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

Career Focus

Exceptionally effective leaders must have the ability to communicate clearly, persuasively, and thoughtfully to diverse audiences.

Skillful communication is essential, even if you don’t plan to be on the front lines or give frequent formal speeches. While this course focuses on public speaking, I designed it to also explore speaking beyond the formal podium: disagreeing with the boss, holding an employee accountable, giving a peer critical feedback, speaking on your feet, influencing someone to change their behavior, resolving conflicts, and more.

This class is for anyone ready to take risks, hungry to receive and apply feedback, and eager to improve the quality of their results and relationships.

Course Objectives

The course’s principal goal is to strengthen your capacity to achieve desired results and influence others, by communicating more effectively and authentically.

This course is highly participatory. Through hands-on activities, exercises, and application, participants interactively build skills in key competencies, including:

• Finding your voice and generating ideas
• Communicating complex information effectively (includes using visual aids and programs such as PowerPoint effectively)
• Understanding and applying effective frameworks for structuring your message
• Building trust and credibility
• Discussing topics that are high stakes, controversial, and emotionally charged
• Improving storytelling skills
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Resolving conflict
• Communicating under high stress/crisis communication

Course Outline

The class focuses on building skills around critical aspects of communication. On speech days, students deliver a series of speeches and receive feedback from the instructor and classmates. Speeches are videotaped and posted on the course webpage for later review and reflection (only visible by course participants).

Assignments

1) Speeches:

• Two in-class speeches of roughly 3-4 minutes. Prior to each speech, students submit a one sentence “thesis” that summarizes their speech, an outline of the key points of their speech, the name of the student they practiced with, and two bullet points for what improvement they wish to focus on in their delivery.
• One additional speech that students arrange outside of class on their own that is not a requirement of another class. Options include (but are not limited to) speech at a class event, Toastmaster meeting, fundraising event, local club (Lions Club, Kiwanis, Junior League, etc.), K-12 school, community event, orientation, non-profit, or undergrad organization. Credit requires submitting a 30 second video of speaking engagement and a reflection on lessons learned.

2) Reflection email:

• Watch video of speech from class
• Submit a paragraph via canvas confirming that you watched your speech and stating improvements/focus for going forward. Paragraph must be submitted within 48 hours of speech delivery.

3) Tough Conversation:

• Hold a significant conversation with someone you disagree with.
• Write a one-page reflection on how it went and what you could do differently next time.

4) Briefing:

• Submit a briefing via canvas

5) Journaling:

• Keep an active “speaking journal” collecting quotes, notes, ideas, and reflections.
• Journals are used in class and outside of class.

6) Practice:

• Each student is expected to practice their speech with one other student prior to their speech.

7) Feedback:

• Provide meaningful feedback to peers following their speeches, throughout the course, and in small groups.

8) Weekly assignments:

• Complete communication challenges each week. For example, “watch 3 TED talks of your choosing that you haven’t seen before.” Bring reflections on these weekly assignments to class.

Grading

Three Speech Presentations 50% Weekly Assignments, Tough Conversation, and Briefing: 25%

Class Participation—includes giving written/oral feedback and receiving feedback 25%

If for some reason a student must miss a section when their peers deliver speeches, they will be expected to watch the section video and send feedback via email, cc’ing the course instructor, to each student who delivered a speech that day. This must be done within a week of the missed class. In the rare instance where a student must miss a section when they are scheduled to deliver a speech, they must arrange a one-to-one switch with another student, to keep an even number of speeches in each section each week.

Attendance and Expectations

Increasing our skills in public speaking requires practice, receiving and applying feedback, and observing other speakers. As a result, students must attend and participate in class to pass this course.

Time requirements for this course are likely to be high.

Attendance at all class meetings is required. Every unexcused absence, or repeatedly arriving late or leaving early, will negatively affect your final grade. Certain exceptions for sickness, religious holiday, or personal emergency will be granted only if you contact the instructor and course assistant via email in advance (not right before class starts). Any other reasons, including missing class because you have another class across the river, or you scheduled a job interview at the same time, or you have a speech elsewhere, is an unexcused absence and will reduce your final grade.

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

Career Focus

This course is intended primarily for students with a career interest in general management. It is also appropriate for students interested in starting their own companies, and those who expect to work closely with general managers or entrepreneurs as consultants, venture capitalists, or in corporate management roles such as strategy or business development.

Educational Objectives

The course is designed to prepare students for a general management role sometime during their careers. It examines general managers of many different types, in widely diverse settings and circumstances, in order to acquaint students with the distinctive challenges of the general manager's job. The course also provides a range of concepts for thinking about the general manager's roles and responsibilities, as well as a set of frameworks and tools for getting the job done. Its primary goal is help students think systematically about the practice of general management - how general managers translate ideas into action, coordinate the work of large numbers of people, and deliver organizational performance.

Content and Organization

The course focuses on implementation, and the way that general managers get things done. Typically, they rely on processes--sequences of tasks and activities that unfold over time, like strategic planning, business development, or budgeting-to move their organizations forward and achieve results. Skill at influencing the design, direction, and functioning of processes is therefore essential to effective general management, and the aim of the course is to develop in students a deeper understanding of these activities and their links to performance. They will learn to think in terms of processes rather than organizational structures or discrete tasks, and will develop a sense for the levers general managers use to shape individual and organizational behavior.

After a brief introductory module, the course is divided into five parts. Each corresponds to an essential task of general management and the associated processes for carrying it out.

• Strategic processes: how leaders set strategy, develop vision and mission, create a sense of common purpose, and establish and communicate goals; how companies create and develop new businesses; and how organizations allocate resources in support of new and ongoing initiatives
• Decision making processes: how individuals and groups generate alternatives, manage conflict and debate, and reach agreement in both routine and high-stakes situations
• Learning and improvement processes: how individuals and organizations create and experiment with new approaches, learn from their past successes and failures, identify and transfer best practices, and retain and share both tacit and explicit knowledge
• Learning and improvement processes: how individuals and organizations create and experiment with new approaches, learn from their past successes and failures, identify and transfer best practices, and retain and share both tacit and explicit knowledge
• Coordination and control processes: how managers orchestrate, delegate, and monitor the work of subordinates in order to ensure that critical tasks are completed and implementation proceeds as planned
• Change processes: how managers initiate and lead change, take charge of their organizations, and build momentum for change, especially when faced with turnarounds, competitive threats, and emerging technologies

Throughout the course, underlying processes will be described explicitly as a focus for discussion. The course will also devote considerable time to understanding the practical details of general management and the requirements for effective action.

A distinctive feature of the course is the wide variety of teaching materials that we will be using, including experiential exercises, simulations, multimedia cases, videos, 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 small 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 firefighters, hospital administrators, and engineers involved in the space program.

BGM will accept a limited number of cross-registrants. If you are interested please SUBMIT YOUR RESUME/CV HERE. In addition to submitting your resume, you must officially petition to cross-register on the registrar’s website starting January 24. The registrar’s office will notify you of your enrollment status in early February.

Copyright © 2022 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.

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

Hacking, non-fungible token authentication, corporate espionage, cannabis banking, forced arbitration, dropgangs. This course will delve into the messy, complex, and often hidden risks lurking throughout the business world.

Our course will confront these issues from the perspective of innovative entrepreneurs trying to overcome outdated regulation, multinational leaders facing Catch-22 dilemmas, and investors seeking to profit from emerging commercial phenomenon. We will explore companies driven by well-intentioned managers whose plans go astray, ambitious entrepreneurs who misjudge their risks, and professional organizations led by scamsters.

We will examine some of the most controversial and consequential business topics tactically, eschewing the comforts of a philosophical perspective to instead focus on the uncomfortable choices and practicalities made by managers, investors, employees, and regulators. By the end of the course, participants will walk away with a unique awareness of the decision-making process associated with these risky areas, the particular kinds of scrutiny that can arise with different kinds of ambitious business models, and the regulatory and reputational pitfalls surrounding some difficult decisions.

Background materials will be drawn from a diverse set of sources including movies, leaked documents, and Reddit posts, further supplemented by guests who possess unique knowledge and expertise in this often murky side of the business world.

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

Career Focus

This course is aimed at all MBAs who expect at some point in their careers to use financial statements to evaluate the performance, prospects, and value of a business. The primary emphasis will be on the analysis of public companies, but many tools and techniques utilized are relevant to private enterprise financial analysis as well. This course will be particularly valuable to students who are seeking a career in consulting, corporate finance, investment banking, hedge funds, or private equity.

Educational Objectives

The objective of the course is to provide hands-on experience in financial statement analysis. Students will be exposed to tools of financial analysis, theoretical concepts, and practical valuation issues. By the end of the course, students should become comfortable with using firms' financial statements to draw an understanding of their performance and provide a basis for making reasonable valuation estimates. The course builds on RC courses, in particular, Finance I, Finance II, and Financial Reporting and Control (FRC), to expand understanding of financial statements and their use in valuation.

Course Content and Organization

Students will be exposed to a comprehensive financial statement analysis and valuation framework that integrates strategy, financial reporting, financial analysis and valuation, application of this framework and tools to fundamental analysis, and the role of intermediaries that use these tools in capital markets. A valuation software specifically designed for this course will be used to provide hands-on experience. Over the semester several guest speakers, such as hedge fund managers and research analysts will share their experiences with the students.

The first half of the course develops an accounting-based valuation framework that integrates a firm's strategy, its financial performance, and its accounting credibility. Two main topics will be covered:

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

While doing the above, the course will often take the perspective of equity analysts, short sellers, and hedge fund activist investors. Some of the cases will include class visits by case protagonists.

The second half of the course applies the above framework to a variety of business valuation contexts including equity-investment analysis, IPOs, spin-offs, mergers, short selling opportunities, and hedge fund activist investing strategies.

To deepen students' ability to apply the course skills in a practical context, they will work on a group project. The project will involve a complete financial statement analysis of a firm using the course framework. Groups will consist of students working individually on related companies, with a group effort to integrate the separate analyses. The last few sessions of the course will be devoted to the development and execution of these projects.

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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 © 2022 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%).

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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.

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.

Note: Andy Pforzheimer (Harvard College ’84) 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.

Course Overview

Uniquely within the HBS EC curriculum, this course is industry specific. Despite its pervasiveness and intimate consumer interaction, 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.

Background. 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, employing 14.5 million people in 2021, 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 2021, US restaurant industry sales topped $799 billion representing a $2.4 trillion economic impact and approximately 4% of the US gross domestic product. While scaled restaurant operations are frequently featured, interestingly 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.

Content:

Growth and Scale. This module will examine the factors that have traditionally determined profitability and valuation. It will consider growth potential and exit strategies for successful restaurants and emerging chains, including the advantages and disadvantages of franchising, institutional investment and leverage. We will consider the challenge of scale – how to achieve it and how to manage it once achieved. In addition, how founders consider a partial or complete exit and the criteria they established for a possible sale, as well as how the markets evaluate a public restaurant company and the factors that drive valuation.

Menu Management. Chefs and restaurateurs often say they offer what their guests want to eat but many are also interested in the healthiness and sustainability of their offerings. We will examine whether and how chefs lead or follow trends, how they distinguish trends from fads, what drives their selection of menu items, how they manage their supply chain and whether post-pandemic, consumers are likely to change their food preferences.

Crisis Management. Covid-19 was an existential crisis for restaurants – we’ll examine responses, both successful and not so. We will also consider the critical issue of food safety and the crisis management implications when a foodborne illness strikes.

Franchising. How does it work? When does it make sense from both investment and brand perspectives? Recent HBS alums have pursued franchising of quick-service restaurant brands – we’ll study both the challenges and opportunities they encountered. We’ll also view franchising from the franchisor perspective, including when a franchised brand goes off the rails.

Disruption/Technology. We will examine the increasing challenges – and in light of the pandemic, the increasing necessity -- restaurants face in assessing, adopting, affording and maximizing the utility of technological changes such as mobile ordering, delivery and advanced loyalty programs. We’ll also consider the rapid growth of “ghost kitchens” and how restaurateurs are developing asset light models providing consumers with increasing choices among brick-and-mortar restaurants and delivered meals.

Compensation and Workforce Management. The execution of restaurant/dining experiences requires a focus on both hospitality and profitability – how can cultures be developed to deliver both consistently? Among the most significant challenges facing the industry are the decreasing availability, increasing cost, and high turnover in the labor force. We will examine the responses of the industry to these issues, especially in light of increasing concerns about how to bridge the gap between consumer willingness to pay/perception of value and the hurdles restaurants face in trying to pay living wages.

Two classes will be devoted to exercises that students will prepare and submit in advance of and debrief in class before industry experts who will participate in the class. These exercises will be graded.

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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Educational Objectives

The mission of Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. The question addressed in this course strikes at the heart of our mission: how is it that some individuals manage to have such an outsized impact on the world? To answer this question, students will study—and learn from—the life choices made by a variety of people who have left a lasting legacy.

Course Content

Each week, students will analyze HBS case-length biographies to understand the choices that high-impact individuals faced in their lives and the paths they chose to follow. The leaders we study come from business, science, the arts, government, humanitarian organizations, education, sports, and entertainment. Their personal lives and values are wide-ranging—and, at times, controversial. However, they all have one thing in common: they are famous because they changed the world in significant ways (see Table below for list of individuals from which we will draw subjects for class discussion).

The purpose of in-class analyses will be to uncover commonalities among these high-impact individuals: What skills did they choose to invest in early in their careers? How did they allocate their time? What did they choose not to do? How did they balance the pressures of career and family? What critical goals did they set for themselves? How did they leverage their energy and creativity? How did they discover new opportunities and new ways of seeing the world?

This course is positioned in the final semester of the MBA program for a reason: the search for patterns in choices among these prominent historical figures will challenge graduating students to think through the choices that they may want to make (or not make) in their own lives and careers.

Grading will be 40% participation, 10% for a mid-course one-page hand-in, and 50% for a short final paper. The paper will ask students to apply course concepts in two ways. First, students will be asked to choose a prominent individual not covered in class (from a subset of the people listed below) and analyze a case study about that individual, using course principles to explain the reasons for his or her success. Second, students will be asked to reflect on how they will apply what they have learned in the course to the life-choices they will inevitably face in the future.

Leaders to be Studied

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Career Focus

For MBAs who want to study the past and present to help guide their thinking about the future.

Educational Objectives

To provide an understanding of the development of entrepreneurship, modern management, business, technology and finance; to examine other institutions that have affected these areas such as governments, unions, and intellectual property rights; and to analyze the evolution of changing attitudes toward American capitalism as defined by how business leaders and other stakeholders operate.

Course Content and Organization

This course offers students an opportunity to explore the historical development of the United States as the country became increasingly industrial, urban, and technologically and financially advanced. The course covers the founding of the new nation, early entrepreneurial venturing, changes in the strategy and structure of business, the winners and losers from capitalist expansion and the impact of technology and finance.

The course's perspective provides a broad understanding of the long-term impact of technological change, entrepreneurship, and market evolution on U.S. business, managers, the work force, and government. The history of capitalism in the United States offers students a comparative point of reference for considering capitalistic development more generally and its long-term impact on material prosperity.

Students will encounter several different units of analysis: much of the focus of the course is on the individual business leader and entrepreneur, but the worker, the company, the industry, and the country are also covered. The main idea behind the course is to understand historical events, determine why certain pathways were chosen, and to use history as a guide to the present and the future.

The course is divided into four main (largely chronological) modules with a concluding session on the American Dream which covers the arc of the course:

1. The Creative and Destructive Sides of Early U.S. Capitalism (c. 1790-1870)
2. Scale and the Emergence of Organization (c. 1870-1920)
3. Prosperity, Depression and War (c. 1920-1945)
4. Innovation, Finance and Regulation (c. 1950-2008)
5. The American Dream (c. 1790 to the present)

Grading and Exam

Grading is based 50% on class participation and 50% on the exam. The exam is self-scheduled and will require a written response to an essay question (or questions) centered on the course.

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Course Content and Overview

This course provides students with a systematic approach to global competition that will enable them to create economic value and implement strategies on a global scale, even as they navigate unprecedented uncertainty caused by shifts in geopolitical and technological trends.

The course provides a platform to address the following questions:

• How can firms use their geographic footprint to build and sustain a competitive advantage? What strategies are available when competing across markets?
• How can firms split activities across geographies? What is a global product? How do offshoring decisions impact the creation and sustainability of competitive advantage? How can a leading firm preserve its ability to capture value within a fragmented value chain? How can laggard firms improve their share of value captured?
• How can firms develop a location strategy that boosts and preserves their competitive advantage? How can firms use their geographic strategy to limit their competitors?
• What is the perfect time and pace for global expansion?
• How can firms manage international M&A, alliances, and joint ventures? What challenges and opportunities do new firms face abroad? What challenges and opportunities do established firms face abroad? How can local firms compete with global giants?

The course brings together a coherent, research-based set of concepts, frameworks, tools, and practices for training managers to tackle these questions and take advantage of the multiple opportunities that a more globalized environment brings. By analyzing the challenges managers face when making decisions about location (where?), timing (when?), activity (what?), and implementation (how?), to propel global value creation (why?), the course equips students to formulate and execute successful global strategies.

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View Syllabus at https://inside.hbs.edu/Departments/mba/support/Documents/academics/ConfrontingClimateChange_syllabus.pdf

See intro video at https://player.vimeo.com/video/440464714

This is a University course and part of a new initiative with the Office of the Vice Provost Advances in Learning (VPAL). These courses are being deliberately designed to bring the entire Harvard student community together in united class sessions with dedicated sections. All graduate and undergraduate students should enroll in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences version of the course, GENED 1094. EC students would follow cross-register steps at FAS for the course.

This course will examine future climate change in the context of Earth history, and then consider various strategies for what might be done to deal with it. The likely impacts of continued greenhouse gas emissions will be explored, emphasizing the scientific uncertainties associated with various predictions, and how this can be understood in the context of risk. In the latter third of the class, the question of how to mitigate climate change will be discussed, including an examination of various options for advanced energy systems. By the end of the semester, you will be able to design a low-carbon energy system for the U.S. with a consideration of each of our four basic energy sectors (transportation, industry, residential and commercial, and electricity). You will also develop an understanding of international climate efforts and consider the policy options to combat climate change. Course site: https://locator.tlt.harvard.edu/course/colgsas-126633/2020/fall/18530

Career Focus

This course is designed for students who plan to work in firms that market to consumers or who plan to work in companies that offer support to these firms (e.g., consulting).

Educational Objectives

The course will focus exclusively on consumer markets, and will address in greater depth many of the consumer marketing concepts introduced in First-Year Marketing, including understanding customers, bringing new products to market, pricing, and managing customers over time. The concepts explored will draw from economics, behavioral decision making, and psychology. The goal will be to understand how customers make their decisions in the real world.

We will explore these concepts using a variety of cases taken from package goods, consumer technologies, and entertainment, among others.

Course Content and Organization

The course will consist of 14 classroom sessions and will be largely case-based with a few exercises. Grading will be based on in-class participation and a final exam.

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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 two versions of the course, students cannot take both of them.

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

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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Course Content and Organization

PURPOSE:

Far more value has been created in the last two decades by new companies, like Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet, than by entrenched incumbents, such as P&G or Ford, which struggle to eke out a tiny market share gain. However, many incredibly 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 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.

In this regard, the course is vital to everyone who wants to move beyond classic strategy as “competitive positioning” to understand how to create enormous entrepreneurial value by developing new business models, and to master, as consultants and managers, the actual practice of strategy by continually adapting a firm’s activities to the evolving external opportunity set.

Within this landscape, the Corporate Strategy course addresses three questions. The first, and most fundamental is, “How do companies create shareholder value across multiple markets?” 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?” All companies, whether large diversified multinationals or small entrepreneurial startups wrestle with these issues, and their appropriate resolution has enormous impact on performance.

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 different strategies at firms like 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 and 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 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.

The perspective adopted throughout the course is that of the CEO of the corporation and the pragmatic challenges top managers face in managing a multi-business entity. Thus the course should appeal to anyone interested in managing, financing, advising, or investing in a company that operates in multiple, businesses, geographies, or activities.

To adapt to the new class experience, the course will include some pedagogical differences and innovations. First, we intend to have more case protagonists attending class than usual. Those who attended the course in the Spring included Josh Targoff (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]. Second, we will include among the regular case classes, current examples of the topic or concept under discussion. Third, there will be video lectures to go with formal notes that function as module summaries you can study on your own time. Finally, as a tradeoff with somewhat fewer class sessions, there will be assignments asking you to apply the course frameworks as help in preparing your final paper.

[1] See D. Collis, “Wither Strategy?” Harvard Business Review forthcoming 2021.

[2] R. Coase “The Nature of the Firm,“ Economica: 1937 for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1991 and which demonstrates why a single firm does not control all economic activity.

[3] Please note that, particularly in these times, invited guests might be unable to attend class.

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

Class meets weekly on Tuesdays as a section. There are 11 section meetings during the semester, on all Tuesdays, except for the open Tuesday (11/8) and the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (11/22).

Class also meets on Wednesday nights to enable unique interactions with HBS alumni and other guests.

• Six Wednesday nights during the semester will meet in-person for events which last for two- to three-hours (depending on the event) and will always occur in the 6:00-9:00 p.m. window. These events will include a range of different types of opportunities to interact with alumni and other guests. See below for details and dates.

• Five Wednesday nights are time blocks that are meant for you to conduct the five interviews that are a key component of this course. These five evening sessions do not require your attendance, nor are you obligated to complete the interviews on Wednesday evenings. Rather, you and your interviewees should find mutually agreeable times to talk. The intention of calling out these five sessions is to help you set aside time for these conversations, and in the case of the first two interviews, make sure that there are others available during this window, to make scheduling easier. These interviews typically last about an hour and require some time to capture your post interview reflections.

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 in the years 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.

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 manage competing demands for my time, energy, and attention across the different aspects of my life?
• How do I create and change habits that enable me to continue making progress towards the life that I want? Am I aware of and making the best use of my strengths?
• How do I use my time on a daily and weekly basis? How would I ideally use my time and how do I make those changes?
• How do I create structures for navigating life, with all of its twists and turns, with a life partner?
• How do I think about my choice of geography?
• 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 think about taking risk, and rebounding and being resilient in the face of disappointment or failure?
• 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?

This course is not about creating a rigid 10-year plan. There is no “right” answer for crafting your life. What works for you might not work for others, and what works today might not work tomorrow. You will continue to craft your life as experiences (both those within and outside of your control) shape you over time.

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. We are committed to continuing to innovate the course—developing and testing novel models, teaching plans, and materials with each new version—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. LIFE is a chance for you to learn about yourself by learning with others. 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. When you graduate from the course, you will join a community of LIFERs (students who have graduated from the course before you) who are invested in supporting each other in life’s ongoing journey. LIFERs 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 rich 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. Beyond the course, LIFE is developing a suite of technology tools that will enable HBS to surface alumni learning needs across their lifespan, and to better connect alumni to one another. LIFE students and LIFERs are at the forefront of how HBS is evolving its value proposition as early adopters for this broader initiative.

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 six Wednesday nights for two- to three-hours between 6:00-9:00 p.m. Like any other HBS class, there is the traditional preparation required for our Tuesday classes, which includes reading cases, vignettes, articles, book chapters, and completing exercises and assessments. The Wednesday sessions, however, are unique. There are six Wednesday nights where you will meet in person and learn from each other and alumni through special events and experiences. There are five Wednesday nights set aside for you to conduct the five interviews required throughout the semester.

Six Wednesday Evening Sessions Requiring your Physical Attendance.

These six sessions are unique experiences that involve HBS alumni and other guests, and the time is set to best accommodate their schedules. These evening sessions are classes, and you are required to attend all six evening sessions:

• Community Celebration — 9/7. We will start the semester with an informal gathering where we will meet several local alumni. You will have the opportunity to engage these alumni in a conversation about what they thought their life would be like when they were EC students, and how their life actually unfolded with an emphasis on what they learned along the way. We will also start to get to know one another, and think about how we can build community over the course of the semester.
• Partner Workshop — 10/19. This workshop is designed to help you think about—and practice—how to productively structure conversations about important life decisions with important people in your life. It can be easy in a relationship to assume that a partner intuitively understands our needs, priorities, or goals without explicitly discussing them, and it’s similarly easy to assume that we understand what really matters to our partner and act based on these assumptions. This workshop is a way to help close this communication gap and encourage regular conversations. Please note: This workshop has been carefully designed to be inclusive of all students. You need not be in a romantic relationship. 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.
• Alumni Panel: Resilience — 11/2. We will invite several alumni to share their experiences of risk taking and facing unexpected life events that span the personal and the professional—ranging from job loss, to infertility, to divorce, to mental health. You will have the opportunity to speak with these alumni to learn how they worked through—or are working through—these challenging moments.
• Alumni Reception — Tentatively 11/9. 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 identify the topics that you would most like to discuss.
• Alumni Panel: Friendship and Other Support Relationships — 11/16. The relationships that you cultivate with the friends you make throughout your life will have a significant impact on your overall life satisfaction, and your ability to weather life’s ups and downs. Having friends to whom you can turn for support and guidance in difficult moments is critical. But maintaining friendships can be challenging when the demands of career and/or family require more and more of our time. Several alumni will join us to share their stories of maintaining and growing their friendships by introducing structure and intentionality into these relationships.
• LIFER Celebration and Museum — 11/30. This is our final gathering as a class—and the start of our journey together as LIFERs. We will do three related things: 1) Enjoy a museum featuring artifacts created by you that will serve as a reminder of your key learnings from the semester; 2) Discuss how we want to continue to engage during our remaining time at HBS and life beyond; and 3) Be joined by students from past years to welcome you into the LIFER community.

Five Wednesday Sessions Dedicated to Interviewing Alumni.

The remaining five Wednesday sessions are dedicated times during which you can complete the five interviews you will be expected to conduct during the semester. On the Wednesdays set aside for interviews, you can choose to use the allocated time to complete your interviews or use a different block of time—whatever you and your interviewee prefer.

These interviews include one with a current student, one with a former student (LIFER), and three alumni interviews. You will be able to choose any alumni you would like, but we have assembled a rich data base of alumni willing to speak on over 100 topics. If you choose, you will be able to submit your topic and be matched with an alum who has identified their willingness to speak to students on that topic.

These interviews usually last about an hour and then require you to write-up your learnings. These interviews and your learnings will be a core component of your final paper.

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 your three module reflections and five interview summaries, and the intent of the final paper is to tie it all together. 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.

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

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 and better understand how to value brand equity.

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, 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 six 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?

• Can brands be repositioned? What opportunities and challenge do managers encounter when trying to change the meaning of a brand?

• 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?

• Under which conditions is brand equity diminished or destroyed? What can managers do to prevent and/or mitigate this?

• How should brands best manage brand crises to maintain consumers’ trust and loyalty?

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 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 bring customers closer to each other and to the brand?

• How can the metaverse brings consumers and brands together?

Module 5: Brand Valuation

Key questions will include:

• How do brands create shareholder value? How can a strong brand increase returns, reduce variability in cash flows, and insulate a company from market downturns? How can brands be used to manage a firm’s risk exposure?

• What are best practices for brand valuation? How does one value a brand asset?

• Why should CEOs, corporate boards, and investors invest in brands? What is the return-on-investment (ROI) of branding?

Module 6: Personal Branding

Key questions will include:

• How can you leverage the learnings of the course to create your own personal brand?

Grading:

Grades will be earned through the following activities:

• 50% Class Participation and In-Class Lab Exercises

• 50% Final Exam

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

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.

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

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.

Copyright © 2021 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

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

The class sessions will be 2 hours, except for the first and last class, which will be regular length (80 min). The number of sessions will be reduced proportionally to reflect the longer class time.

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

Due to important 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.

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

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%).

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 © 2022 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 a critical prerequisite to management. 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, impact investing, and effective philanthropy. 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. For each of these methods, students will conduct guided statistical analyses and discuss how their conclusions inform managerial problems. 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 social enterprise.

Copyright © 2022 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.

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.

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.

Educational Objectives

The course is designed to help students in two ways: by presenting tools and processes for dealing with uncertainty, but more importantly for developing intuition about how to deal with risky situations both in business and everyday life.

Content and Organization

Many of the decisions we face are made complicated by having uncertain consequences: how should I set my inventory when I don’t know what demand will be, should I refinance my mortgage when rates might go lower, how big a bet shall I make in a new business, and so on. Evidently a proper examination of these problems requires thinking through the possible outcomes of any decision, an understanding of how likely the various possible outcomes are, and a system for weighing the pros and cons of the alternatives. The course will provide tools for handling all three of these aspects. The reality is that formal analyses are usually carried out when you are preparing a recommendation for someone else. This course will teach you how to do that, but even more importantly, it will teach you how to think about risky situations so that it becomes part of your instinctive approach to problems.

The first half of the course is about techniques for appraising specific problems. It consists of a somewhat traditional approach to the subject of decision analysis. We begin with estimating probabilities through subjective belief (personal experience and judgement), using experts, and using data. We will cover regression analysis, updating beliefs based on evidence, evaluating hypotheses, and the use of scenarios. We will cover the evaluation of alternatives using decision trees, simulation and preference analysis.

The second half of the course is about using systematic strategies to reduce risk. We will practice estimating exposure (e.g. how much will you lose/gain if interest rates go up), learn hedging techniques to reduce exposure (for example by insurance or using the futures market), the merits of diversification and the use of options. The final few classes applies the techniques we have covered to the analysis of personal risks. We will consider both rational and psychological aspects of risk taking.

The course is about techniques and approaches. You don’t have to be a quant jock to learn a lot from the course, but you shouldn’t take the course if you don’t enjoy using spreadsheets. Some students will have seen decision trees and forecasting before. For these students there will be some duplication but I believe the course has much more to offer. Most of the sessions will be based on exercises or short cases in order that we focus on the underlying ideas, but the situations we discuss will be based on real problems that did happen to businesses or individuals.

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 © 2022 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.

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 basic premise of the course is that the digital revolution is rapidly transforming the fundamental nature of many companies in a wide range of industries and executives, entrepreneurs and general managers need to 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 the development of 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 now establishing market leadership by mastering digital innovation. For example the traditional "Mad Men" advertising agencies now have to be able to blend digital products and services with creative strategy. Amazon is as much a retailer and supply chain powerhouse as it is a digital innovator. Similarly the Netflix business model is heavily reliant on continuously building and enhancing digital products and services to compete against incumbents in the entertainment industry. Ford is realizing that its future competitors are likely to be Facebook and Google and not BMW and Toyota. Meanwhile, Local Motors, an HBS-alum led startup, is using crowdsourcing, digital fabrication and 3D printing to disrupt the automotive industry.

The course introduces you to the critical elements of designing and developing digital products and services, how these can be configured and lead, 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, harnessing crowdsourcing and distributed innovation networks.

Course Content

The course materials intentionally cuts across functional boundaries, for the focus is 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, not as a technologist. If you happen to be a technologist, however, the managerial perspective will be enriching! 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, functional manager, 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 models;
• How to best organize and lead product and service innovation initiatives in the digital space;
• The principles and practices of leveraging crowds for innovation and how various crowdsourcing business models are executed.

An important component of the course is the HBS Digital Initiative Summit, which will bring together leading practitioners at the cutting edge of digital technologies to discuss emerging issues.

Grading

Grading will be based on class participation and blog posts.

Copyright © 2022 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

Digital marketing has transformed the 21^st century and has upended the playbooks of every major corporation. This Digital Marketing elective course will teach you how you can unleash your digital marketing prowess over 7 weeks of hands-on exercises and data analysis. You will be taught by the best of the best experts from the leading performance marketing firms in North America. Combined these four firms manage over 10B of media spend annually across the digital marketing industry.

This is a half-course based on lectures and exercises to help students learn the modern tools of Digital Marketing and how to use them effectively in a Marketing Campaign. Students will apply the learnings from each class to a simulated business to get a hands on experience with the tools and continuous feedback on what they are learning.

Educational Objectives

The Digital marketing Workshop will teach you how to effectively use the digital marketing tools to be effective at marketing. These will include an understanding and deployment of Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Search Engine Management(SEM), Measuring Impact of Media Strategy, Social Media Marketing, Selling on Amazon Platform, Understanding, Buying and Deploying Programmatic Display Ads, SMS/Mobile Marketing, WebAnalytics and Data Science.

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 7 weeks of hands-on exercises.

2. Familiarize yourself with the final presentation expectations.

3. Understand the Digital marketing landscape

Module 2: Search Engine Marketing and Google Shopping

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

1. Be able to understand every lever you can pull in setting up a Google Adwords and Google Shopping Account

2. You will leave the section knowing what are the best practices and optimization techniques for creating a positive ROI using Google.

Module 3: Search Engine Optimization

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

1. Perform an SEO Audit

2. Analyze SEO data and analytics

3. Understand how SEO works

4. See how SEO fits into the overall Marketing Strategy

Module 4: Performance Partnerships

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

1. Understand what an affiliate/partner program is, how it works and how influencer marketing is integrating

2. How it differs from other digital marketing channels (SEM, Paid Social, etc)

3. Who the key players in the affiliate/partnership space are and what technology is used.

4. Why partnerships are the future of marketing

Module 5: SMS/Mobile Marketing

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

1. Understanding the entirety of the mobile ecosystem is essential for founders, entrepreneurs, CMOs, and marketers of all levels.

2. Use Audience development (tools such as Global Web Index, Data.ai)

3. Understand App Store Optimization (ASO) and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) for mobile and technical requirements

Module 6: Amazon and Retail Media Marketing

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

1. Understanding the power of the Amazon DSP

2. How Brands sell on Amazon

3. How brands win on Amazon

Module 7: Display Advertising

Students will walk away understanding how this complex group of ad tech tools interact with each other and have awareness of when you place an ad online understanding the different layers of touchpoints the ad travels before the user sees it.

Module 8: Social Media Advertising

Students will be immersed in the day-to-day activities of paid social media strategy, planning, and activation, highlighting the work that goes into developing successful, bespoke paid social programs

Module 9: Media Planning

learn how media strategies are developed and deployed into market, grounded in actual advertiser goals and data. Students will be immersed in the day to day activities of media strategy, highlighting the work that goes into executing successful, bespoke media plans.

Modules 10-13:

The program is designed to offer students a chance to learn marketing analytics as practiced in the industry, immersed in actual industry use cases with real-world data.

The following topics will be covered:

o Marketing attribution

o Web analytics

o Marketing measurement

o Experimentation

o Incrementality

Modules 14: Final Presentations

Upon successful completion of this week, you should be able to: Present traffic models and forecasts to the class

Grading:

Grades will be earned through the following activities:

• 80% Class Participation and In-Class Exercises

• 20% Final Exam

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

Course Overview

Virtually every organization considers growth a critical objective. But while almost universally desired, and much talked about, enterprise growth is quite poorly understood. Careful empirical studies show that very few enterprises grow profitably over sustained periods of time. Indeed, many organizations’ pursuit of growth is the very cause of their demise. How can companies grow profitably? This course examines this question. It focuses on three components of an organization’s growth strategy: the rate of growth, the direction of growth (e.g. penetrate existing markets vs. diversification), and the method of growth (e.g. organic vs. acquisition).

The conceptual framework of the course is built around the idea that growth is a dynamic process of balancing the pursuit of market opportunities with the capacity and capability to serve those opportunities. The course is divided into four modules.

Module 1: Introduction--Growth Strategy

In this module, we introduce the key themes and conceptual underpinnings of the course. A key idea is that growth strategy involves choices about the rate of growth, direction of growth, and method of growth.

Module 2: Growth Through Expanding Scale

This module focuses on the challenges of expanding organizational scale in order to meet demand. In this section of the course, the focal problem is not generating demand to fuel growth, but rather scaling the organization to profitably meet rising demand. This section of the course focuses on operational, organizational, and cultural challenges of rapid growth, and how to avoid the pitfalls of rapid growth sowing the seeds of failure. Typically, cases in this module examine younger smaller enterprises facing significant opportunities for rapid growth.

Module 3: Growth Through Expanding Scope

This module examines the challenges of generating growth by expanding the scope of the company through entry into new markets and diversification. This module features more mature organizations struggling to find new growth opportunities.

Module 4: Sustaining a Capacity for Growth: Innovation, Transformation, and Agility

Organizations grow over long periods of time by adapting to and exploiting fundamental shifts in their core technologies and markets. Thus, long term growth requires a capacity for innovation, transformation, and agility. This final module of the course explores the organizational, cultural, and leadership underpinnings of these long-term growth drivers.

The course will use a mixture of case studies drawn from a variety of contexts, including food and beverages, restaurants, airlines, social enterprises, luxury goods and services, rescue operations, technology, life sciences, manufacturing, apparel, automobiles, software, and entertainment. We will also use readings to introduce the theoretical and conceptual foundations of the course.

Course Requirements

The course will have a final exam.

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

This 1.5 credit course was a late addition to the Fall 2022 catalogue and enrollment will be done entirely through the add/drop process. If you are interested in adding this course, please use the EC Toolkit to enter an add request.

Overview

This course is about political campaign strategies and tactics; issues that divide the country and are weaponized by politicians; and the role of business leaders in the political process. The course will focus on the 2022 midterm elections. Half the sessions will be held before the November midterm elections where we will focus on campaign strategies and tactics. The other half of the course will meet after the elections where we will more deeply explore the issues and role of business leaders in the political process.

Each session will include a guest(s) that is active in the political arena. The guests and instructors will represent both sides of the political spectrum and the course will focus on critical thinking, strategy, and execution rather than ideology or partisan political philosophy.

A political campaign is essentially a startup venture, especially for the non-incumbent. In the first half of the course, we will provide a private sector perspective on political campaign strategies and tactics. We will draw upon principles of corporate strategy, marketing, and finance as well as entrepreneurial frameworks such as product ~ market fit, structured experimentation and staged financings to identify the strategies and tactics of a successful political campaign. We will begin with an overview of the 2022 midterm elections and what is at stake. We will then use private sector concepts and frameworks to understand and analyze the major components and frameworks of a successful political campaign. Topics will include voter segmentation, messaging, communications (paid and earned media), digital media, fundraising, field operations, and debate strategy. We will also compare how the components of these strategies differ between the political and private sectors.

In the second half of the course, we will focus on the major issues and contextual factors surrounding the 2022 midterm elections. Among other topics, we will discuss the major political wedge issues dividing the country, mechanics of congress, impact of social media on the political process, money in politics, role of the press and a critique of the US major two-party system. Finally, we will explore the role of business leaders in the political process.

Leaders in the public and private sectors should fully understand the political process, the ramifications of elections, and become active participants in the process. The course is intended to engage students that have deep interest and backgrounds in politics as well as political novices. Students who hope to be a future candidate, plan to advise a candidate or are generally interested in politics may find the course interesting and useful. Although we will be focusing on the US elections, the concepts will be broadly applicable, and we welcome students from other countries.

The 2022 midterm elections may be the most consequential elections of our lifetime and promise to be highly contentious in this hyper-polarized environment. Democrats and Republicans will be fighting for control of the US Senate, US House of Representatives, Governorships, and state legislatures across the country. Because these elections could tip the balance of power in both the House and Senate, the outcomes will have far reaching implications on domestic and foreign policy, judicial appointments and how government functions.

Assignments and Grading

Assignments will include some cases, assigned readings and lots of attention to campaign developments and world events. Grading will be based on class participation, several short submissions, and a final personal reflection.

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

Please see this video to learn more about this course

Career Focus

This course is intended for students pursuing a range of career options as business operators, investors, and/or consultants. First, it would be of interest to those who at some point in their career see themselves as a CEO or senior manager potentially leading a troubled enterprise (small, medium, or large) through a crisis or through significant performance transformation. Secondly, it would be important for investors who may be in distressed, special situations, or restructuring-oriented investing or would be investing in assets needing significant performance improvement. Finally, it will be of value to those who expect to support or interface with troubled enterprises as management consultants or as a restructuring advisors.

Educational Objectives

The focus of this course is the leader as a strategist, architect, decision maker, and change agent in a turnaround or transformation environment. This course will present situations where you can analyze potential opportunity in turnaround situations and decide if there is a reasonable chance for the managers in the case to create value. It will also present many situations where you will be challenged to develop a plan of action for the managers that will lead to the creation and realization of value. Importantly, our newly expanded curriculum will include a number of practical ‘how to’ sessions covering topics such as designing turnaround programs, successfully driving necessary cultural change, transformation performance management techniques and systems, and common commercial and operating transformation improvement levers. Some of these sessions will include and be co-taught with practicing executives and advisors. In others, we will invite case protagonists and guest speakers who have decades of hands-on experience to share with the class. In short, this course is about architecting and successfully driving large-scale transformation. We will examine a broad array of factors involved in a turnaround, including financial, strategic, organizational, and cultural factors.

Course Content and Organization

The course will include some brand-new cases (e.g., Netflix, Etsy, Panera, Blackberry, and the Seattle Seahawks), with the CEO protagonists present in class, in order to give students first-hand exposure to turnaround challenges. We will look at a range of organizations, including small and large companies, family-owned ventures, private and public firms, and US and international companies.

The course will be organized around five key dimensions of turnarounds: financial, strategic, organizational, cultural, and leadership. The course opens and closes with critical lessons and devotes an equal number of cases to each of the dimensions.

Leadership: The opening and closing of the course will be devoted to analyzing leadership skills fundamental to planning and executing successful turnarounds. We will examine, among others, the importance of personal and organizational resilience, the management of critical thinking (logos), emotions (pathos), and relationships (ethos), and the challenges involved in professionalizing a leadership team in a crisis.

Strategy: The strategic dimension of a turnaround involves defining a new direction for the organization. The course will feature strategic challenges turnaround leaders often face, such as managing complexity and strategic dualities, addressing marketing myopia, examining core capabilities that have morphed into rigidities, and reining in disorganized innovation efforts.

Finance: The financial dimension is central to most turnarounds. The course will present situations where leaders must make critical decisions regarding the management of cash flow, the convenience of keeping or divesting assets, and the possibility of restructuring debt, among others.

Organization: The organizational dimension of a turnaround encompasses three mutually-reinforcing elements: structure, processes, and people. The course will focus on fundamental organizational challenges such as streamlining the organization, simplifying structure, and redesigning core processes while sustaining morale, retaining key talent, and energizing people.

Culture: Culture is often overlooked as a factor that leads to crisis in organizations. However, given the “sticky” nature of culture (it persists over time more than any other component of the organization), it is often neglected. The course will feature situations where leaders must reassess organizational culture, values, and purpose.

While these dimensions are analytically distinct, they interact with and shape each other. We will reinforce a holistic view of turnarounds that simultaneously encompasses all these dimensions by looking at their impact across the four key stages in the life-cycle of a turnaround: (1) triage (assessing whether the company is indeed worth saving), (2) crisis management (stopping the negative cash flow and erosion of morale and talent), (3) stabilizing the situation (building a stable management team that can lead to growth and future profitability), and (4) planning the future (developing a strategy and a structure suited to ensuring the company’s long-term viability).

Interwoven throughout the course will be practical ‘how-to’ sessions that will marry the strategic thinking of five dimensions and the four stages with the actual practical tools and approaches that ensure execution success. These toolkits will include topics such such quantitative improvement opportunity scans, turnaround program construction methods, leadership assessment and upgrade techniques, turnaround performance management system design, resetting mission / vision / values and incentives, communications in turnarounds, the basics of re-orgs and re-processing, common commercial improvement levers (e.g., e-commerce / digital transformation, sales force effectiveness programs), and common operational improvement levers (e.g., SG&A reduction programs, supply chain restructuring programs). These sessions will be led by practicing executives and advisors.

This course will be 28 class sessions that will be primarily case-oriented with some additional readings and high-profile in-class speakers and a few project days.

This course complements Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring and Financial Management of Smaller Firms.

Potential Guest Speakers

Through case discussions and intimate interactions with guests, you will get an authentic view of what it is like to manage a turnaround. Guest speakers from last year and/or those tentatively scheduled for the Fall 2022 class are:

Alaska Airlines (Ben Minicucci, CEO)

Baxter (José “Joe” Almeida, CEO)

Best Buy (Corrie Barry, CEO)

BlackBerry (John Chen, CEO; Mark Wilson, CMO)

Bühler Group (Stefan Scheiber, CEO)

Dole Sunshine Company (Pier Luigi Sigismondi, President)

Etsy (Josh Silverman, CEO; Mike Fisher, CTO)

FBI (Robert “Bob” Mueller, Former FBI Director)

LEGO (Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO)

Levi Strauss (Harmit Singh, EVP, CFO)

Mahindra Group (Anand Mahindra, Chairman)

Micromax (Rahul Sharma, Co-Founder)

Microsoft (Kathleen Hogan, Chief People Officer)

Panera (Niren Chaudhary, CEO)

Seattle Seahawks (Pete Carroll, Head Football Coach)

University of Alabama (Nick Saban, Head Football Coach)

Veeva (Matt Wallach, Co-Founder)

Xerox (Anne Mulcahy, Former CEO)

Final Paper

Students will work individually or in teams of two. You will choose a turnaround and examine it applying the tools and principles from the course. In the write-up, I expect that you will explain what you did (brief description of turnaround, why you chose it, which tools from the course were used, etc.) and what you learned (general principles around turnarounds, applying the tools, etc.). A detailed summary of the outline for this paper will be provided at the start of the term.

Copyright © 2022 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 and 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. 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. Then it moves into the more complex subject of how to build, manage, and scale the first sales force. The course covers subjects such as building compensation systems, setting up the first revenue plan, designing the first sales team, managing channel conflicts, opening sales offices and other complex sales and sales management situations. In the final module of the course, we will apply these sales skills to seemingly non-sales roles, such as venture capitalist, management consultant, CEO of a public company, executive director of a non-profit, and raising capital as a founder. Not only do these professionals need to understand how to setup sales in the organizations they build, run, advise, and invest in, but they also need to apply the raw skill of selling to succeed in their own roles.

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. A few cases focus on selling to investors and strategic partners. 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 ‘freemium’ models and social networking 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 and sales management is a highly experiential, hands on skill that requires role playing and iterative practice to master. As such, Entrepreneurial Sales 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 28 in classroom sessions. 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 © 2022 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 © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

EGC discusses the history of the modern world through the entrepreneurs who shaped it. It emphasizes the challenging contexts these entrepreneurs faced in their times, the difficult decisions they made, and the legacies they left behind. The course is relevant to all future leaders operating in today’s global context, as it considers the roles of entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors, inventors, philanthropists, and politicians.

Cases follow the lives of some of the most successful entrepreneurs and leaders in history throughout different eras of globalization and deglobalization, across a broad range of contexts and industries from the opium wars to the luxury fashion industry. In addition to character lessons from these entrepreneurs, students will learn to understand how the modern business environment came about, and to think strategically about how value can be derived in volatile circumstances with unpredictable political contexts as well as micro and macro-economic shifts.

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 © 2022 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%).

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

Career Focus

You should take this course if you expect to found or join a startup, especially in a marketing, sales operations, or business development role; or if you expect to join a VC, PE or other entity (e.g., search fund) that evaluates the go-to-market activities of ventures. The course examines firms in various settings (high-tech, low-tech, professional services, retail-based, others). It builds on concepts introduced in RC Marketing and TEM, and is a complement to EC courses on sales, ecommerce, product management, and launching technology ventures.

Educational Objectives

Startups face challenges with customer acquisition at stages from customer discovery to scaling. This course examines some (not all) representative issues and tools for that context.

At the outset, startups often have few or no systems to manage customer acquisition, including for basic issues such as identifying and prioritizing customer segments, establishing the marketing budget, choosing marketing options ranging from SEM or inbound methods or paid advertising, and so on. In addition, marketing and selling in startups are intimately linked with evolving business-model decisions, not just “handled” by separate marketing or sales functions. At the same time, startups must understand and navigate the relevant buyer journey(s) while conserving scarce capital. Then, moving from early adopters to more mainstream customer groups is often a scaling requirement. This introduces issues involved in adapting marketing processes put in place at earlier stages.

Course Content and Organization

The course begins with (and throughout has a heavy emphasis on) tactical issues in understanding buying behavior and the implications for marketing and business development, and then moves to wider topics in growing a customer base. The core modules are:

1. Identifying and Understanding Buyers: Customer Discovery, Buyer Personas, and Buyer Journeys
2. The Marketer’s Toolkit: Brand, Storytelling, Data Analytics, Community
3. Marketing Analytics: Digital Marketing, Pricing, and Channel Management
4. The Go-To-Market Team: What Roles, When to Hire, How to Pay
5. Scaling the Venture: New Offerings, New Geographies, Growing the Team (Sales, BD, and Marketing)

There is no final exam. Instead, students form teams and focus on a field-based final paper. The case studies and guest lectures provide tools, frameworks, and learnings about customer acquisition topics in startups: what to do and why. In the projects, students focus on an issue required to help build a specific venture’s customer base: how to do it and application of analytics. Each team of 2-4 students must map the relevant buying journey for that venture, interview customers and/or business development people, apply their learnings to a specific marketing or sales topic, and present their analyses and recommendations in a final paper.

Projects can be sourced by the students (e.g., your venture, or a venture you know or want to know) and the professor will also post projects sponsored by alumni and others. Projects should involve designing and testing specific marketing methods for customer-acquisition and retention (e.g., refining a paid advertising campaign, crafting content marketing, running pricing A/B tests) rather than focusing solely on market or industry analyses or strategy formulation. Examples of project topics that students might pursue include:

• Conduct customer interviews to learn about prospects’ buying criteria and decision-making process.
• Develop criteria for screening beta customers for a startup’s first product; then identify and recruit pilot participants based on these criteria.
• Create personas and then use them to choose marketing media and craft messages.
• Develop or change a startup’s pricing strategy, understanding the links between pricing, value proposition, and the recommended sales approach.
• Develop criteria for qualifying and prioritizing leads generated through different marketing methods.
• Develop an account prioritization scheme.
• Run a Kickstarter campaign.
• Plan and execute an inbound marketing program: use blog posts or social media to generate leads.
• Craft a plan for choosing or managing channel partners, including approaches for recruitment, training, monitoring; develop fee structures and marketing materials for partners.
• Develop and a process for conducting relevant and falsifiable go-to-market experiments.
• Create dashboards that automate cohort analyses and assess ROI for different marketing programs.

Deliverables will include an early work plan and a final team paper (can be a PowerPoint presentation or a written document). Along with the team’s final paper, each team member will also submit a brief essay (1-2 pages) about what s/he learned (professionally and/or personally), and the context(s) in which those lessons do and do not apply.

Copyright © 2022 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 © 2022 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.

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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.

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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:

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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 Black, Latinx and immigrant small business owners who are poorly served by the small business finance sector. 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 from an HBS Impact Investment Fund of $25,000 to $50,000 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 and operational diligence of small businesses, as well as to provide hands-on experience with the investment process, from sourcing opportunities, 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 in Black, Latinx and immigrant small businesses in the Boston region, and nationally
• To increase familiarity and collaboration between HBS students and businesses (including their customers and employees) in communities in and around Boston that they might not otherwise be familiar with.

Course Content and Organization

The course primarily involves small teams of students (3-5 per team) conducting investment due diligence on local Black, Latinx and immigrant small business owners who are looking for investment to scale their businesses. In partnership with a number of Boston-area networks (e.g. Boston Impact Initiative, Foundation for Business Equity, New Profit, Visible Hands) that are seeking to promote the growth of small businesses, teams of students will be conducting financial, commercial and operational diligence on prospective investments from the HBS Impact Investments Fund. Students will also be providing business advisory support for companies that have already been supported with investment 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:

• Due Diligence Plan: 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 Kennedy School of Government students enrolled in a joint MBA program.

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Prerequisite

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

Career Focus

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

Students will meet on selected dates:

January 30 - Professor Herzlinger discusses research strategies and the course overview. Students present preliminary ideas .

February 6 – Students discuss their research ideas and plans with their classmates

Students will develop a work plan after the second session that contains a detailed, time phased description of how they will develop a feasible business plan. In subsequent individual team meetings with Prof . Herzlinger ,students will discuss their progress on this work plan. These meetings will occur on a biweekly basis with an agenda sent to Prof Herzlinger four business days prior to the meeting .

March 20- Students present their progress in class

April 3 and April 10 - Students present their results to their classmates. Students email their presentations to Professor Herzlinger and their fellow classmates four business days before their presentation.

Students discuss their progress in regular bi weekly meetings they schedule with Prof. Herzlinger. They send their agenda two business day prior to the meeting

Classmates send written feedback to other teams and Prof. Herzlinger by Tuesday, April 25

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The greater Boston area is home to some of the world’s finest research laboratories, which secure billions of dollars in government, non-profit, and private funding to advance the frontiers of knowledge. To bring these technologies to market, there is an ever-growing need for managers who can work in technical multidisciplinary teams, develop ideas, secure funding, and (hopefully) pursue commercial opportunities.

The Lab to Market field course is designed to outline a path that begins with a discovery in a lab, and then pushes towards the market. The course is designed for students who want to pursue management or entrepreneurship opportunities in science-focused organizations.

The course covers such issues as creating value from science and technology innovations, the management of scientists, intellectual property, and organizational models of science and technology-based ventures.

By design, a significant share of the students in the class will be cross-registrants from Harvard Medical School, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard Law School, and the MIT Sloan Fellows Program. This highly diverse student body provides a unique opportunity for cross-disciplinary learning.

Students will work in multidisciplinary teams to develop plans around real intellectual property emerging from world-class laboratories at local scientific research institutions. Course faculty will provide mentoring and advice for project teams, and students will ideally work directly with principal investigators from research labs.

HBS Lab to Market is open to cross-registrants. Interested cross-registrants should submit a resume here. The faculty will review all cross-registration candidates and select a subset that will reflect a balanced diversity of relevant fields of study to create interdisciplinary student teams.

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Course Overview

Private Equity Projects is a hybrid field and lecture series which provides the opportunity to work hands-on with leading private equity firms on projects of “mutual value” and to learn about the so many things critical to success in PE beyond the transaction itself. Over thirty firms have participated with an over 90% requested renewal rate.

Through project work, students will get the opportunity to "practice private equity" in a setting as close to authentic as possible. Projects will entail many different aspects of private equity, and students will work directly with private equity firms and/or portfolio companies. A final presentation is made to a component of the private equity firm investment committee. Project work is designed to be of mutual value to students and the PE partner. Students are permitted, upon firm review, to list the projects and the firm on their resumes.

The course is structured so that students can be exposed to the inner workings of up to ten PE firms at once. Private equity firms hosting student projects for the 2023 year could include Abry Partners, Advent, Apollo, Bain Capital, CD&R, Great Hill, KKR, L Catterton, New Mountain, Odyssey, Warburg, Summit Partners, and TH Lee. The course has enjoyed very high ratings from both the PE firms and students for several years and is an excellent relationship-building opportunity.

Projects range from sector vertical analysis, re-underwriting failed deals, deal sourcing, platform deal add-on strategies, and much more. The workload is carefully managed.

In addition to the projects, a very popular slate of PE professionals provides full-class lectures on a variety of PE topics, including Deal Sourcing, Portfolio Operations, Capital Formation, PE CEO's, First Time Funds, Career Management, Recent Alumni Retrospectives, "Getting Paid" and Product Line Extensions. The professor pushes guests hard to maximize learning for the students.

Professor Dionne also provides a popular Random Musings report stemming from his role as Blackstone Senior Advisor, his PE fund formation business, and director of many companies.

There is virtually no overlap with Starting Your Private Investment Firm, which Professor Dionne co-founded as a SIP, or PE Finance. Professor Dionne will make inquiries of professors of each course and modify content as needed.

Who Teaches This Course?

The course will be taught by John Dionne, a Blackstone Senior Advisor and Senior Managing Director of seventeen years. Mr. Dionne was a Member of the Private Equity and GSO investment committees and has led investments totaling $4 billion of equity over his career in Distressed and PE investing. He co-founded five multi-billion investment vehicles, including Blackstone's Tactical Opportunities Fund, its Energy fund, and its Distressed Securities Fund. He has served on fourteen boards and raised more than $30 billion in equity capital.

Professor Dionne ensures he is accessible to the various needs of his students.

Enrollment

The course could be open for limited cross-registration, and enrollment will be limited to 50 students.

Enrollment is by application only. To apply, please submit your CV and a brief one-page summary explaining your interest in the course to this link by January 6th, 2023. Early applicants are encouraged.

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 asked of students by organizations. While students are typically not charged a course fee for taking an EC field course, students may be responsible for minimal out-of-pocket costs (varies per course); however, funding is provided for local travel to partner locations.

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Applications, to be reviewed by Prof. Fleiss, must be submitted through this form. which provides more details on specific projects. Applicants must complete application steps by August 25, will be informed of enrollment decisions by August 29. Successful applicants who choose to enroll will use the Add/Drop process as needed to adjust other credits for the term.

Course Overview Video

Course Overview

This field-based 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.

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 spend time shadowing other functions within the firm to better grasp the investment process.

The majority of the work 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 together for 8-10 sessions 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 the work students are doing in the field; there may also be time outside of the classroom to engage these guests for feedback on the projects. Students will be expected to present twice during the semester. There will be a brief presentation mid-way through the semester to update the class on the project and their firm. Final 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 twice over the semester to their peers and also give one final presentation to the investment committee of their sponsoring firm.

Students will be asked to submit their final presentation along with a short self-reflection at the end of the semester. These

materials in combination with peer and company feedback and 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.

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Applications will be accepted through 5pm on August 12, 2022
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 22, 2022

In addition to course content and materials, all ventures enrolled in the course will be eligible to receive non-dilutive 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 application 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.

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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.

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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 based on 50% class participation and in-class exercises, 25% on pre-class assignments, and 25% final paper/project.

Please see this video for more on this course.

Application:

Please submit a copy your resume and a personal statement as to why you would like to take this course and how it might be relevant to your career arc (up to 500 words) by Monday January 9th at 5:00PM ET. Faculty will let students know decisions on applications by January 16 at 9:00AM ET.

Course Description

Taught by practitioners Jeff Bussgang (Flybridge co-founder and general partner) and Lindsay Hyde (Moderne Ventures venture partner), 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)

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Course Overview

The course will enable students to analyze and understand how financial business decisions affect the overall welfare of society. The course will emphasize situations in which the pursuit of business profits both positively and negatively affect their communities, including their employees, local physical and social environments, educational and cultural opportunities and the like. It will also explore the larger impact of capitalism on economic growth and living standards, along with the role that capitalism can play and has played in exacerbating and/or ameliorating broader societal challenges, including climate change, environmental degradation, inequality, and social immobility. The course will delve into current topics and concerns with the goal of providing a less political and more analytical framework for students to form their own views about these important societal issues.

Course Structure

1) Course overview and empirical evidence / discussion on the role of capitalism and capital markets in economic development

2) A series of “micro” cases. Representative themes: entrepreneurship and local development, shareholder vs. stakeholder conflict

3) A series of more macro/system-oriented cases on businesses operating in different economics regimes. Representative themes: financial market development, trade protectionism, corporate governance

4) Concluding discussion of broader themes

One exciting aspect about the course is that we anticipate other (mostly senior) HBS faculty will teach and share their expertise as relevant.

Copyright © 2022 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.

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Educational Objectives

Founders Journey focuses on the human side of building an entrepreneurial venture. How do you assemble, motivate and lead a team when you have big ambitions, limited resources and a compass instead of a map? The course examines the choices founders face while assembling and structuring an entrepreneurial team. These decisions are often made without careful consideration of the range of options available and tradeoffs between them. Several studies have shown that these choices are a primary driver of the ultimate success or failure of the venture. The course starts with an examination of the choices a founder makes in selecting a founding team, choosing a business model and raising capital from angels or institutional investors. Subsequent modules explore the decisions entrepreneurs make in adding structure and formal processes as the organization goes through multiple phases of growth. The final module addresses the question of when and how the founder should exit the business. All three modules address the personal, organizational and business model challenges of dealing with the entrepreneurial roller coaster. This course is for students who are interested in founding their own high growth ventures, joining an entrepreneurial firm or working with entrepreneurs as investors or advisors. It provides students with tools, practices and frameworks for succeeding in the face of uncertainty and for increasing their resilience while pursuing difficult challenges.

Course Content and Organization

The course is divided into three modules that cover key milestones in a Founders' Journey.

Start: The first module covers the most important choices in structuring the founding team. Who do you include in the founding team? How do you structure roles and relationships within the team? How do you divide equity? It examines different types of founding teams – solo founders, founding with friends, founding with family members or close friends. What are the benefits and costs of each structure? It also examines the fit between the founding team and the business model and the stresses caused by the constant need to adapt. What happens when you need to pivot? What are the roles and rights of early investors and Board members? What happens when the venture outgrows your ability to lead it?

Build: The second module covers team choices after the venture has achieved Product Market Fit. The founder has to operationalize the business and establish processes to deliver on the promise. Strengths in the first phase of the venture become weaknesses. Generalists get replaced by functional specialists. Individual initiative gets augmented by bounded processes. How can you set up the structure, process, culture, and resources to deal with growth? What skills do you need to lead the organization through changes and growth (hiring, leading, firing)? How should you manage key external relationships with customers, suppliers, partners, board members, and investors?

Exit: The final module covers the returns from entrepreneurship. It addresses the most difficult and consequential choices entrepreneurs face. What does success and failure mean in the context of entrepreneurship? How do you decide when to quit and when to double down? How do you balance the needs of the company with your own personal goals and skills? How can you sustain your physical and mental well-being in an often turbulent and emotionally taxing environment? We examine choices made by entrepreneurs who have succeeded beyond their expectations and some where they succeeded despite having to close their ventures.

Most classes are structured around a mix of cases and experiential learning. Approximately 30% of the classes will be simulation-style exercises or workshops. For example, students structure agreements with co-founders or investors; source, select and make offers to potential partners and employees; provide difficult feedback or fire employees; and negotiate terms for selling or closing their companies. Approximately 50 percent of classes have the case protagonists as guests.

Students write reflections at the end of each module, and submit regular interactive assignments in lieu of a final exam.

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

Career Focus

Global Entrepreneurship (GE) is designed for many types of students:

1. Those who will start companies outside the US – mostly in emerging markets.
2. Those who will start companies in the US and have the vision to expand globally.
3. Those who will join early-stage startups based outside the US.
4. Those who will invest in startups outside of the US.
5. Those who will launch venture capital funds outside the US.
6. Those who will work in venture capital outside the US.
7. Those interested in learning more about startup ecosystems outside the US, either as consultants, bankers or as competitors to startups.

The class will focus on bringing the lessons learned in The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM) from RC in a global context.

Educational Objectives

The course takes TEM as a foundation and introduces the concepts and lessons of that course in a context outside the US. GE will cover the nuances and challenges that entrepreneurs and investors face when launching and investing in startups abroad, especially in developing and emerging economies.

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 of different contexts, such as macro trends and access to talent, 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 culture drift, are often faced by US startups when they expand 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.

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

Grading

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

Career Focus

The course is designed for students who are interested in entrepreneurial approaches to the grand challenges of our time. Invariably, these challenges require solutions that beggar the imagination, and that require an embrace of science, with all its excitement and uncertainty. To misquote Peter Thiel, “We wanted flying cars, let’s not be satisfied with 140 characters.”

The course is especially appropriate for would-be entrepreneurs, as well as those interested in the financing and curation of economic activity at the exciting edges of the knowledge frontier. A disproportionate number of cases and materials will take science and technology as one of the starting points of their settings, though no background in STEM is needed.

Educational Objectives

The course develops a framework to understand grand challenges, and to learn from entrepreneurs’ attempts at curating financially viable novel solutions.

Grand Challenges are near-intractable, global problems, that offer the tantalizing prospect that even a partial resolution will dramatically improve some facet of human existence. Success requires individual creativity to break down a problem into constituent manageable parts, coupled with imaginatively catalyzing collective action in society. Entrepreneurs have an important role to play in identifying, developing, and scaling effective discoveries to direct this process.

Typically, mapping the challenge requires understanding mismatches between science and technology on the one hand, and a challenge on the other. The science might not adequately exist in some instances, while in others, it might well have eclipsed available rules to adjudicate its use. In either case, a framework based on identifying institutional voids, or inadequacies in the enabling environment, helps in specifying opportunities and in ‘naming’ problems that might bedevil otherwise well-constructed business plans. Since many of the severest challenges – think climate change and pandemics – disproportionately affect people in infrastructure-compromised settings, this is all the more important. Perhaps six of the world’s eight billion people are affected thus.

The course addresses entrepreneurs working to create public goods to address grand challenges – think of the world vaccine alliance or privacy-friendly biometric identities to target otherwise unidentified populations better – as well as entrepreneurs building for-profit solutions atop these public goods.

Entrepreneurs take a position, facilitate access to the relevant science, construct a capital stack that typically encompasses sources of capital much beyond traditional private equity, build coalitions between organizations, and develop a narrative. This short course is thus organized around managing four dimensions, each of (a) Science (b) Capital (c) Ecosystem and (d) Narrative.

Course Content and Organization

There are six two-hour weekly sessions. Each session comprises either two cases, or a case supplemented by a lecture or insights from a visitor.

The first session is an introduction to Grand Challenges and a self-reflective exercise on what addressing such a challenge means for graduate students in early phases of your careers. The next four sessions address the management of each of the four dimensions listed above. The sixth and final session will be a recap and a discussion of a sample of final class papers, as these will be shaping up by then.

Grading is determined by class participation (40%), three short write-ups (30%), and a final paper (30%). Each short (2 page) write-up should discuss a successful or failed attempt at managing one of the four dimensions articulated above in the context of a particular Grand Challenge. The final paper, which can be completed individually or in pairs, should outline and begin to develop an entrepreneurial approach to a Grand Challenge.

Copyright © 2021 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Course Overview:

This course will give students a toolbox for how to begin a 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 be meet many case protagonists and discuss family office issues firsthand with those with deep experience in the space.

Career Focus:

Given their proliferation and increased influence across asset markets, policy agendas, and philanthropic initiatives, family offices are touching more and more of what you will be engaging with in your future careers. This course is intended for all students who are interested in managing their own family’s wealth – today or in the future – the toolbox to do so responsibly and reliably.

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 associated ventures and how to wind those ventures down after their time had passed.

Enrollment:

Enrollment will be limited to 30 students.

Due to the nature of the content and confidential and private nature of certain course material, along with certain session visitors, protagonist interactions, and outside guest presentations given - students may be required to sign a legal non-disclosure agreement requested by project/business partner organizations. Additional requirements and documentation may also be asked of students by organizations.

Note For How to Not Bankrupt Your Family:

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 Fall Course, please see the course description for “Demystifying Family Businesses” linked here.

Six on-campus sessions on Mondays from 3:10 – 5:10 pm on September 12, September 19, October 17, October 24, November 21, and November 28, 2022. Students will also use other Mondays during this time for team project work.

Travel dates: Arrival on Monday January 2, 2023. Departure on Friday January 13, 2023. Arrival and departure locations are currently TBD and will be finalized by September 1st.

Program Fee and Travel costs: $3000

IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. The Add/Drop process at the start of fall term is the mechanism for any enrollment changes, and after that point, the course fee is non-refundable.

Enrollment: Limited to 45 MBA students.

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 of $3,000 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 © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Fall On-Campus Course Sessions: Wednesdays 3:10 - 5:10 PM: September 14, 21; October 5, 12, 19

Travel Dates: Arrival on Tuesday, January 3, departure on Saturday, January 14

Course Fee: $2,500

IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. The Add/Drop process at the start of fall term is the mechanism for any enrollment changes, and after that point, the course fee is non-refundable.

Enrollment: Limited to 45 MBA students.

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 ...

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 $2,500 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 © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Enrollment Capacity: 45 MBA students.

Course Fee: $3500.00

IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. The Add/Drop process at the start of fall term is the mechanism for any enrollment changes, and after that point, the course fee is non-refundable.

Fall On-Campus Course Sessions: Wednesday September 7th, Wednesday September 21st, Wednesday October 19th, Wednesday November 9th and Wednesday November 30th from 3:10pm -5:10pm

January Immersion Dates: Arrive Saturday, January 7; Depart Thursday, January 19

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.

This will be the fifth 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 of $3,500 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 © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Fall On-Campus Course Sessions: Wednesdays @ 3:10 pm, September 21, October 12, 19, and November 16

Travel Dates: Arrival on Sunday, January 8, departure on Thursday, January 19

Course Fee: $3,000

IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. The Add/Drop process at the start of fall term is the mechanism for any enrollment changes, and after that point, the course fee is non-refundable.

Enrollment: Limited to 45 MBA students.

Educational Objectives

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. This is a particularly opportune time to study the country since it is living a moment of rare national unity with a new government - headed by Mario Draghi, the widely respected former Head of the European Central Bank - supported by the majority of parties across the political spectrum. 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 four 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.

Activities while in Italy: We will be visiting Milan from January 8 to January 12 and Florence from the 12 to the 19. Milan is Italy’s economic and financial capital, whereas Florence is home to some of luxury’s famous brands and the cradle of the Renaissance that played a pivotal role in the birth of modern capitalism. 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 and factories (including a day trip from Florence to Ferrari and Lamborghini), retail outlets, as well as the extraordinary archives of Banca Montepaschi di Siena (founded in 1472), the oldest surviving bank in the world. We will carve some time in each city for the inevitable need for shopping that Italy elicits in all its visitors.

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.

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.

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

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

Enrollment: Limited to 44 MBA students.

Course Fee: $3,000.00

IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. The Add/Drop process at the start of fall term is the mechanism for any enrollment changes, and after that point, the course fee is non-refundable.

Fall On-Campus Course Sessions: Wednesdays 5:45-7:45pm: September 7, October 5, November 9, November 30, 2022

January Immersion Dates: Arrive Tuesday, January 3; Depart Saturday, January 14

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, innovation, and leadership in organizations operating in an increasingly digital world. Set in Japan, 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

Japan is a world leader in fostering businesses built to fuse the digital and analog worlds. From robotics to technological art, from big data to nano-devices, "only in Japan" has become emblematic of hotels run solely by robots, zero-emission houses, advanced materials made of spider web, and other endeavors that would, but for their growing success, seem crazy. The course will bring students in direct contact with an eclectic mix of leading-edge organizations and business models in service of four learning objectives. First, it will enable students to gain first-hand experiences and insights into the unique complexities of shifting from "Knowing to Doing to Being" in an increasingly digital workplace and marketplace. Second, it will enable students to realize that innovation - both in products/services and in leadership/organizing - can be brought about by a dialectic process of combining what appears to be contradictory or paradoxical (e.g., the digital world and the analog world, the new with the old, techne or "know-how" with phronesis or "know-what-should-be-done," big data with a human touch, etc.). Third, building on relevant RC and EC course lessons, it will foster a refined appreciation for the challenges (and opportunities) of digitally-enabled leadership in a world in which human beings are still an organization's customers, employees, and owners. Fourth, it will expose students to social entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who have developed innovations with a higher purpose - to advance humanity, or to do good for society.

Course Content and Model

Overview and Introduction: Students enrolled in the Japan Tokyo Immersive Field Course 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 leadership qualities that foster economic and societal value in entrepreneurial settings, (2) highlight some of the challenges and opportunities facing these entrepreneurs, especially after the immense devastation that took place with the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Tohoku, (3) discuss how some of these emerging, digital business models lend themselves to new forms of organizing and leadership, and (4) allow time for student teams to work together, engage with their project partners as well as the HBS Japan Research Center (JRC) in Tokyo to define and scope projects that will take place in January, and prepare for travel.

Projects: Students will assemble into small teams based on interests to work on projects throughout the course. Project partners will, first of all, submit a two-page description of their businesses as well as "digital+ analog" issues they want the students to address by the second session at HBS. Second, students will form teams and choose the project of their choice by the third session at HBS. Third, project teams will request/receive more information from the project partners and conduct telephone or Zoom interviews, if necessary, before the last on-campus session with the help of the JRC, which will also facilitate finding a student translator (aka a local team member) for each team. Fourth, project teams will visit their project partners in Tokyo and vicinity during the first and second weeks of January and learn about the innovation that each project partner has developed, conduct interviews on the issues being faced, assess the market/organizational environment being faced by talking to customers, suppliers, government officials, and even competitors. Project teams will continue to conduct interviews, pull together their data, analyze their findings, and develop recommendations up through the third week of January.

Deliverables: Student teams will present their recommendations to the project partners on Friday, January 14. In addition, each student will present his or her personal take-away on an individual basis at the Capstone event on Friday, January 14 afternoon. The audience for the Capstone will consist of project partners, JRC staff members, local team members, HBS alumni, media, and others. Finally, project teams will submit their final report by Tuesday, February 1. Final grades will take into account participation during class sessions in the Fall semester and on-site activities in Tokyo and Tohoku, feedback from partner organizations and peers on project work, as well as 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. 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, etc. - that may contribute to Japan's unique approach to the fusion of digital+ analog. They will also realize why the Japanese live long (diet, hot spring, respect to the elders, etc.) and why Japanese companies are long-living (more than 600 companies over 300 years old).

Accommodations and Activities: Students will experience three 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) a traditional Japanese ryokan, where they will soak in public, hot spring baths and eat dinner wearing a kimono, as well as (b) a nature school or other nontraditional accommodations unique to the post-disaster Tohoku region. The nature school includes dormitory-style bunk-bed accommodations and open-air bathing. 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), mentoring of high-school students, and advising a mayor as well as local entrepreneurs /NPOs. In Tokyo, students will try to understand the roots of the "digital+ analog" 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, watching a digital art exhibition called Borderless as well as a 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.

This will be the 10th year that Professor Takeuchi has taught the Japan IFC.

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

Enrollment Capacity: 40

Student Course Fee: $2,500

IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. The Add/Drop process at the start of fall term is the mechanism for any enrollment changes, and after that point, the course fee is non-refundable.

Fall On-Campus Course Sessions: 3:10-5:10pm Monday, September 19; Monday, October 3; Friday, November 4; Monday, November 28. Please note there will be 1 Friday meeting and 3 Mondays.

London Immersion and Travel Dates:

Arrival Date: Tuesday, January 3, 2023 (the immersion will start at 9:00 am on Wed, January 4)

Departure Date: Saturday, January 14, 2023 (the immersion will end at 9:00 pm on Fri, January 13)

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 of $2,500 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 © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Enrollment Capacity: 45

Course Fee: $1000.00

IFCs require a firm commitment and carry a financial obligation. The Add/Drop process at the start of fall term is the mechanism for any enrollment changes, and after that point, the course fee is non-refundable.

Fall On-Campus Course Sessions: Wednesdays 3:10 PM – 5:10 PM: 9/21, 10/12, 10/26, and 11/16.

January Immersion Dates: Arrive Sunday, January 15; Depart Saturday, January 21

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.

Last year’s in-person 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 Doerr (Chairman, Kleiner Perkins)
• 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)
• Dan Shapero (COO, LinkedIn)
• Kirsten Kliphouse (President of Google Cloud)
• Leah Solivan (Founder/CEO of TaskRabbit)
• 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 and delivering their final presentation to their startup sponsor.

The class will meet six 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.

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 $1,000 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

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

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

Professor Forest Reinhardt welcomes students with interest in food and agribusiness to apply for this Independent Project opportunity in spring.

Students who enroll in this Independent Project in Food and Agribusiness will each write a paper, individually or as part of a group of two or three, about a business issue in food and agriculture. They will also attend four sessions over the course of the spring term (see below).

Interested students or groups of students should consult with Professor Reinhardt during fall term and submit project proposals prior to the end of that term. Students whose projects are selected will meet four times during the course of spring term to learn about each other's topics, exchange ideas about research tactics, and talk more generally about the world food system, using some of HBS's best cases on the subject. These sessions will take place on the following Mondays on the X schedule from 3:10 PM - 5:10 PM: January 23, February 6, February 27, and April 10. Attendance at these sessions is mandatory.

This independent project is intended to give students a chance to integrate what they have learned in the RC to a topic of their choosing in a critically important industry, and to expose themselves to the diversity of challenges and opportunities that firms in the agribusiness sector face.

The field work will involve synthesizing information about an agricultural or food-related problem that could be firm-level, systemic, or both. For example, a good paper might be written on an American firm's decision to export agricultural products to Japan, or about the ways in which the new climate bill affords opportunities for US soybean farmers, or about the opportunities for aquaculture in Kenya. In any of these cases the students will get a deep understanding of the particulars of an agricultural situation as these are affected by science, technology, economics, politics, and law.

Interested students should reach out directly to Professor Reinhardt to share project ideas in fall term. Registration will then take place in December within the online IP registration tool (opening for spring on December 7, 2022). Students will select Independent Project (IP) in Food and Agribusiness.

Career Focus

This course provides students with the skills and knowledge essential for a career in delivering, operating, and investing in large capital projects. The focus is on physical infrastructure as an asset class, although there are many similarities to commercial real estate. This course is designed to complement “Deal Making in Real Estate,” HBS 1475.

Educational Objectives

Students will learn about project selection, capital structure, risk transfer, and fundamentals of the construction process for both vertical construction (real estate) and horizontal construction (infrastructure). The course considers policy aspects and investing opportunities in the private finance of public infrastructure such as toll roads, rail, water, power generation and transmission, and public transit including public-private partnerships.

Content and Organization

The course is organized into three modules.

Project Selection – The first module introduces a toolkit for infrastructure planning from several points of view including those of public policy makers, project developers, and capital providers.

Risk Transfer and Capital Structure – There are substantial macro level and project level exposures in long dated asses like real estate and infrastructure. This module explores techniques for risk identification and transfer as well as best practices in public-private partnerships.

Construction – The last module introduces project control tools in the critical phase between the financial close of a project and the start of stabilized operations.

Pedagogical Mix

Infrastructure lends itself to case method teaching as virtually every decision 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.

Polls will be used frequently and are considered an important aspect of class participation. The course will have a final exam.

Copyright © 2022 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 in response to the opportunities and risks created by COVID.

Career Focus

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

Educational Objectives

Innovating in Health Care (IHC) in the COVID Era enables students to create successful entrepreneurial health care ventures that respond to the massive opportunities and risks created by COVID .The opportunities occurred because COVID revealed substantial shortcomings in the access and technology in health care systems worldwide .The risks occur because most of the innovations are first movers and the public policies that enabled them during COVID may be altered or rescinded.

Innovating in Health Care (IHC) in the COVID Era 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 in the COVID Era 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, Brazil, 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 in the COVID Era discusses the opportunities and risks for health care innovations created by COVID 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 the future of case studies of a large variety of health care innovations enabled by COVID .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.

Business Plan Requirements

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

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 enabled and threatened by COVID, 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 expected to attend every class unless excused in advance in writing. Class participation will account for a significant percentage of the grade, and the business plan will account for the remainder.

Copyright © 2022 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 © 2022 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 © 2022 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 © 2022 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 © 2022 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 © 2021 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 decision during this search and discovery phase, both in the experiments that they design and run as well as the organizations they try to form.

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 101/102 and Entrepreneurial Sales, and Entrepreneurial Marketing, but LTV is solely focused on pre-product-market fit and the perspective of the founder. In that regard, LTV is a complementary to Scaling Tech Ventures (STV), which focused more on post product-market fit startups.

LTV helps students learn the playbook for finding product-market fit while learning to design business models for success, answering the question why some startups are valued at only 2x revenue while others are valued at 20x.

Course Content

Through a series of case studies and intimate conversations with startup founder, 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. 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. 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?
6. 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?

The course has 25 cases, 2 exercises (one focused on startup business model deconstruction using current student’s startups and the other on pitching pre-seed/seed stage financing) along with a wrap-up session. 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 © 2022 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 © 2022 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

Class participation, a written action planning exercise, and a final exam are the three evaluation methods used in LEAP.

Class participation will comprise 50% of the grade. Participation will be evaluated for both frequency and quality. Absences and lack of preparation will have a significantly negative impact on participation grades. As part of the participation grade, students will also submit a short written analysis of a failure they experienced in their professional endeavors prior to (or while at) 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 (4-5) 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 midterm written exercise that outlines an action program will comprise 10% of the grade. The final exam will comprise 40% of the grade. Submissions will be evaluated for thoroughness and practical assessment of the tradeoffs needed to devise and execute a thoughtful action program. It will be scheduled during the exam period following the last day of class. Students are not required to be on campus to take the exam.

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

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.

This will take place as a hybrid class if possible, subject to HBS guidelines and available classroom resources in January, 2021. But if it is entirely online instead, the material will be optimized for that environment, including asynchronous lectures and interviews that students can consume on their own schedules (and as many times as they want), and virtual discussion sessions in manageable sizes. No matter the format, this class is designed to provide a straightforward experience in which students learn a lot and enjoy the work, without undue ambiguity or stress.

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

Career Focus

This course will help you become a more effective general manager by using data to improve employee-related decisions and practices.

Educational Objectives

The goal is for you improve your ability to manage people, whatever your formal role, by analyzing data and using the process and results to help solve organizational challenges. To accomplish this goal, we will do hands-on data analysis throughout the course.
The two-hour weekly format of the course will allow us to mix different activities, including traditional case discussions, analyses of case data, lab workshops, fireside chats with industry guests, and experiential simulations.

• We will use the statistical program R as our primary data tool, with starter code to help people move up the learning curve (or build your skills from a more advanced starting point). See below for details.
• You are not required to have a background related to data analyses or statistics to take this course (though if you have experience it will help). The first module will provide a foundation in analyzing data that we will then build on throughout the semester.
• We will try out tools and techniques to reveal the opportunities, limits, and tensions of using data to manage people more effectively, while increasing your data fluency in the process.

Course Content

Think about the digital tools you use to do your work (and live your life), and the trail of data you leave behind as you do so. Just as digital data revolutionized consumer analytics and other domains, it is now transforming how companies use employee data. Many companies now analyze data in new ways to inform decisions throughout the employee life cycle, such as using predictive algorithms to guide hiring, promotion, and compensation decisions. Leading companies are starting to use day-to-day streams of digital trace data to try to improve productivity, collaboration, and employee well-being, among other outcomes.
Given these trends, effective leaders must understand how data can be used (and misused) to leverage people’s skills, talents, and insights. This premise is at the heart of the rapidly emerging field of people analytics, which organizations are embracing as they use data to help manage and develop employees. The rise of remote and hybrid work has only fueled the collection of employee data to guide these arrangements.
The course is organized around four modules:

• Foundations of Analytics. We will introduce key statistical concepts and techniques to build the skills necessary to turn data into actionable insights. We will use cases that include datasets to be analyzed by students as part of their preparation. Our goal will be to create a community for individual and collective learning, helping everyone gain skills from their own starting point.

• Managing with Analytics. Using the foundational skills developed in the first module, we will address a variety of people-related business challenges, such as performance management, promotion decisions, and employee engagement, in a range of company situations. Students will learn how companies are experimenting with new technologies and practices for engaging employees, organizing their work, and measuring their activities. This module will give students exposure to principles of data visualization, analytic techniques, and related tools for using data to drive organizational change.

• Team and Network Analytics. As the traditional organization chart becomes less representative of the way work actually gets done, especially with the challenges of remote work amplified by the pandemic, organizations are turning to a variety of tools and practices to collaborate through networks and teams. We will use network analyses to reveal and improve collaboration patterns, and test new technologies to gain insight into group dynamics and communication effectiveness.

• New Frontiers in People Analytics. What data are you automatically generating as you go about your work? What additional data could you purposefully gather about yourself that might be helpful? We will discuss and debate different ways to use new tools and data to become more effective. How are others, including your employer, using the data you generate to accomplish their goals, either with or without your knowledge or consent? As leaders, this module will help you think clearly about the tradeoffs and dilemmas involved in using employee data to help individuals develop while driving organizational performance. Issues of privacy, control, and ethics will be front and center.

A note on statistics and code: We will use the statistical program R as our primary tool in the course (though we will also gain exposure to other programs and tools along the way). No previous experience with code is required; the beginning of the course is designed to give students a foundation for using R and statistics to inform specific organizational decisions and problems. Each case that includes a dataset will also include R "starter code", which provides scaffolding to help you learn how to analyze data and apply the results.

If you have experience with R and statistics, you will have ample opportunity to continue to develop your skills, as most datasets lend themselves to a variety of analytic techniques. For everyone, it will be imperative to come to class with a learning orientation so we can all improve together, and enjoy doing so. We will focus on learning -- and applying -- practical analytic techniques that organizations use most frequently.

Please email Professor Jeff Polzer directly with any questions: jpolzer@hbs.edu

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

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 her or his 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 2600+ 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 some aspect 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 (the final exam and the brief live case assignment).

Because of the nature of the exercises, workshops, simulations, and conversations in MHC, each section will be limited to 65 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 © 2022 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.

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

Overview

In Managing and Innovating in Financial Services (formerly Managing the Financial Firm), we examine the challenges and opportunities faced in financial services as incumbent firms and startups try to navigate and shape an environment with rapid changes in competition, technology and regulation.

Context

Financial services firms play a central role in the global economy. They provide capital for growth, payments infrastructure for transactions, and the tools to manage risk. These financial services are provided in an array of organizational forms from FinTech startup to multi-trillion dollar global bank - in an industry undergoing unprecedented change and disruption stemming from the financial crisis and advances in technology.

Content

We will be looking at a variety of financial institutions including banks (community banks, regional banks, global banks, and investment banks); insurance companies; and “shadow banks” - entities that don’t have bank charters but provide key banking services. This last category arguably includes finance companies, hedge funds, money market funds, marketplace lenders, and payment firms. For the most part, we will be looking at decisions through the lens of these firms with government policy as an important factor in the background, but for some of the course we will look at issues through the government’s public policy lens.

The course is divided into four basic modules. In the first module, we’ll study the basic business model of banking. I believe you can’t really understand innovation and fintech startups without understanding the basics of banking. Critically, unlike most firms, banks make money on both sides of their balance sheets, and we’ll study why and how, and the challenges they face in doing so. In the second module, we’ll study the spectacular failure of the banking system during the financial crisis - how banks mismanaged both sides of their balance sheets - and the unprecedented response of the government to stabilize the financial system. We will also look at the regulations that have been put in place to achieve longer-term financial stability. In the third module, we study non-bank financial intermediaries, some of which grew or morphed in response to the financial crisis and new regulations. This module includes discussion of fintech companies, finance companies, securitization entities, and insurance. The fourth module will explore innovation in payments and the potentially large impact such innovation will have on the financial system.

About 3/4 of the class sessions will be traditional HBS cases, most of which are set in the last five years. The rest of the class sessions will be devoted to discussion of academic articles or memos that I have prepared. We will have visitors or case protagonists for many of the class sessions.

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

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 © 2022 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 © 2022 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 © 2022 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 © 2022 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.

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 © 2022 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 across the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School campuses on Tuesday evenings from 4:45PM – 6:45PM. I am pleased to announce that this course is jointly sponsored by both schools and will be open to students from each, as well as a set number of cross registrants and auditors from the other schools. By opening the classroom in such a way, the course will mirror the necessary collaboration across sectors that organizations and industries must adopt in order to address the multidimensional crises we face today and successfully effect change.

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 use 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. Some of 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 (except for chapter that will be assigned reading for session 1) 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 © 2022 President & Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved.

Career Focus

This is an advanced corporate finance course focused on the private equity (PE) industry as a whole. The course does not cover venture capital or real estate segments of PE; however, it offers a deep dive into growth equity and buyouts, as well as private debt, distress investing, and some energy and infrastructure. The course also illustrates how these strategies are adjusted depending on the geographical focus. Case settings will focus not only on North America and Europe, but will also explore the forces in emerging markets that affect the strategies employed by PE organizations.

The goal of the class is to understand sources of risk-adjusted value-add in the private equity space as well as institutional features of the industry, and recent developments. The students will gain exposure to a set of practical skills including deal assessment and due diligence, valuation, deal execution, capital structure, governance, restructuring, and risk management issues. In addition, a substantial part of the course will be spent on strategic elements of the deal making. Guests will attend many of the classes.

Structurally, the biggest part of the course integrates a range of topics from an investor’s (PE) perspective. The last module will dive into understanding PE compensation structure, fund of funds model, secondary transactions, and limited partners’ direct investing strategies.

The course is intended for students who are interested in working for a private equity firm, investing in private equity as limited partners, or providing investment banking or consulting 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 decisions taken by companies more broadly.

Educational Objectives

This course has two objectives. First, it builds a rigorous approach for analyzing, negotiating and structuring investment opportunities. 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, and factors that had been affecting its evolution. These elements are studied in a variety of contexts including buyout and growth equity funds of all sizes, and debt investing.

Course Content and Organization

The course has 28 sessions, followed by a final exam. Class participation and the final exam will each count for 40% of the course grade. A few cases will include exercises, which will count for 20% of the grade.

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. Important tools for evaluating investments-including LBO investment return models, 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. Capital structure, security choice, and broader capital markets issues will be central to the cases in this section. 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 and debt management.
• 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 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.

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

Overview

Can corporate leaders embrace a social purpose in ways that actually deliver both positive social impact and better economic performance?

This course offers an expanded vision of competitive strategy by incorporating social purpose as a source of new business opportunities, improved productivity and competitive differentiation using the framework for creating shared value, developed by Professor Michael Porter and Mark Kramer.

Rather than viewing social impact as a matter of corporate social responsibility or license to operate, this course offers corporate leaders practical guidance in driving business results through measurable social impact, using Professor Porter’s competitive strategy frameworks to connect social purpose with competitive advantage.

We examine both purpose-built companies and the delicate balancing act required for large public companies to re-invent themselves around a social purpose in response to changing societal and shareholder pressures. We also devote a module to shared value investing, exposing the flaws in ESG ratings and linking social purpose to alpha. In addition, we will examine the ways companies perpetuate inequality and structural racism, confronting controversial questions about whether we can rely on capitalism to create an equitable and sustainable world.

At the end of the course, students should have an understanding of how social impact can be a source of competitive advantage and a framework for implementation. This course is relevant for anyone who recognizes the growing importance of social issues to corporate success and the power of companies to change the world.

Course Content and Organization

The course includes 12 recent cases along with supplemental readings and inspiring guest protagonists.

The cases provide a clear and actionable framework for building social purpose into strategy and putting the concept of shared value into practice in both large multinationals and smaller entrepreneurial companies across a wide range of industries, in both developed and emerging markets. All cases demonstrate the power of corporations to gain an enduring competitive advantage by measurably improving stakeholder outcomes at scale on issues such as health, education, poverty and the environment. We will explore what it means for a company to adopt a social purpose, and the challenges involved in shifting organizational culture and processes, measuring social impact, engaging investors, and managing public-private partnerships. We will also explore the way public-private partnerships among businesses, NGOs and governments can amplify value for all three sectors, employing the collective impact framework. A module on investing covers the shortcomings of current ESG approaches and offers newer thinking that can deliver alpha.

Supplemental readings will include excerpts from books and articles that raise questions about the darker side of capitalism, structural racism in the United States, and the immorality of markets that undercut the potential for capitalism to deliver positive social impact.

Target Audience

P&P is intended as a mainstream strategy course for future corporate leaders and entrepreneurs who want to understand how social purpose intersects with corporate strategy to create new opportunities for competitive advantage. The course is also suited to students who aspire to work in government or social enterprises that partner with businesses to deliver social impact. A limited number of cross-registrants from other schools will be accepted to enrich the class discussions.

Course Evaluation and Grading

50% of the grade will be based on class participation and 50 % on a final project that will be due approximately 1 month after the last class. The project assignment is to draft a memo to the CEO of an existing company, or a summary business plan for a start-up company, in an industry of the student’s choice articulating (a) the strengths and weaknesses of the company’s current purpose as a source of competitive advantage, if it has one, or (b) if it does not have a serious purpose, why you believe the company would improve its performance by adopting one. The project should be specific about the social or environmental issue to be addressed and how the company can affect that issue at scale through its operations. It should also consider what is needed to bring the purpose to life throughout the company.

This course is part of a portfolio of courses relevant to Social Enterprise. For a full listing, see the Social Enterprise Initiative website.

Copyright © 2022 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 project (50%).

Copyright © 2022 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 © 2022 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.

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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.

Growing income inequality, poor or declining educational systems, unequal access to affordable health care, and the fear of continuing economic distress are putting stress on political systems worldwide and challenging the credibility of business. At the same time, environmental and ecosystem degradation are increasing due, in part, to unchecked greenhouse gas emissions, leading to sea level rise, climate destabilization, and a mass extinction of plant and animal life. Robust political responses based on strong social support are crucial to meeting these challenges, but action by the private sector will also be critically important.

This course is designed for students who want to explore the idea that business has a role in dealing with these big environmental and social challenges. We will examine how private firms can play a major role in solving them in today’s world. We will also explore the ways in which accomplishing this monumental goal may require changes in how firms and leaders consider their obligations and engage with the issues, as well as rethinking the “rules of the game” by which capitalism is structured.

The course seeks to make students reimagine the role of the corporation and capital in society. We will focus on the institutions that support capitalism in order to hone our ability to collaborate in designing a new generation of institutions to address the existential crises that require immediate attention. Moreover, several classes will provide students with an opportunity to think not just about large institutions but also about their own choices, such as becoming an entrepreneur versus joining an established organization, and how these choices can empower them to affect their individual impact on the world. Throughout the course, students will continue develop the tools necessary to create and implement corporate strategies to address the big challenges that are the focus of the course.

The course differs from a number of excellent offerings that explore related issues in at least four respects. First, we explicitly challenge the boundaries of the current system, asking whether there is a different way to run firms and shape the institutions in which they are embedded (e.g., the notion that shareholder value comes at the expense of stakeholder satisfaction). Second, we explore the degree to which “purpose driven” leaders that root their actions in their most deeply held values can act as change agents within the larger system, and we examine how and why your own career might help to accelerate change. Third, we rely both on cases and readings drawing from literatures in management, law, psychology, sociology, and economics. Finally, we devote significant time throughout the course to developing concrete strategies for implementing changes within the current system and within corporations, designing new ways in which the private sector can have broad societal impact.

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Educational Objectives

The goal of the course is to provide students with knowledge, skills, 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 various strategies available to firms to change the competitive game, 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 and 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:

• 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.

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Career Focus

This course is designed to address the challenges of marketing, selling, and managing in the new era of retail following years of digital transformation and disruption. It is appropriate for:

• Managers in retail companies;
• Entrepreneurs building retail startups;
• Consultants engaged with retailing businesses; and
• Investors seeking to evaluate the potential of new business models.

Course Content and Educational Objectives

Retail is dead. Long live retail!

Throughout our lifetime we have witnessed the ever-changing ever-evolving retail landscape: from the rise of e-commerce, to the premature death announcements of the physical store and the shopping mall, through the emergence of many digitally native players who first eschewed physical retail and then later embraced it, to the reemergence of a new kind of physical store experience powered by retail-tainment, interactive and social experiences, and immersive technology. Most prominently, many physical stores are now owned by some of the digitally native players that set to bypass such stores in the first place. Changes in consumer preferences and behavior, the competitive environment, and advances in technology are making the new era of retail an exciting space. The new era is consumer-centric, experiential, personalized, social, omnichannel, and connected.

The course will explore central challenges and opportunities for retail. For new players, the challenges have been how to scale up and be profitable, for incumbent players, the challenges have been keeping up with the changing competitive landscape, mostly the low cost and convenience offered by online players. For all players, the future is around the corner, and they must prepare for next retail frontier, which will likely include AR/VR and other metaverse technologies.

The course will explore three major classes of retail businesses: retailers, i.e., retailers of goods and services not made by the firm (such as Walmart, Amazon), direct-to-consumer companies, i.e., sellers of goods and services made by the firm (or bought directly from manufacturers) (such as Gap or Harrys.com), and two-sided marketplaces, i.e., matchmakers between supply and demand for goods and services (such as Etsy). Students will gain a deep understanding of retail, and be able to explore what the future holds, mostly through cases and guest protagonists. Additionally, students will dive into simple applied retail analytics and practice data-driven decision making in this setting (no prior data analytics experience or programing skills are required, basic Excel knowledge is sufficient).

Grading:

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

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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 plan to launch or join a hypergrowth technology venture, or who plan to invest in growth-stage tech companies. The course addresses key challenges founders and their teams face after achieving product-market fit – and how to plan for, activate, and manage exponential growth. The course addresses scaling challenges in a variety of sectors, including e-commerce, ed-tech, enterprise SaaS, HR-tech, mobile apps, marketplace platforms, mobility solutions, social media, two-sided platforms, and virtual worlds.

Educational Objectives

The course defines a scaling venture as one that has achieved product-market fit and secured at least one 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 rapid growth, and then managing such rapid growth as a venture scales. Scaling situations are presented through a variety of functional lenses, including strategy, business development, product management, sales and marketing, and engineering and technology.

In nearly every class, the course will host case protagonists – largely founders and CEOs – as in-person guests. Cases include Asana, BlaBlaCar, Catalant, Chewy, Nextdoor, Perch, Second Life, Supercell, Shopify, thredUP, Tiktok, Wayfair, WeWork, and Zoom, among many others.

Students will also have the opportunity to participate in several optional workshops with guests and outside experts. In past years, topics have included performance marketing, product management, investing in hypergrowth, and managing the customer experience.

STV is a natural companion to the MBA elective Launching Technology Ventures (LTV). LTV focuses on early-stage ventures that are searching for product-market fit, while STV focuses on later-stage ventures that have confirmed product-market fit. Enrollment in STV is limited to 70 students per section.

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. These challenges are organized around six modules that represent external and internal enablers of successful scaling:

Strategic Opportunity and Solution: In what directions should a new venture grow? When should a startup expand into new geographies/markets or diversify product lines versus growing its customer base for existing offers? How does a venture gauge market readiness, and what does it take to “cross the chasm” to the early majority?

Scope and Speed: When is scaling a venture premature, and at what pace should a scaling venture grow? How fast should a venture drive its internal processes, such as strategic decision-making, market and purchase funnel testing, and cycle times of service operations and supply chain? What role can metrics play, such as OKRs and NPS?

Staged Resources: In what ways should scaling ventures finance growth with or without VC financing? How do scaling ventures use analyses, such as unit and customer economics, to make their case to investors? How does a venture maximize its private-market valuation through growth and composition of revenues?

Structure: When and how should a rapidly scaling venture introduce more formal roles, systems, and processes? How quickly should scaling leaders design organizations to define functions, and then to assure cross-functional integration? How does governance, starting with the board of directors, evolve as a venture matures and scales?

Senior Team: When should a scaling venture replace its founder-CEO? How do professional CEOs differ from founders when coming into a venture? How should ventures optimally onboard experienced executives recruited into leadership positions, and when does it make sense to start hiring specialists instead of generalists?

Spirit: How do leaders in rapidly growing ventures design and shape culture? How do they assimilate hires who are less mission-driven and more political than the first wave of recruits? How can they mitigate the friction between OG’s and newer talent?

Students have a choice between taking a final exam and completing a final project. 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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Course Overview

No industry is more important to the future of humanity than the space industry, and that industry is currently undergoing a historic revolution. These are bold claims, but in this course we will engage them as we discuss the rapid progress being driven by companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Made In Space, Spire, and more. We will be joined by leaders in the industry, including alumni, eager to help you join them in building a new space age with the private sector as its engine. We will learn about the history of space agencies like NASA and debate their role in the future. And we will study the economics and finance underlying the sector, where public-private linkages are deep and essential. Space is already essential to our lives in countless ways, but its role today is negligible compared to its potential. Realizing that potential will require gifted business leaders; this course will help you become one of them.

Course Administration

Course grades will be based on class participation (50%) and a short paper (50%). For the paper, students (working alone or in groups of up to three) will analyze a space company or policy as a component of the overall space sector and its evolution, drawing on the lessons and examples explored in the course. 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.

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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 two versions of the course, students cannot take both of them.

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Educational Objectives

Having a good strategy is not enough to succeed in today’s competitive environment. More than 50% of start-ups fail within five years and more than half of the companies on the S&P 500 in 2000 no longer exist. Many of these firms had sound strategies but were unable to execute them effectively. With changing customer preferences, increasing global competition, disruptive technologies, heightened employee expectations, and unpredictable macroeconomic shocks, execution is more critical (and difficult) than ever.

Course Content

Instead of focusing on how to formulate a great business strategy, this course focuses on how to implement that strategy. In other words, this course takes strategy as given and teaches what you need to know to win in highly competitive markets. The more competitive your marketplace—with competitors trying to steal your customers, attract your best people, and leapfrog you in technology—the more valuable this course will be to you.

Using fundamental building blocks based on accountability systems and structures, we will teach you how to make the tough choices needed to ensure successful strategy execution. The course is divided into seven modules:

1. Allocating resources to customers: You will learn how to choose a primary customer and allocate resources to market-facing and operating core units in a way that delivers maximum value to those customers.
2. Prioritizing core values: You will learn how and when to create core values and beliefs systems to prioritize the needs of customers, employees, and shareholders.
3. Tracking performance goals: You will learn how to select a small number of critical performance variables and design management control systems to track progress in achieving key goals.
4. Controlling strategic risk: You will learn how to identify various types of internal and external risks and implement internal controls and boundary systems to protect your business franchise.
5. Spurring innovation: You will learn how to design systems and structures to push people out of their comfort zone, foster creative tension, and drive innovation and entrepreneurial behavior.
6. Building commitment: You will learn how to use systems and structures to build an organization culture that motivates people to help others achieve shared goals.
7. Adapting to change: You will learn how to identify the strategic uncertainties that could upend your strategy, build early warning systems, and adapt current strategies to changing competitive conditions.

Concepts will be illustrated using case studies in both early-stage and mature firms in a variety of industries including consulting, consumer products, education, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, military, publishing, retail, robotics, software development, and space exploration.

By the end of the course, students will have gained the practical knowledge and confidence to execute strategy, measure performance, deliver results, and win in any competitive market.

Grading

The course grade will comprise class participation (40%), graded hand-ins and peer feedback (20%), and a final paper (40%).

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Overview

This course explores the unique aspects of creating effective management and investment strategies for technology-intensive businesses. What strategies can win in markets with strong network effects? How can firms leverage technology to build multi-sided platforms? How can firms create and capture value from intellectual property? What are the unique challenges of governing technology-intensive firms? And how can firms build and sustain competitive advantage in new, emerging technologies with high degrees of uncertainty?

The course provides a series of concepts and frameworks which students can directly apply to strategic problems they may encounter post-graduation. We will study firms ranging from pre-revenue startups to large multinationals, and industries that include artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, cloud services, e-commerce, social networking, semiconductors, operating systems, streaming media, intellectual property, 5G wireless communications, voice assistants, electronic ink, virtual and augmented reality, video gaming, and blockchain.

Course Content and Organization

The course is structured into seven modules:

Network Effects and Increasing Returns: Technology-intensive businesses have unique attributes, which make their products increasingly valuable if more consumers buy their product or if more complements become available. Also, the cost structures of some technology businesses differ fundamentally from traditional manufacturing or service industries. What are the implications for market tipping, pricing, and growth strategies?

Strategy Rules: To become a great strategist in the technology world, we can learn critical lessons from the most successful CEOs in the sector over the last 3 decades: Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs. This short module explores two principles of great strategy: “Look Forward, Reason Back” and “Make Big Bets, Without Betting the Company.” The following modules dive deeper into the critical role of platform thinking, tactics, and governance.

Multi-Sided Platforms: The most important competitive battles in technology are no longer between standalone products or services but between platforms. The most successful companies are those that build multi-sided platforms (MSPs), which spawn large ecosystems of users and third-party complementary products and services. Why and how do MSPs differ from "normal" firms? What are the key strategies for creating successful MSPs?

Tactics-Judo & Sumo Strategy: Fast-moving technology businesses face critical challenges that are tactical in nature. How and when should firms cooperate and/or compete with firms within their industry? How can small firms use the larger competitors' size to their own advantage? When and how can large firms impose their will against other players in their ecosystem, without running afoul of anti-trust laws?

Intellectual Property: A defining characteristic of technology industries is the disproportionate share of value which resides in intellectual property (IP) assets such as patents and copyrights. This module covers how the patent system works, why the market for IP is inefficient, and how licensing and open-source business models can capture value from their IP.

Governance of Technology Firms: Technology firms face two special governance problems: extraordinary uncertainty and asymmetric information between management and boards of directors. This module explores solutions to these challenges in both early-stage startup firms and large, incumbent players.

Look Forward, Reason Back: One of the most critical problems in the technology world is trying to understand how the future landscape will evolve. We use cases and exercises to explore how to “look forward” into the emerging technology markets of tomorrow and then “reason back” to concrete strategies for today. This module looks at the future of media streaming, voice as a user interface, robotaxis, cryptocurrencies, wearables, and virtual reality.

The course utilizes lectures, case analyses, independent reading, and will have visitors from entrepreneurial and large companies. Only 15 of the 27 sessions are traditional HBS cases. Grades will be based on class participation, participation in pre-class polls, a short written assignment, and a final paper.

Each section will be limited to 65 MBAs.

Career Focus

The course should be of particular interest to those interested in managing a business for which technology is likely to play a major role, and to those interested in consulting, private equity, or venture capital. The course may also be valuable for students who do not necessarily plan to pursue a career related to technology: the concepts and frameworks covered (e.g., network effects, judo strategy, multi-sided platforms) apply well beyond technology industries.

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The course will use a case-based approach to teach students how to build better founding and scaling strategies. The first half of the course will explore the classic strategy question of “Where to compete?” from the perspective of an entrepreneur starting a new firm or a startup launching a new product. This half of the course will help students learn how to identify “broken” markets that are ready for a new competitor, how to test startup ideas to “fix” these markets, and how students can put themselves in the best position in order to discover opportunities to build disruptive ventures. The second half of the course will again explore a classic strategy question, “How to compete?” largely from the perspective of a scaling startup. This latter half of the course will teach students both how to develop aligned and coherent scaling strategies and provide them with a set of strategy “recipes” to best manage the myriad forms of competition startups face in product, supplier, intermediary, and labor markets as they grow.

Complementing the case discussions will be course guests and panels with entrepreneurs to both shed more light on the human element of strategy and to help students build a stronger network in the global startup ecosystem. Towards that end, the final deliverable for the course will be a paper focusing on a “broken industry” with promise or a paper focused on how an existing startup might implement a different strategic “recipe.” In the former case, students will be required to interview or run tests with market participants to validate their thesis that the market needs a new competitor. In the latter case, students will be required to interview managers and the startup they are building an alternative strategy for.

What are the educational objectives? At the broadest level, the educational objects of the course are to help the students answer the following questions (1) Where should my startup compete? (2) How should my startup compete?

Turning to the first question, the course will teach students how to discover and analyze markets where a new startup would bring much needed competition and innovation. A key theme of the course is that while early stage ideas may well not need to be worried about competitors, entrepreneurs do need a solid understanding of competition in order to maximize their chances of impact. The case discussions will enable students to develop better judgment in this regard, and of equal importance, will help students think about how they might maximize their career choices to “best discover” high-potential opportunities.

Turning to the second question, the course will teach students how to develop different strategies given a high-potential startup idea. They will learn that promising ideas often lend themselves to different strategies and different ways of competing. As such, students will learn a set of “recipes” that they can deploy, adapt, and combine when scaling a startup. In learning these “recipes” students will learn how to manage and understand competition in its myriad forms, from product markets to labor markets.

To further these educational objectives, as part of the deliverable for the course, students will be required to talk and learn form market participants and founders. This will allow them to further hone their data collection skills, practice validation ideas, and build a stronger network that they can use in their future entrepreneurial ventures.

Grading will be 50% paper and 50% participation.

Career Focus

This course is appropriate for students interested in pursuing careers in any management function (e.g., operations, marketing, finance) in firms that make, sell and/or distribute physical products, or in organizations (e.g., consulting firms, investment banks, private equity firms, software providers, transportation providers) that analyze, invest in, and/or offer products and services to those firms.

Educational Objectives

Supply Chain Management (SCM) builds on aspects of the first-year Technology and Operations Management (RC TOM) course. However, whereas RC TOM focuses primarily on producing and developing products and services, SCM emphasizes managing product availability, especially in a context of rapid product proliferation, short product life cycles, and global networks of suppliers and customers. Hence, topics not examined in RC TOM such as inventory management, distribution economics, and demand forecasting are explored in depth in SCM.

SCM also differs from RC TOM in that RC TOM concentrates primarily on material and information flows within an organization, whereas SCM focuses on managing material and information flows across functional and organizational boundaries. Due to the boundary-spanning nature of supply chain management, the SCM course also has strong links to the first-year courses in marketing, leadership, and strategy. The course emphasizes the "general manager's perspective" in managing supply chains. Cases in the course illustrate that barriers to integrating supply chains often relate to organizational issues (e.g., misaligned incentives or change management challenges) and operational execution problems (e.g., misplaced SKUs in a retail store) that fall squarely in the domain of the general manager. The course makes clear that suitable information technology and appropriate use of analytical tools are necessary, but by no means sufficient, for supply chain integration.

Grading

Grading will be based on class participation, engagement, and a capstone project consisting of playing a week-long “Supply Chain Game” simulation and writing a corresponding report.

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