabilities, and the like. We explore situations in which businesses’ pursuit of profits both positively and negatively affect their communities, including their employees, local physical and social environments. The cases are designed to enable students to go beyond the generalities of headlines to grapple with practical solutions to specific problems. For example, instead of discussing general environmental challenges, we focus on how a small island community deals with the impact of sea level rise and related concerns, highlighting costs, benefits, property rights and the complexity of decision-making.

The course doesn’t push a political philosophy. Rather, it encourages students to discuss their own approaches using the tools that are frequently applied to business decisions. What to optimize, how to optimize, and who benefits or loses, are frequent concerns in our case discussions. There are rarely right or wrong answers but using the tools of business analysis can help frame the discussion productively so that we can gain a better understanding of our own perspectives and the perspectives of those who favor a different approach.

Course Structure

The course is taught using case method, with traditional and multimedia cases along with occasional supplementary readings. 20 class sessions plus a paper. Classes meet on the Wednesdays and Thursdays of the Y-schedule (no Fridays).

Grading

50% based on class participation

50% based on a paper

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Each year, hundreds of HBS students walk across the Commencement stage anticipating a near-term career in management consulting. In addition, many more also prepare to enter other careers where their roles will be more advisory than operational. Often with only limited work experience as analysts at best, or, in most cases, no background whatsoever, these students face a daunting challenge, as they will have to rely on introductory firm training and apprenticeship learning to transition to a role as a skilled advisor to executives. This course thus aims to address a critical need within the HBS curriculum by offering students a comprehensive and integrated approach for attaining success in their post-MBA role as advisors and counselors.

Mastering Consulting and Advisory Skills (MCAS) seeks to develop critical consulting skills among two core groups within the EC: on the one hand are aspiring-consultants who need to build competency to immediately add meaningful value to their teams, client organizations, and firms; and on the other hand are non-consultants who are looking to wield the same set of tools, skills, and frameworks to add meaningful value to their organizations. In addition, this course may also be useful to those who will work with consultants in the future, as it will offer key insight into the “consultant’s way of working.”

This course was developed as part of an independent project by three HBS students in partnership with Senior Lecturer David Fubini. Professor Fubini spent 34 years at McKinsey & Company, ultimately establishing and heading the firm’s Boston office, as well as leading a number of critical organizational and strategic practices. With his guidance, the student group generated a list of topics they wanted to master and questions they yearned to answer, all in the service of doing high-quality work that was impactful and meaningful not only for their clients and firms, but also for themselves. This list became the structure for the course themes, topics, and cases. The course design also builds on the historically successful EC course Professional Firm Management, and leverages learning from the Leading Professional Services Firm Executive Education course. The outcome is a course curated by and for aspiring-consultant students and taught by a deeply experienced practitioner.

Mastering Consulting and Advisory Skills seeks to help students gain a comprehensive knowledge of the tools, skills, frameworks, and mindsets required to be successful across all facets of their advisory/consultative roles. While many consulting firms’ initial training programs highlight the skills required to complete key tasks—performing analyses, building models, crafting presentations—they are, by necessity, short and introductory only. This course goes deeper. Grounded in the understanding that relationships are paramount to success as an advisor, this course covers how to manage teams, partners, clients, firm politics, and the consultant’s life and career. Understanding the complexities of the role, this course will present students with complex and difficult situations to develop strategies for dealing with industry-specific dilemmas. The course covers this material through a mix of cases, workshops, discussions, and an interactive assignment.

This course serves to provide students with an academic and pragmatic lens to consulting in order to create a comprehensive toolkit they can use in both consulting and industry roles. Importantly, it does so in a foundational way that will build on summer internships and other consulting experiences while still remaining accessible to interested newcomers. With this course, students can start their careers with a meaningful set of skills they can apply before formalized training even begins. Put simply, this course will help students master consulting and advisory skills.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Overview

This course uses works of literature, primarily novels, in place of case studies. Its aim, as a former student put it, is to show "how people develop the skills, courage, and perseverance to use power, money, and influence in constructive ways."

The course readings for this course come from many countries, they include novels, short stories, plays, and excerpts from classic works of moral philosophy. The readings also span many centuries, ranging from ancient Greek plays to Shakespeare to contemporary works.

Educational Objectives

Literature provides a distinctive and important perspective on leadership. First, it offers a strong dose of realism. None of the novels in the course is a simple, inspiring tale of moral heroism or sainthood. This authenticity provides a valuable learning opportunity: it is easier to learn from people who are like most of humanity - complicated and flawed - than from a gallery of heroes and villains. Realism also reveals leaders' struggles and failures and displays the blind spots, assumptions, and behavior that can derail leaders.

In addition, fiction lets students see leaders from the inside. In real life, people in charge rarely give complete, unvarnished accounts of their thinking. In contrast, fiction lets us watch leaders reflect, worry, scheme, hesitate, commit, exult, and regret. As one former student put it, "To enter the mindset of the characters, to be them, to feel what they feel...This is the privilege of the fiction reader."

Finally, leaders have to make hard decisions, and this course draws literature and on classic works of moral philosophy to provide a practical framework for making these decisions. The course is organized around this framework. The first part focuses on accountability, the second on character, and the last on pragmatism.

Format

The course meets in the afternoon block for two hours. Enrollment is limited to 60 students in order to foster in-depth discussion and wide participation.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course gives students frameworks and tools for (i) understanding what motivates people and (ii) designing incentive systems, broadly defined, that motivate employees and others associated with an organization to engage in behaviors that further the organization’s value-creating purpose. The course is useful for students in all career tracks and with any industry focus.

Educational Objectives

By the end of the course, students will:

• Understand the wide range of motivational factors that drive human behavior in an organizational context, including pay, perquisites, promotions, opportunities for skill development, social approval, fairness, stress, emotional states, autonomy, self-identity, and values
• Have the skills to build and manage effective incentive systems, whether based on monetary compensation or based on other forms of rewards, that tap into people’s underlying motivations and promote value-creating behavior
• Understand how an organization’s incentive systems shape the mix of individuals who are attracted to, promoted within, and retained by the organization
• Know how to design organizational processes, such as hiring procedures and training programs, in ways that complement the organization’s formal incentive systems
• Have the analytical tools to connect an organization’s motivational strategy to the precise mechanisms by which the organization creates value

Course Content and Organization

The course takes an interdisciplinary perspective overall and draws heavily from behavioral economics, the field that combines insights from economics and psychology to understand human decision making.

In order to establish a baseline from which the rest of the course builds, Module 1 explores the classical economic approach to analyzing organizational incentive systems. Using an extremely simple view of motivation, the economic approach provides a large number of useful insights. The key observation is that it is impossible to perfectly measure and therefore impossible to directly reward the value that is created by an individual on behalf of an organization. When contending with this challenge, the designer of an incentive system faces an important tradeoff between inducing high levels of motivation and inducing the right types of behavior. All incentive systems represent different strategies for managing this tradeoff.

Module 2 challenges and expands the classical economic approach by considering a much richer perspective on what motivates people. Relying primarily on a psychological lens, this module examines how the design of incentive systems should account for the relevance of non-monetary rewards, the social nature of the workplace, the emotions experienced in a work environment, and the role of meaning and purpose in shaping motivation. These factors can cause well-intentioned incentive systems to backfire, but these factors simultaneously represent an opportunity for a skilled manager to harness a powerful set of motivators for the purposes of value creation.

Module 3 synthesizes the ideas from earlier in the course and embeds them in the broader context of an organization’s overall strategy and operations. The module will analyze the interaction of formal incentive systems with other organizational processes that may undermine or reinforce value creating behavior. The module will also critically examine common assumptions regarding the sources of value creation. Finally, students will have the opportunity to reflect on how their own personal values should interface with their objectives and approach when designing incentive systems to shape others’ behavior.

Group Project and Evaluation

Students will work in groups of four or five to prepare a presentation on a frontier topic in the broad area of motivation in organizations. Examples: students might present a “mini-case” on a company that uses innovative incentive practices; students might report the results of a laboratory-style experiment exploring a novel source of motivation; or students might share a synthesis of lessons learned from a handful of interviews conducted with interesting thinkers in the field. The instructors will suggest a number of pre-approved topics from which students can choose, and students can also propose their own topics (subject to instructor approval and enough interest from other students to form a group). This project is not meant to be a full-fledged final course assignment, but instead a lighter-touch opportunity to explore an interesting idea in line with the course framework.

The components of the overall course grade are as follows: 50% based on class participation, 10% based on the group project, and 40% based on an exam at the end of the semester.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus & Educational Objectives

Managerial success requires the ability to negotiate. Whether you are forging an agreement with your suppliers, trying to ink a deal with potential customers, raising money from investors, managing a conflict inside your firm, or resolving a dispute that is headed towards litigation, your ability to negotiate will determine how well you perform.

Because others do not have the same interests, perspectives, and values as you, negotiation skill is critical-professionally and personally. This course will enable you to become a more effective negotiator by enhancing your abilities to:

• Identify (often-overlooked) value-creating potential in different situations;
• Design and execute agreements that unlock maximum value on a sustainable basis;
• End up with an appropriate share of the value that is negotiated;
• Understand the vital role of ethics in negotiation, even where the parties' ethical standards vary dramatically;
• Work with people whose backgrounds, expectations, perspectives, values, and ethical standards differ from your own; and
• Reflect on-and learn from-your experience.

This course will teach you how to analyze, prepare for, and execute negotiations at a sophisticated level-through actions both at and away from the bargaining table. It will give you the opportunity to enhance your strengths as a negotiator and to shore up your weaknesses.

Course Content

Moving from simple (two-party, one-shot, price deals) to complex (multiple parties and issues, internal divisions, long time-frames, cross-border deals), the course integrates three complementary perspectives: analytic, behavioral, and contextual. While we will analyze a number of traditional case studies, the heart of the course is a series of interactive negotiation exercises. These exercises will give you hands-on negotiating experience. You will learn first by actually negotiating, and then by stepping back to compare your approach and results with others. You will be able to test your analytic ability and tactical skill, and to experiment with new approaches.

The course is a laboratory in which you will be both experimenter and subject. Sometimes the most important learning comes from apparent "failure"-and so the course is designed to let you fail in the safe setting of a classroom, and thus help you avoid costly real mistakes.

All of the sections of EC Negotiation will cover the foregoing in considerable depth, though individual faculty members may vary in their emphases, case material, and sequencing.

Grading & Course Requirements

Grading will be based on class participation and the final exam (or paper if permitted by instructor). The exact weighting may vary from section to section. In all instances, however, diligent completion of the negotiation exercises is essential.

Please note this course is offered in both Fall and Spring terms.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus & Educational Objectives

Managerial success requires the ability to negotiate. Whether you are forging an agreement with your suppliers, trying to ink a deal with potential customers, raising money from investors, managing a conflict inside your firm, or resolving a dispute that is headed towards litigation, your ability to negotiate will determine how well you perform.

Because others do not have the same interests, perspectives, and values as you, negotiation skill is critical-professionally and personally. This course will enable you to become a more effective negotiator by enhancing your abilities to:

• Identify (often-overlooked) value-creating potential in different situations;
• Design and execute agreements that unlock maximum value on a sustainable basis;
• End up with an appropriate share of the value that is negotiated;
• Understand the vital role of ethics in negotiation, even where the parties' ethical standards vary dramatically;
• Work with people whose backgrounds, expectations, perspectives, values, and ethical standards differ from your own; and
• Reflect on-and learn from-your experience.

This course will teach you how to analyze, prepare for, and execute negotiations at a sophisticated level-through actions both at and away from the bargaining table. It will give you the opportunity to enhance your strengths as a negotiator and to shore up your weaknesses.

Course Content

Moving from simple (two-party, one-shot, price deals) to complex (multiple parties and issues, internal divisions, long time-frames, cross-border deals), the course integrates three complementary perspectives: analytic, behavioral, and contextual. While we will analyze a number of traditional case studies, the heart of the course is a series of interactive negotiation exercises. These exercises will give you hands-on negotiating experience. You will learn first by actually negotiating, and then by stepping back to compare your approach and results with others. You will be able to test your analytic ability and tactical skill, and to experiment with new approaches.

The course is a laboratory in which you will be both experimenter and subject. Sometimes the most important learning comes from apparent "failure"-and so the course is designed to let you fail in the safe setting of a classroom, and thus help you avoid costly real mistakes.

All of the sections of EC Negotiation will cover the foregoing in considerable depth, though individual faculty members may vary in their emphases, case material, and sequencing.

Grading & Course Requirements

Grading will be based on class participation and the final exam (or paper if permitted by instructor). The exact weighting may vary from section to section. In all instances, however, diligent completion of the negotiation exercises is essential.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus & Educational Objectives

Managerial success requires the ability to negotiate. Whether you are forging an agreement with your suppliers, trying to ink a deal with potential customers, raising money from investors, managing a conflict inside your firm, or resolving a dispute that is headed towards litigation, your ability to negotiate will determine how well you perform.

Because others do not have the same interests, perspectives, and values as you, negotiation skill is critical-professionally and personally. This course will enable you to become a more effective negotiator by enhancing your abilities to:

Identify (often-overlooked) value-creating potential in different situations;

Design and execute agreements that unlock maximum value on a sustainable basis;

End up with an appropriate share of the value that is negotiated;

Understand the vital role of ethics in negotiation, even where the parties' ethical standards vary dramatically;

Work with people whose backgrounds, expectations, perspectives, values, and ethical standards differ from your own; and

Reflect on-and learn from-your experience.

This course will teach you how to analyze, prepare for, and execute negotiations at a sophisticated level-through actions both at and away from the bargaining table. It will give you the opportunity to enhance your strengths as a negotiator and to shore up your weaknesses.

Course Content

Moving from simple (two-party, one-shot, price deals) to complex (multiple parties and issues, internal divisions, long time-frames, cross-border deals), the course integrates three complementary perspectives: analytic, behavioral, and contextual. While we will analyze a number of traditional case studies, the heart of the course is a series of interactive negotiation exercises. These exercises will give you hands-on negotiating experience. You will learn first by actually negotiating, and then by stepping back to compare your approach and results with others. You will be able to test your analytic ability and tactical skill, and to experiment with new approaches.

The course is a laboratory in which you will be both experimenter and subject. Sometimes the most important learning comes from apparent "failure"-and so the course is designed to let you fail in the safe setting of a classroom, and thus help you avoid costly real mistakes.

All of the sections of EC Negotiation will cover the foregoing in considerable depth, though individual faculty members may vary in their emphases, case material, and sequencing.

Grading & Course Requirements

Grading will be based on class participation and the final exam (or paper if permitted by instructor). The exact weighting may vary from section to section. In all instances, however, diligent completion of the negotiation exercises is essential.

Please note this course is offered in both Fall and Spring terms.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus & Educational Objectives

Managerial success requires the ability to negotiate. Whether you are forging an agreement with your suppliers, trying to ink a deal with potential customers, raising money from investors, managing a conflict inside your firm, or resolving a dispute that is headed towards litigation, your ability to negotiate will determine how well you perform.

Because others do not have the same interests, perspectives, and values as you, negotiation skill is critical-professionally and personally. This course will enable you to become a more effective negotiator by enhancing your abilities to:

• Identify (often-overlooked) value-creating potential in different situations;
• Design and execute agreements that unlock maximum value on a sustainable basis;
• End up with an appropriate share of the value that is negotiated;
• Understand the vital role of ethics in negotiation, even where the parties' ethical standards vary dramatically;
• Work with people whose backgrounds, expectations, perspectives, values, and ethical standards differ from your own; and
• Reflect on-and learn from-your experience.

This course will teach you how to analyze, prepare for, and execute negotiations at a sophisticated level-through actions both at and away from the bargaining table. It will give you the opportunity to enhance your strengths as a negotiator and to shore up your weaknesses.

Course Content

Moving from simple (two-party, one-shot, price deals) to complex (multiple parties and issues, internal divisions, long time-frames, cross-border deals), the course integrates three complementary perspectives: analytic, behavioral, and contextual. While we will analyze a number of traditional case studies, the heart of the course is a series of interactive negotiation exercises. These exercises will give you hands-on negotiating experience. You will learn first by actually negotiating, and then by stepping back to compare your approach and results with others. You will be able to test your analytic ability and tactical skill, and to experiment with new approaches.

The course is a laboratory in which you will be both experimenter and subject. Sometimes the most important learning comes from apparent "failure"-and so the course is designed to let you fail in the safe setting of a classroom, and thus help you avoid costly real mistakes.

All of the sections of EC Negotiation will cover the foregoing in considerable depth, though individual faculty members may vary in their emphases, case material, and sequencing.

Grading & Course Requirements

Grading will be based on class participation and the final exam (or paper if permitted by instructor). The exact weighting may vary from section to section. In all instances, however, diligent completion of the negotiation exercises is essential.

Copyright © 2021 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

There are two primary objectives of this course. The first is to provide students with an intellectual toolkit to analyze their companies and industries through the lens of ownership. The way in which a company is owned significantly affects its ability to compete by shaping the type of resources it has access to as well as how it makes decisions. Ownership models are also better at solving different types of strategic problems (e.g., scale and differentiation). By understanding these dynamics, students will be able to build long-term, sustainable strategies that account for the strengths/weaknesses that are built into both their companies as well as those of their competitors. They will also be able to consider when a shift in ownership model (e.g., Dell going from public to private) can be a tool for changing the trajectory of their company. Finally, they will be able to analyze their industry and its main players through the ownership lens, which will help them to identify new opportunities (e.g., acquiring a family business with a succession problem) as well as threats (e.g., a cooperative that will respond aggressively to price cuts to preserve its market share).

The second objective is to provide exposure to the range of ownership models and the ways in which they differ from each other. We will analyze companies from the major types, including cooperatives (Land O’Lakes, Tillamook), employee-owned (SRC, W. L. Gore), charity-owned (IKEA, Hershey), mutuals (REI, Vanguard), family businesses (Cargill, Mars), and partnerships (Brown Brothers Harriman). We will also explore hybrid companies. A number of leading companies, like Alphabet, Berkshire Hathaway, and Ford, are a mix of public ownership and private control. Others are private but have a mix of different ownership models, such as WaWa (employee and family) and Bosch (charity and family). Many of these cases may be familiar to students, but we will be analyzing them in a different way, exploring how some of the distinctive attributes of their strategies and cultures are connected to their ownership models. Many students will work for companies that are not widely held public companies, and most of them will compete against such companies.

The focus of this proposed course is on the connection between the ability of a company to build/sustain competitive advantage and its ownership model (e.g., public, employee, charity, family). Ownership shapes both the resources that companies have access to (human, financial, and social capital) as well as how they allocate those resources to create advantage. Ownership models can be seen as solutions to specific strategic problems. For example, public companies came to prominence because of their ability to pool capital in an industrializing world that required economies of scale. As broader trends change the competitive context, then different ownership models will become more or less advantageous.

We will explore how ownership practically affects the ways in which companies build their strategies, as well as how their competitive advantage shifts when their ownership model changes (e.g., going public). Guest speakers – current/former CEOs – will also be incorporated into the course to allow student to interactively explore how companies in practice use ownership as a competitive weapon. In their final exam, students will apply the course lessons to a specific situation.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Introduction

This is a course about understanding power and influence dynamics and learning to use them as effective tools for analyzing your surroundings and achieving your goals. It is a course about getting things done in the real world, where politics and personalities often seem to hinder rather than help you. Power and Influence is a course for those of you who want to make things happen, despite the obstacles that might stand in your way. This course is also intended to unearth your implicit theories and feelings about power and influence. These have a profound impact on how you perceive problems and opportunities, and subsequently, how you decide upon particular courses of action. To help you develop a realistic point of view, you will start from day one to become aware and to test your assumptions about power and influence.

Course Objectives

This course includes conceptual models, tactical approaches, self-assessment tools and simulation exercises to help you develop your own influence style and understand political dynamics as they unfold around you. By focusing on specific expressions of power and influence, this course provides you with the opportunity to observe effective and ineffective uses of power in different organizational contexts and career stages. It will also introduce difficult ethical questions associated with the use of power and influence. By design, this course will challenge you to define for yourself what will constitute the ethical exercise of power and influence in your life. The objectives of the course are to help you:

1. Develop a conceptual framework for understanding power and influence. You should be able to define power and influence and begin to appreciate how essential they are for your own career. You will learn how to identify critical sources of political conflict, and how to use tools to assuage conflict or harness it to produce constructive outcomes.
2. Practice diagnostic skills that will enable you to map out the political landscape, understand others' perspectives and power bases, and learn to predict and influence their actions.
3. Assess your own power bases and influence style and consider strategies for expanding them.
4. Begin to build a repertoire of influence tactics that will enable you to be effective in a variety of contexts and situations.
5. Develop your own strategy for building and exercising power and influence ethically and responsibly.

Course Content

After introducing you to the volatile dynamics of power and influence at work, the course will help you develop a deeper understanding of political issues through three interrelated modules:

Power and influence in interpersonal relationships: How to influence others?
What is power? Where does it come from? In the first module, we begin to explore the nature of power and influence in interpersonal relationships. We will discuss personal, positional, and relational sources of power. In particular, we will analyze the importance of networks of relationships as sources of power. This module includes an exercise (Network Assessment Exercise) designed to help you assess your own network of relationships.

In this module, we will also consider how to leverage personal, positional, and relational power bases through influence tactics that fit individual and situational needs. We will learn how to understand our "influence targets," so as to tailor our approach accordingly. What motivates people to respond to influence attempts? How can you cater your influence approach to the different needs and preferences of those around you? How can you recognize when your influence attempts are not working, and how do you change approaches when this happens?

We will explore these questions through a series of cases about people in very different situations with different opportunities and constraints on the influence tactics they can use. We will also use two exercises. The first one is a coaching exercise that will enable you to get feedback on your communication skills. It is meant to help you better project both warmth and strength and address the particular challenges that you may face as a public communicator. The second exercise is the Influence Style Questionnaire (ISQ), which will provide you with personal feedback on how your influence style is perceived by co-workers and the extent to which you adapt your style to situational requirements.

Power and Influence in organizations: How to navigate organizational politics?
This module addresses the question of how power and influence manifest in organizations. To be successful in getting things done in organizations, it is critical that you be able to comprehend the patterns of interdependence among organizational participants and to diagnose their relative power. Our focus will be on learning to read and diagnose the political landscape in organizations. How do power and influence dynamics work in organizations? What are the key sources of power in organizations? Why do we see political conflict in organizations? How can political conflict be handled to serve constructive ends?

We will consider how to address these questions over the course of your career. We will map out typical political challenges at different career stages with an emphasis on early career issues. We will cover several topics including building credibility quickly, cultivating mentors and networks, and managing ethical dilemmas. We will consider strategies for acquiring power over time in an effective and ethical manner and explore common early career transitions with an eye towards crafting strategies for navigating inflection points successfully. In order to do so, we will use cases as well as a self-assessment exercise (Self-Monitoring Questionnaire), which is designed to help you understand how much you adapt your behavior to fit situations.

We will also discuss the challenges of change implementation in organizations. To implement planned organizational changes, you will need to overcome the potential resistance of other organizational members and persuade them to adopt new practices. Organizational change implementation is thus an exercise that requires the effective use of power and influence. How can you be an effective change agent in your organization? What are the factors that are likely to affect your success? We will address these questions through case discussions and through a simulation (Change Pro) that will give you the opportunity to practice change leadership in a team.

Finally, we will discuss the challenges and opportunities of co-leadership in organizations. Under what conditions can co-leadership be effective? What are the challenges associated with co-leadership? What are the potential benefits of co-leadership?

Power and Influence in society: The challenges of transforming your environment
In this final module, we will look at power within the context of society. We will think about the challenges of influencing your broader environment. Who are the powerful in society and how did they obtain their power? Can individuals affect the distribution of power within a larger system? How can power be used to produce great benefit or harm? Can the use of power be both self-enhancing and self-destructive? Why do even the most powerful fall? To address these questions, we will use cases that are meant to make you think about how to possibly influence your broader environment. We will also use a simulation (Star Power) in order to help us think about the challenges of changing existing power hierarchies in society. Reflecting on these issues is crucial for anyone who wants to make a difference in the world.

Course Pedagogy

The course relies on a mix of traditional case studies, biographical case studies of historical figures, exercises/simulations, films, and class visits by influential people. The exposure to the development and use of power in many different social settings and at various points in history allows a comprehensive analysis of power in action. Self-assessment tools are included throughout the course to help you assess your own bases of power and influence style. A number of readings, both required and recommended, supplement the case material.

Course Requirements

Grades will be based on two components (each accounting for 50% of the final grade): (1) class participation (including class attendance, contribution to class discussions and completion of the different exercises and simulations), and (2) final paper assignment. Below is a more detailed presentation of these different exercises, simulations and assignments. (Please note that some exercises and simulations may be added to this list over the course of the semester).

Network Assessment Exercise
The Network Assessment Exercise is designed to help you identify patterns in your networks of relationships.
Public Communication Coaching sessions
This individual coaching exercise is meant to help you better project both warmth and strength and address the particular challenges that you may face as a public communicator.
Influence Style Questionnaire
The Influence Style Questionnaire (ISQ) is designed to allow others to provide you feedback on your influence style. This information can help you identify the more and less productive methods you use to exert influence on others.
Self-Monitoring Questionnaire
The Self-Monitoring Questionnaire is designed to help you understand how much you adapt your behavior to fit situations.
Change Pro Simulation
This simulation gives you the opportunity to practice change leadership in teams.
StarPower Simulation
The StarPower simulation is an in-class face-to-face exercise designed to help you experience how people react to shifts in power over time.

Final Paper Assignment
The course ends with your final paper in which you apply the lessons of the course to your own situation. The final paper should be thought of as the last and the most important case study in the course. The final paper is designed to help you improve your power and influence skills in your own career. You have two options:

Option 1
You can analyze a political situation you experienced at work before you came to HBS or during the summer. Ideally, you will choose a situation in which you felt politically blind-sided, or felt that you came out in a disadvantaged position. Alternatively, you may simply analyze the politics of your last job. In addition, instead of focusing on your last job, you may also use experience you may have gained in another organizational setting, such as a political or volunteer organization, as the focus of your paper.

Option 2
If you have a job by the time you begin writing this paper or are choosing among alternatives, the final paper will give you an opportunity to apply the concepts and lessons of the course to your new position. In addition, instead of a new job, you may also use a new (or future) position in another organizational setting, such as a political or volunteer organization, as the focus of your paper.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course overview:

Designed for individuals at any stage of their career, this course is meant to debunk the fallacies that we have about power and to explore the fundamentals of power in interpersonal relationships, in organizations, and in society. In doing so, it will lift the veil on power, revealing to you what it really is, and how it works, ultimately unleashing your potential to build and use power to effect change at home, at work, and in society. It is meant for those who want to make things happen, despite the obstacles that might stand in your way. This course is also intended to prepare you to use power responsibly, resist its corruptive perils, and exercise it to make the world a better place. As such, it will equip you to leverage power and influence not for personal gain, but to challenge the status quo in order to address some of the most pressing social and environmental problems of our time, from fighting racism to reducing economic inequalities, saving the planet, and protecting democracy. The course introduces conceptual models, tactical approaches, and assessment tools to help you develop your own influence style and understand political dynamics as they unfold around you. By focusing on specific expressions of power and influence, this course will give you the opportunity to observe effective—and ineffective—uses of power in different contexts and stages of a person’s career. The subject matter will challenge you to define for yourself what constitutes the ethical exercise of power and influence in your life. The course will be held this fall at the Harvard Business School campus on the X schedule.

Educational Objectives:

After introducing the fundamentals of power that will enable you to understand power across contexts and levels of analysis, the course will help you develop a deeper understanding of political issues through five interrelated modules and corresponding key questions that we will cover over the course of our week together:

MODULE 1 – Understanding the Nature of Power: What must I understand about the nature of power to help me “see” power and influence my environment?

MODULE 2 – Assessing and Building Your Sources of Power: What sources of power can I draw upon and cultivate, and how can I accurately map my sources of power and that of others?

MODULE 3 – Earning Trust and Exercising Influence: What does it take to earn people’s trust? How can I evaluate and develop my own personal influence style?

MODULE 4 – Encountering Entrenched Power in Organizations & Society: Why does the status quo persist, and why is it so difficult to change?

MODULE 5 – Leading Change in Organizations and Society: What leadership roles must I assume if I want to participate in collective movements for change? And, how can I do so effectively?

Course Pedagogy:

The course will rely on a mix of traditional case studies, biographical case studies of historical figures, exercises, and class visits by guests who experienced different paths to and through power. The exposure to the development and uses of power in many different social settings including the private, public, social enterprise and non-for-profit sectors, and at various points in history will allow a comprehensive analysis of power in action. In addition, self-assessment tools will be included throughout the course to help you assess your own bases of power and influence style. As part of the course, you will also engage in two in-class simulations, as well as an individualized, personal coaching session, all of which will be debriefed in class.

A number of readings, both required and recommended, will supplement the case material and the various simulations and exercises described above. The course builds on the book “Power, For All: How It Really Works and Why It is Everyone’s Business” (Simon & Schuster, 2021) that I co-authored with Tiziana Casciaro. The chapters of the book will be assigned together with other readings throughout the course, but you do not need to have read the book before the beginning of class.

Grading:

Grading is based on class participation, including successful completion of the various exercises, simulations and assignments (50%), and the final project (50%).

Introduction

The purpose of any business is to add some value, in some way, to someone outside of itself. However, the business cannot survive—let alone thrive—unless it is also able to monetize some of that value – in order to generate sufficient funds to pursue future innovations, repay and reward investors, or support social and environmental initiatives.

Accordingly, Pricing Strategy: Monetizing and Growing the Business will help you understand how organizations of any shape, size, and industry affiliation should go about capitalizing on their efforts to stand out in the market and serve customers. In other words, the course studies the “back end” of a company’s relationship with its customers. It is exactly at this moment, when a company asks individuals or other businesses to trade good money for the products and services it offers, that ineffective pricing practices tend to creep in and value regrettably “leaks out” of the relationship—making both parties, and often also society, worse off.

The course goes well beyond the mechanics of setting prices, and pushes students to think critically about a company’s customer advantage in the marketplace and what monetization approach can most effectively capitalize on this advantage, thus helping the firm achieve its overarching goals.

Career Focus

Pricing Strategy is highly appropriate for students who see themselves in careers where they will be directly responsible for setting the revenue policies and top-line growth of a product or service, as well as for senior management roles that involve setting monetization direction and overseeing the pricing approach proposed. The course is also relevant for students who anticipate starting their own enterprise or seek a career as external consultants or investors, whereby the revenue or monetization model decision is critical for new venture success.

Educational Objectives

Unfortunately, many business leaders apply the wrong logic when thinking about prices and pricing. In particular, they often fail to think strategically about the challenge. Rather, one witnesses collections of tactics held together by questionable assumptions and crude heuristics that, by shunning customers and obsessing over just about everything else, put financial and brand health in jeopardy.

To counter this predicament, this course will equip you with concepts and frameworks to tackle contemporary pricing issues with confidence and to craft a sound monetization strategy. In particular, the course addresses questions such as:

• What is the right revenue model for our business? Should we link prices to our ability to deliver greater access or to outcomes that customers truly desire?
• Are we making the most of the customer and competitive advantage we worked so hard to establish?
• Which costs matter from a pricing standpoint? How should we use cost information to set our prices?
• How should we estimate and act on valuations and willingness to pay information?
• Are there opportunities to serve different prices to different customers? How can we do this without damaging our image or inciting backlash?
• Does it matter that our relationship with customers passes through an intermediary? What are the best price arrangements to align channel partners?
• What are best practices to act against competitors’ pricing moves?
• How do we stand our ground against customers who demand lower prices? Is it possible to discount our offerings without eroding the brand?
• What is the impact of our pricing decisions beyond the company-customer relationship? Is there anything we can do to improve our societal and environmental “footprint” through our pricing approach?

Content and Organization

Pricing Strategy: Monetizing and Growing the Business builds on the critical premise that a business cannot improve its ability to earn revenue from customers unless its decisions are guided by and for customers—what they value, why they value it, when and how they value it, and so on. This logic is intuitive, yet seldom put into practice. Many organizations tend to anchor their pricing decisions on an estimate of unit costs and a target margin or use competitors’ prices as the benchmark. They want to “keep things simple,” but in so doing forget or neglect that customers drive demand in a market, and demand ultimately marks the commercial opportunity. A business that sets prices with a poor grasp of the opportunity it faces is bound to make suboptimal, perhaps even dangerous decisions.

In comparison, a customer-centric approach to pricing starts by understanding “value” from the perspective of customers and, importantly, how this value flows to organizations in the form of income. The course takes you across the different steps in this sequence, identifying the most common problem areas and searching for practical and effective solutions.

A key takeaway is that decisions about prices are far more strategic and consequential than typically assumed, as they impact the way organizations relate with customers from as early as product or service design to beyond the moment of purchase. A second important message is that prices serve not only to allocate value among the different actors in a market (i.e., slicing the pie), but also to grow the overall value that is realized in an exchange (i.e., baking a bigger pie). We will spend most of our time understanding these two core functions of pricing.

From a practical standpoint, the 14 sessions of the course comprise case study discussions, exercises, interactive lectures, and contributions from guest speakers. The goal of the case discussions and exercises is to examine important concepts in different managerial settings, and to sample making decisions based on both qualitative and quantitative data. The interactive lectures and guest speakers complement this effort by presenting frameworks, analytical techniques, practical insights, and pertinent real-world examples.

Grading

Grading is based on class participation (50%) and a take home exam (50%). Interested students can request to substitute the exam with a project that reviews the pricing performance of an organization and formulates thoughtful recommendations for changing the monetization scheme.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This is an advanced corporate finance course focused on private equity (PE) investing. The course offers a deep dive into growth equity and buyouts, also touching on closely related investing strategies such as distress and private debt. Students will examine a wide variety of investment settings: from lower middle market companies to mega-cap, from the United States to emerging markets, from buy-and-build situations to turnarounds to mature businesses, from “home-run” deals to troubled investments. (The course does not cover venture capital or real estate segments of PE.)

Through these case studies, the goal of the class is to understand when and how private equity firms consistently add value: what are the persistent and repeatable sources of risk-adjusted excess returns in the private equity space, what skills and institutional features enable that success, and what opportunities and challenges are presented by recent developments in the PE industry.

The students will gain exposure to a set of practical skills including deal assessment and due diligence, valuation, deal execution, capital structure, governance, change management, and setting incentives. In addition, a substantial part of the course will be spent on strategic elements of deal making.

The course is intended for students who are interested in working for a private equity firm, leading a private-equity owned operating company, investing in private equity as limited partners, or providing advisory services to private equity firms. This course is also appropriate for all students who are interested in a detailed and rigorous exploration of corporate finance, as many of the decisions taken by PE firms have a direct parallel to the strategic and financial decisions taken by companies more broadly and by other types of investors. The majority of cases will integrate these topics from a PE investor’s perspective. Guests will attend many of the classes.

Educational Objectives

This course has two objectives. First, it builds a rigorous approach and toolkit for sourcing, analyzing, negotiating, structuring and managing PE investments. The second goal of the course is to provide students with a deep understanding of the private equity industry in a broad sense: its common tools, strategies, impact, and factors that have been affecting its evolution.

Course Content and Organization

The course has 28 sessions, followed by a final exam. The course is organized into five modules.

• Module 1: Deal Sourcing and Valuation
  This module will explore various strategies employed by private equity firms to identify and evaluate investment opportunities. Students will be expected to articulate clear, compelling and differentiated investment theses. Important tools for evaluating investments – including LBO investment return models, returns bridges, financial statement analysis, and broader due diligence questions – will be examined.
• Module 2: Deal Execution
  This module highlights the critical levers utilized by private equity investors in structuring transactions, examining how funding choices enable or impede success, while increasing or mitigating risk. Capital structure, security choice, alignment of incentives, and broader capital markets issues will be central to the cases in this module. A detailed exploration of the structure and functioning of credit markets and their central role in private equity transactions will be highlighted.
• Module 3: Deal Management
  This module explores the important choices that private equity firms make after closure of the transactions. In particular, the critical operational levers that drive value creation will be examined, as well as governance, board effectiveness and impact, and debt management. The interaction between investor and portfolio-company operating executives will be examined from multiple perspectives.
• Module 4: Realizations
  This module examines timing of the exit and highlights the critical mechanisms for realizing value. A variety of realizations will be presented, including leveraged recapitalizations, strategic and financial sales of portfolio companies, initial public offerings, and secondary transactions.
• Module 5: Private Equity Firm Strategic and Management Issues
  This final module takes a step back from deal-level analyses and looks at the organizational and strategic issues of private equity organizations. The goal is to understand why and which practices are likely to deliver sustained profitability in the future, and also to reflect on LPs pressures and needs.

Students are expected to be active participants in class discussion, offering a variety of quantitative and qualitative insights that contribute to the assessment of each day’s decision. Class participation and the final exam each count for 40% of the course grade. Some cases include assigned exercises/submissions, which count for 20% of the grade.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus:

This half course provides an introduction to product management, focused primarily on improving and scaling existing products at technology companies. It is designed for three types of students:

• Those who aspire to be Product Managers, or are broadly interested in Product Management.
• Those who will join larger established Technology companies.
• Aspiring founders that are interested in learning how to grow Technology products after finding product-market fit.

Educational Objectives:

A Product Manager is obsessed with the problem their product tries to solve and works to both define the product’s functional requirements and lead cross-functional teams to develop, launch and improve their product over time. Taught by an experienced former Google product executive, this course aims to provide an introduction to product management and expose students to key product development and growth strategies so they can build, optimize and scale products following graduation.

Product examples cover a range of technology products but most are focused on consumer facing software products in the internet, mobile and marketplace sectors. In the 2023-2024 academic year, cases and assignments will be grounded in products from: Uber, Dropbox, Spotify, Ancestry, Amazon, YouTube, Netflix, Google, Slack, Microsoft, Robinhood, and Peloton. No prior knowledge of Product Management, design, engineering, or computer science required. Those interested in career transitions are especially welcome.

The final deliverable for the course will be a 4 hour case-based take home exam.

Please note, this course is focused on improving and scaling existing products that have already achieved product market fit at technology companies. While the course also addresses how to generate new product ideas and how to find initial product market fit, these topics are not a primary focus.

This course is a natural companion to Launching Technology Ventures and Startup Operations, both of which focus on early stage ventures searching for initial product market fit. It also complements Scaling Technology Ventures, which has a cross-functional perspective and focuses on overall organization design. Lastly, this course has some overlap with Silicon Valley IFC, which also addresses product-led growth. However where the IFC is a project based field course, this course is mostly case based.

Course Content

In this half course, students will take the perspective of a Product Manager at a Technology company tasked with improving and growing a product. Through case studies, individual assignments, assigned readings, and conversations with product leaders, students will examine different management opportunities and challenges related to building and growing Technology products and practice applying key product strategies to real current situations that PMs at leading Technology companies face. We will explore four different modules:

1. Improving Existing Product Functionality.
   How to determine which user pain points should be fixed and fix them? How to attract new users to a core product? How to optimize a conversion funnel?
2. Adding New Product Features.
   How to prioritize new features? How to respond to competitor offerings? How to tier a new product feature? How to pursue product feature development in light of a partnership?
3. Pursuing Adjacent Products.
   How to find a new product adjacency? How to develop a MVP for a new product adjacency? How to defend a proposal for a new product adjacency?
4. Pivoting into a Growth Opportunity.
   How to refocus on the “right” target audience to enable growth? How to select a product pivot when the market didn’t materialize? How to launch new features after the market changes? How to reinvigorate your product with a new vision?

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course is designed for students who may found, join, or fund private startup companies that sell to (or around) governments to solve giant problems or who may want to become extreme innovators inside government at some point themselves. The cases feature a broad range of contemporary technology applications, and the course may be of particular interest to students curious about AI, autonomy, blockchain, sensors, crowdsourcing, platforms, and related topics. The course also tackles career questions for students who wonder how to spend time making a difference in both the private and public sectors.

Course Content and Organization

Four modules make up the bulk of the course.

Ideas. What should public entrepreneurs work on? We tackle “problem-finding” and “solution-finding”. We touch on customer discovery to understand needs of citizens and public workers. We meet entrepreneurs who used the tools of design thinking and explore how they can be adapted for public problems.

Risk. How can public leaders and their private partners take on riskier projects? And how do we navigate obstacles to that? We consider whether lean startup techniques can be applied to these efforts.

Opportunity. How can businesses bring new products and services to the public? We look at ways of choosing channels, customers, and modes of revenue-generation. We weigh selling to governments or selling around them. We also look at raising capital for these business models and investing in them.

Scale. We ask how do private and public leaders bring these efforts to transformative levels? We look at the idea of government as a platform and ways to leverage their network effects for growth.

We tackle these topics mostly through case discussion, and we spend time with many guests. Three-quarters of the cases include some private company angle. One third of the cases have a non-U.S. component.

Grading and Course Requirements

Grading is based on class participation and a final exam.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

In the face of global challenges from widening inequality to a climate in crisis, it is becoming increasingly clear that many consumers want the values of brands they engage with to align with their own, and business is responding. What was once a niche differentiation strategy is now a nearly ubiquitous manifestation of Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. However, it is no longer enough for a business to simply align its image, products, or services with a particular cause. Instead, businesses are expected to be purpose-driven, and committed to incorporating beliefs and causes into the core of their brands and supporting long-term initiatives for the sake of an equitable, sustainable and prosperous world. In return, purpose-driven businesses have been shown to experience faster growth and increased customer satisfaction.

Purpose-driven marketing is a vehicle through which businesses or brands connect with target stakeholders on their shared values. Consumers are increasingly asking, “why should I buy from you?” Employees are asking, “why should I work for you?” And nonprofit partners are asking, “why should I partner with you?” Success in this space hinges on the ability of businesses or brands to effectively engage with, build relationships with, and influence stakeholders in ways that move toward positive change.

In this course, students will examine purpose-driven marketing from multiple perspectives including that of the firm, consumers, employees, and partners. Towards this end, this course will significantly enhance students’ understanding of what constitutes a purpose-driven firm, ability to lead a purpose-driven organization, recognize the unique challenges that come along with doing so, and effectively create and capture value for customers and other stakeholders while delivering mutual benefits to businesses and society. Students will also learn how to think critically about purpose-driven marketing and how to avoid strategies that may lead to “purpose washing”. This course will use a combination of cases, background readings, and guests (e.g., protagonists and subject experts) to better understand how to connect with stakeholders around purpose.

Career Focus

This course is designed for students who will work in, advise or invest in purpose-driven organizations as well as for those who want to better understand the challenges and opportunities involved in engaging stakeholders around purpose. This course is also suited to those who may work in or with social enterprises, including nonprofits. Finally, this course is relevant to those generally interested in the role of purpose in business and the value of it to society.

Educational Objectives

Purpose-Driven Marketing teaches students how to effectively connect with their stakeholders around purpose. Specifically, students will learn:

• What constitutes true purpose-driven marketing
• How to build brands or brand initiatives rooted in a core purpose, mission and/or values that are designed to help the greater good,
• How to think critically about, as well as how to leverage, purpose-driven marketing and branding to better connect with target stakeholders such as customers, employees and partners,
• How to identify effective, ineffective and potentially damaging purpose-driven marketing strategies.

Grading

Grading is based on class participation (50%) and a final exam or paper (50%).

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course is intended for any student interested in a career in private market investing. Specifically, we will cover topics pertaining to investing, managing, and developing investments in real estate and private asset backed companies. The course will be divided into three modules. The first module will focus on portfolio construction and understanding investment risks associated with private investments. The second module consists of the analysis of specific transactions with an emphasis on whether to pursue a specific transaction or not based on its investment merits. This section of the course will be run as an investment committee. We will focus on the attributes of both successful and many unsuccessful transactions. The final module consists of a focus on private investment firms, their compensation structures and how they impact behavior. For the final project students will be asked to develop an investment concept and present it via a paper and investment proposal. Industry leaders will judge the final presentations.

The course guests have historically included some of the leading private investors in the world, including Howard Marks, Barry Sternlicht, John Grayken, Ken Caplan, Mike Fascitelli, and Karsten Kellwig, among many others.

Educational Objectives

1. How to construct a private investment portfolio

2. How to assess the risks and returns in private investments and real estate portfolios

3. How to perform relative value analyses of differing investments

4. How to manage troubled investments (when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em)

5. How to understand how compensation issues affect performance

Course Content and Organization

Conceptual Framework: the course is divided into three parts with special emphasis on private equity financial analysis for transactions and portfolios. The course will analyze issues associated with both successful and troubled investments. We will address the issue of when to "double down" on an underperforming investment. We will incorporate a relative value approach in differentiating more attractive investments based upon their risk adjusted returns. The first module focuses on portfolio level issues, the second will review individual transactions and the third will look at the management and investment issues from the perspectives of both general partners and limited partners. The analysis will also include a study of firm economics and the resulting incentives from the 2/20 standard compensation model. Finally, students will prepare an investment proposal and present the investment concept.

Pedagogical Mix

Private equity real estate investments lend themselves to the case study method as virtually every subject requires both quantitative and qualitative analysis, judgment calls and development of a practical action plan. "Cold calling" is a frequent and important component of the class. Polling will be done frequently.

Textbook readings and technical notes supplement the cases, while additional optional books and articles are suggested for more exposure to theoretical concepts. A very significant component of the course will be presentations by case protagonists including leading industry figures. Senior executives from the industry will be in class to discuss the case and offer practical perspectives on lessons learned from the case. Out-of-class review sessions are offered by the professor to supplement concepts included in the case, particularly with regards to modeling certain concepts included in the given case. The workload and preparation are above average for the HBS EC courses.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This course is intended for any student serious about a career in managing, developing, or investing in real estate. Due to its rigor, it will be more than sufficient for those thinking about real estate as a hobby or for those considering real estate for limited personal investing.

Educational Objectives

The class goals are to show how real estate works, how to assess the risks, how to be a better deal maker, how to manage a project and how to be a leader in the industry.

Content and Organization

Conceptual Framework: The course is divided into five modules with additional exposure to international real estate.

The first module covers the analytic framework for real property development and investing, market analysis and basic financial analysis. Students will also gain an introduction to the general vocabulary of the business.

The second module examines each of the main property types (office, hotel, industrial, retail, multifamily, single family and senior living), including their general characteristics, market analyses and metrics used in evaluating and operating each of these asset types, and particular risks or opportunities with respect to these types of projects and buildings.

The third module reviews capital markets including private equity syndications and deal making, mortgages and real estate investment trusts (REITs). Examples illustrating the development process continue to be used throughout this and other modules to highlight both real estate development issues and choice of capital structure.

The fourth module consists in a project competition. The range of eligible projects is broad, both geographically and in terms of project asset class or objective.

The final module discusses important emerging trends in the industry including novel asset classes, Fintech, globalization and opportunities in emerging markets, sustainability and infrastructure.

Pedagogical Mix

Real estate lends itself to case method teaching as virtually every subject requires quantitative and qualitative analysis, judgment calls, thinking on one’s feet and development of practical action plans. "Cold calling" and active participation are frequent and important components of class.

There are at least two graded homework assignments and a final exam. Most homework assignments are required to be completed in groups. Additionally, polls will be used frequently and are considered an important aspect of class participation.

Textbook readings supplement the cases, while additional, optional books and readings are suggested for more exposure to theoretical concepts. Mini-lectures and a considerable number of technical notes are used throughout the course along with a tool-kit with materials for future use. The workload and preparation is above average for HBS EC courses. There will be several outside optional events covering building sites, career development, and meetings/luncheons with industry leaders.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Free market Capitalism is one of the great achievements of mankind, bringing prosperity and economic freedom to billions of people and contributing to a flowering of individual freedom and possibility that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors. Today, however, increasing global crises are posing the greatest threat this economic system has faced.

Reimagining Capitalism (ReCap) examines the role that business does and can play in addressing big social and environmental challenges. Students will examine:

• The forces that are leading Capitalism to evolve to address these challenges,
• How to overcome impediments that hamper businesses’ efforts to profitably address these challenges,
• The skills that managers, entrepreneurs, and investors rely on to balance impact and profit, and
• How to scale solutions that address societal and environmental issues.

A general management course, ReCap resides at the intersection of strategy, entrepreneurship, leadership, finance, and accounting. To that end, we examine issues through the lenses of executives, entrepreneurs, investors, and younger employees. The course takes a forward-looking view of the role of business and is continually evolving, with more than 60% of the course material being created in the last five years. It is designed for students interested in management, investing, and entrepreneurship who strive to have societal impact in the for-profit sector.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Educational Objectives

The goal of the course is to equip students with knowledge and judgment to manage the impact of competitors on the success of an organization. The course will enhance students’ understanding of how competition unfolds in the market, the strategies available to firms to reshape the nature of competition in their markets, and the social, ethical, and legal consequences of pursuing different strategies. A key tradeoff analyzed in the course is the tension between cooperation and competition with rivals, including the limits of various behaviors imposed by antitrust and regulation. The course uses a mix of model-based thinking real-world examples to generate practical insights for the design of the organization, its strategic choices, and communication with rivals.

Course Content and Organization

Through case studies, simulations, and the occasional interactive lecture, the course will introduce analytical tools and insights about assessing and managing competitive environments. Core topics include:

• Competition: We will use game theory and practical simulations to understand how different forms of competition affect prices and profits and the various strategies that firms employ to gain an edge. We will address how the rules of competition are influenced by antitrust and regulation.
• Coordination Techniques: Firms have many means of communicating with rivals about their strategic actions, including public announcements, third-party sources of information, and direct private communication. We will look in detail at a few of the more common techniques to understand the rationale in various contexts. Importantly, we will look at the legal limits of such behaviors.
• Advances in Competitive Technology: Changes to technology affect the nature of competition. For example, advances in pricing algorithms allow for the widespread adoption of high-frequency price changes, dynamic strategies, and personalized pricing. We will seek to understand how the adoption of such technologies provide may provide firms with a competitive advantage and affect how competition plays out in the market.
• The Trillion-Dollar Question: How Big is Too Big? Competition policy and antitrust is evolving as policymakers attempt to address perceived harms by the world’s largest companies. Formulating a long-term strategy in a market affected by these giants and the technologies they rely on depends critically on understanding potential changes to antitrust and regulation occurring over the next decade and beyond. Will we discuss current issues being considered by competition authorities, the underlying motives for the evolution of policy, and how firms are responding.

Final Project

Working alone or in pairs, students will write a short paper that:

1. Identifies a major change to the competitive environment driven by competition policy, regulation, or technology,
2. Analyzes the impact the change has had on the largest firms and the market overall,
3. Proposes a strategy to take advantage of the constraints imposed or relaxed by the change, focusing on how the strategy actively manages the competitive environment to the advantage of the organization.

Career Focus

This course provides a general management perspective on competition and is designed to improve your ability to improve firm performance in a competitive environment. It should appeal to students who are future CEOs; strategy consultants who advise organizations; or as private equity, public equity, venture capital, or hedge fund investors. We will provide some understanding of what you can and cannot talk about with friends and acquaintances at rival companies! The course should also appeal to students who simply want to deepen their understanding of how competition varies across markets and the antitrust and regulatory pressures that are faced by the largest organizations in the world today.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

PURPOSE:

In a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) far more value is created by companies, like Amazon, Meta and Alphabet that develop entirely novel business models, than by entrenched incumbents, such as P&G or Ford, which struggle to eke out market share gains. However, many of the most valuable new ventures, like Tesla and Netflix, are also among the most shorted stocks as investors struggle to see their long term potential.

To understand why and how this might occur, the overarching framework applied throughout this course covers “The Complete Strategy Landscape”[1]. This illustrates that companies must not just be concerned with the value captured by the one-time formulation of a beautifully aligned competitive strategy, which was the focus of the RC Strategy course, but by the value potential of their business model, and with its value realization through effective implementation over time.

Within this landscape, the Corporate Strategy course addresses three questions that challenge every modern corporation. The first, and most fundamental is, “How do companies create shareholder value across multiple markets?” in the midst of radical technological and social change. The second, whose identification won Ronald Coase the Nobel Prize in Economics[2] and which, unless we believe that one company will take over the world, is the logical corollary of the first, asks, “What is the limit to the scope of the firm?” The third question addresses the administrative issue of “How can we effectively manage a multi-business corporation?” to engender entrepreneurship and adaptability while maintaining control and realizing economies. All companies, whether large diversified multinationals or small entrepreneurial startups wrestle with these issues, and their appropriate resolution has enormous impact on performance.

The perspective adopted throughout the course is that of the CEO and the pragmatic challenges they face in crafting a strategy that successfully exploits available opportunities while confronting the realities of competition in the 21^st century. As a result, the course should be of value to anyone interested in managing, consulting to, financing, or investing in a company that operates in multiple, businesses, geographies, or activities.

The course includes many CEO case protagonists and representatives from leading consulting firms as guests to share their insights into effective modern corporate strategy. Those who attended the course previously include, among others, Daniel Loeb (Third Point), Larry Culp (GE, ex Danaher), Penny Pennington (Edward Jones), Horst Kayser (Siemens), David Roux (Silver Lake), Martin Reeves (BCG), Dunigan O’Keeffe (Bain & Co.), Robert Uhlaner (McKinsey), David Schlendorf (FBI), Dan Simpson (ex Clorox), Kevin Mayer (ex Disney and TikTok), Nils Andersen (Unilever, ex Maersk), Kevin Sharer (ex Amgen) and Irene Rosenfeld (ex Mondelez) [3].

In addition to regular case classes, each module is accompanied by a course note and a video lecture. These bed down the conceptual frameworks and provide pragmatic takeaways and current examples of the topic to study on your own time. As a tradeoff with somewhat fewer class sessions, the final assignment is a paper that asks you to apply the course frameworks to a current corporate strategy situation you find interesting.

1. BUSINESS MODELS and THE COMPLETE STRATEGY LANDSCAPE
While introducing the Complete Strategy Landscape framework, which places the RC Strategy course emphasis on strategy as “positioning” in a broader context, the module focuses on understanding how novel business models – the combination of “job to be done”, assets required to deliver that service, and monetization method – create value. We will examine WhatsApp, Walmart in its competition with Amazon, the FBI, Tesla, Komatsu’s introduction of “SmartConstruction” and Netflix, among others to understand how to evaluate the potential in new ways of doing business.
2. RESOURCES and THE CONTINUUM OF CORPORATE STRATEGIES:
Building on the RC module on Corporate Strategy, the course identifies valuable resources (popularly, but incorrectly, termed core competences) that can function as the "Mickey Mouse" that adds value to the corporate portfolio. By studying strategies at firms as different as Danaher and Clorox, it introduces a continuum, ranging from conglomerates and private equity firms to tightly related corporate entities and startups, and demonstrates that the same "better off" and "ownership" tests apply to every effective corporate strategy. This logic can be captured in a company's statement of its objective, scope and corporate advantage.
3. BUSINESSES and PORTFOLIO TRANSFORMATION:
Defining the boundaries of the firm - the limit to its scope - is critical to crafting the corporate portfolio. At the extreme this determines which businesses to enter and exit, and the extent of vertical integration and geographic expansion of the firm. More generally this requires developing a portfolio that is robust to changes in the external environment, and has to address the choice between internal development of new businesses and corporate M&A. This module delves into scope choices in a wide variety of settings, from large global organizations to start-ups.
4. ORGANISATION and THE ROLE OF CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS:
To justify ownership of any business a corporation must have the appropriate structures, systems, and policies to actually realize value. This module examines these design choices, focusing on the role of corporate headquarters in shaping and controlling business unit strategy and performance, building centres of competence, and sharing activities. It covers specific tools used by corporate executives including delegation of authority, approaches to resource allocation and corporate initiatives. The module concludes with cases on corporate transformation, highlighting the challenge of realigning resources, organizational structure and scope to face a constantly evolving competitive landscape.

[1] See D. Collis, “Wy do so Many Strategies Fail??” Harvard Business Review July/August 2021 pp 82-93.

[2] R. Coase “The Nature of the Firm,“ Economica: 1937

[3] Please note that, particularly in these times, some of the invited guests might be unable to attend class.

Copyright © 2023 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Description

The MBA course on "Risks, Opportunities, and Investments in an Era of Climate Change" offers a unique and comprehensive curriculum aimed at preparing the next generation of entrepreneurs, leaders, and investors to succeed in a rapidly changing economic landscape. This course is ideal for students who aspire to become entrepreneurs by starting their own company or joining a start-up that is driving innovation and solving challenges posed by climate change. Additionally, the course will benefit those who wish to lead or advise firms on transitioning their operations and business models to become more sustainable and innovative. Finally, the course will be beneficial to students seeking to understand the full spectrum of climate opportunities pursuing a career in venture capital, private equity, or public markets investing.

For students interested in entrepreneurship, this course presents an opportunity to learn about the opportunities that lie ahead in the transition to a low-carbon economy. From understanding the creation of carbon markets and credits to exploring the potential for innovative solutions in agriculture and food production or battery manufacturing and the creation of circular economy business models driven by artificial intelligence and digitization, this course will arm students with the skills and knowledge needed to create and lead the next generation of climate solutions businesses.

For those interested in leading and advising companies, this course provides a learning experience, diving into the complexities of transitioning operations, supply chains, and strategies to a low-carbon future. Students will learn about the policies, regulations, and technologies driving the shift, and will gain practical skills in analyzing and responding to these changes. By understanding the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change, students will be better equipped to advise and lead companies through this transformative period.

For students interested in investing, this course covers investment opportunities across all sectors of the economy, including renewable energy, batteries, solar panels, electric vehicles, and advanced materials. The course provides a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the risks and opportunities posed by climate change, enabling students to make informed investment decisions and pursue a career in venture capital, private equity, or public markets investing.

In conclusion, the MBA course on "Risks, Opportunities, and Investments in an Era of Climate Change" offers a comprehensive learning experience for students interested in entrepreneurship, leading and advising companies, and investing. With a focus on the challenges and opportunities posed by climate change, this course prepares students to succeed in a rapidly changing economic landscape and to make a positive impact on the world.

Grading Criteria

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Course Description

This course is offered to students working actively on creating or joining a climate solutions start up or on a research project that could create a management tool or framework for climate solutions. Having attended the Risks, Opportunities, and Investments in the Era of Climate Change (ROICC) course in the fall term is a requirement for taking the Lab version of the course. Admission to the course is subject to approval by the instructor.

The course is not a case-based course. It will meet weekly and students will be required to present or participate actively in seminars debating the growth, profit, and climate impact prospects of different climate solutions. We will have as guests venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, executives of large enterprises, and private equity investors, all with substantial experience in accelerating climate solutions.

The ROICC solutions lab course is designed for students with a serious interest in building and advising companies, and investing in the trillions of dollars in profit pools unlocked by climate solutions over the next decade.

Grading Criteria

Course grade will be comprised of 50% in-class participation and 50% performance on the project.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course is about one question: What is the proper role of the government in the market economy? We study the role of government as it plays out in the real world, using vivid case studies from many countries, decades, and policy angles. At the same time, we align these cases with a rigorous theoretical framework that clarifies the circumstances under which government intervention in the market can improve outcomes.

The goal of this course is to deepen your insight into and influence on the debate over economic policy. Private-sector managers are better able to position their organizations, both defensively and offensively, if they understand why and how governments act. Moreover, exceptional private-sector leaders are now widely expected to provide informed, intelligent leadership on the policy issues at the heart of this course.

Career Focus

The course is designed for students who aim to lead private-sector institutions of systemic importance, influence public debates over government policy, or occupy policymaking positions at some point in their careers. The skills and knowledge it develops, however, are increasingly valuable to the broad range of businesses, non-profit organizations, and civil society institutions whose activities intersect with government policy.

Course Structure

The course opens with a case on why a hypothetical competitive market economy can be used as a starting point for analyzing what role government should play. Market economies are miraculous when at their best: flexible, decisive, and self-correcting.

But markets are not always at their best, and the first module of the course confronts major real-world departures from this hypothetical starting point. These departures mean that government policy can improve the efficiency of the economy, in principle making all individuals better off. Policy areas addressed here include antitrust regulation, environmental protection, education, health care, and fiscal and monetary policy.

We may want the government to do more than remove inefficiencies, so the second module tackles questions of economic justice and their implications for the government's role. In particular, in this module we study central debates over the taxation of individuals and firms, the provision of economic assistance, and the determination of the boundaries of policy.

As this summary shows, the cases we discuss take us step-by-step through a rigorous conceptual framework that provides the intellectual backbone for the course. At the same time, each case gives us a chance to examine an important policy area in some depth. Accompanying each case are a set of core concepts and suggested readings. The core concepts represent fundamental insights into the role of government, so an understanding of them can substantially increase one's ability to analyze a given policy decision. The suggested supplemental readings are starting points for pursuing areas of particular interest in greater detail. They include many foundational pieces of scholarship, as well as newer and less scholarly works that shed light on these issues.

Course Administration

Course grades will be based on class participation (50%) and a short paper (50%). For the paper, students will apply the tools and ideas from the course to prepare, with one or two partners if they wish, an analysis of a government policy problem of their choice. The course is designed so that the time required to prepare the paper is comparable to the time a student would devote to a final exam. Throughout the term, Professor Weinzierl will be available to meet with students by appointment. To arrange a meeting, please contact his assistant, Deannah Blemur, at dblemur@hbs.edu.

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Career Focus

Scaling Technology Ventures (STV) is designed for students who aspire to found, join, or invest in growth-stage technology ventures. Students will learn how leadership teams address the challenges and opportunities ventures face after achieving profit-market fit – and how to activate and then manage exponential growth.

The course reflects the recent shift in market sentiment from “growth at all costs” to profitable growth, in placing particular emphasis on how ventures scale by achieving not just product-market fit, but profit-market fit, too.

Classes cover a diverse array of tech sectors, including e-commerce, ed-tech, enterprise SaaS, HR-tech, mobile apps and gaming, marketplace platforms, mobility solutions, social media, two-sided platforms, and the metaverse.

Educational Objectives

The course exists to address a gap in management research between what the scholarly literature defines as the two fundamental stages of venture development – exploration and exploitation. This way of thinking leaves out a critical phase that connects these two, which we call extrapolation. This refers to the period of dramatic top-line growth that occurs in the middle portion of a standard S-curve, after a venture has confirmed product-market fit and often raised its first round of institutional financing.

Adopting the perspective of a CEO, a founder, or a functional leader, cases in the course frame many of the critical opportunities and challenges associated with activating exponential growth, and then managing through the extrapolation phase as the venture scales. Scaling situations are presented through a variety of functional lenses, including strategy, product management, sales and marketing, engineering and technology, talent, and operations.

In nearly every class, the course will host case protagonists – largely founders, CEOs, and some VCs – as guests.

Students will also have the opportunity to participate in several optional workshops with guests and outside experts. In past years, topics have included product management, performance marketing, VC investing, and managing DEIA.

Enrollment in STV is limited to 70 students per section. STV is a natural companion course to Launching Technology Ventures (LTV), though LTV is not a prerequisite.

Course Content

Through case discussions and dialogue with company founders, STV examines executive leadership and functional management challenges in scaling ventures after the "search and discovery" stage of startup evolution. Cases include Asana, BlaBlaCar, Catalant, Chegg, Chewy, Cobalt Robotics, Nextdoor, OhmConnect, Perch, Linden Lab, Roblox, Supercell, Shopify, thredUP, Tiktok, Wayfair, WeWork, and Zoom, among others.

These challenges are organized around six modules that are part of the Six S Scaling Framework. Together, these represent external and internal enablers of successful scaling:

Activating Growth

Strategic Opportunity and Market: What does it take to “cross the chasm” to the early majority? How large is the serviceable addressable market, and will it support scaling? How scalable and repeatable is the business model?

Scope and Speed: How does a venture scale by expanding into new geographies, products, and markets? What does it take to manage multiple revenue streams? How fast should such expansion or diversification take place?

Solution: What constitutes a repeatable and scalable offer? How does it maintain sufficient homogeneity to scale effectively, while achieving sufficient differentiation to fend off competitors?

Managing Growth

Structure: When and how should a rapidly scaling venture introduce more formal roles, systems, and processes? What organizational design choices favor scaling? What is the trade-off between reliability and adaptability?

Senior Team: When should ventures replace founders with “professional” CEOs? How should ventures onboard experienced executives into leadership positions? When should you start hiring specialists over generalists?

Spirit: How do leaders in scaling ventures design culture? How do they assimilate hires who are less mission-driven and more political than the first wave of recruits? How can they mitigate friction between the old guard and newer talent?

Students have a choice between taking a final exam and completing a final project in the course. The project asks students to apply course concepts to a scaling venture. For the project, students are encouraged to work in teams with a venture and then prepare a report presenting their analyses and conclusions.

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Social entrepreneurs don’t just build organizations, they change systems. This course looks at social entrepreneurship through the lens of traditional entrepreneurship, but asks how people motivated by disrupting entrenched and often inequitable systems differ from traditional entrepreneurs: from their mindset and character, to their capacity for systems thinking and empathetic product design, to how they navigate diverse sources of capital to build either for-profit, nonprofit, or hybrid organizations. The course also looks at how systems change requires entrepreneurs to think beyond their own organizations to collaborate within their field and to motivate collective action, and to combine direct impact with the indirect effects of changing culture and shaping policy.

The course asks a set of core questions: Who are social entrepreneurs and what makes them tick? How do they make the right strategic choices to scale their organizations to create meaningful, lasting change? From team building to capital raising to measuring effectiveness, what are the building blocks of effective social enterprises? And at a time when there is increasing skepticism of business and philanthropy, why are social enterprises still the best positioned to be catalysts for meaningful social change?

The course features a diverse group set of protagonists in diverse contexts (issues, geographies, stages, organizational forms), but also asks students go deep on a single social entrepreneur of their choosing over the course of the semester, culminating with an integrative final assignment that through a peer review process leads to the development of a new case study for the following year’s class.

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Despite the promise and potential of individual social enterprises, the scale and complexity of the world’s problems is often beyond the capacity of a single organization. The SSCC course, therefore, attempts to address the problem from the lens of a system. From the billions around the world who lack access to safe drinking water, power, affordable healthcare, and secure housing, to the millions in the United States who are underemployed, food or housing insecure and lack access to adequate healthcare or equitable financial services, this course will attempt to elicit best practices and frameworks that address such complex problems.

Complementing the fall semester EC course, Social Entrepreneurship and Systems Change (but not required as a pre-requisite), this course will take a deep dive into how systems entrepreneurs approach solving complex social problems at scale. In this half course, we will study how effective leaders develop a coherent systems strategy, and lead through change. The course will use a mix of cases, readings, and books, supplemented by talks and discussions with changemakers from the field. In addition to class participation, the course requirement will consist of a cumulative (little every week after the half- way mark) project on applying the tools and principles developed in the course to solve a societal challenge of the students’ choice.

The course will be jointly taught by HBS alum and founder of the highly successful social enterprise, Year Up and Baker Foundation Professor Kash Rangan, co-founder of the school’s social enterprise Initiative.

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