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• Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2020

  Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (A)

  Tsedal Neeley and John Masko

  With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has struck for Shellye Archambeau once again. As CEO of MetricStream, she had spent the last seven years turning a tech startup on life support after the dot-com bust into a market leader of governance, risk, and compliance software for businesses. As a black female CEO, Archambeau is no stranger to adversity. Becoming a leader had been her goal since high school and she had achieved it through decades of hard work and skillful decision making. Now she faces her most critical leadership decision. She calls a meeting with her board chairman, Gunjan Sinha, to discuss the best path forward: Sell MetricStream while offers are on the table, or try to save it by looking for a big customer of the company’s risk management software against the backdrop of the financial crisis? Both options have dire consequences. Valuations are plummeting by the day. Cash is disappearing by the minute. Archambeau and Sinha need to decide and act swiftly.

  Keywords: Race; Gender; Leadership Style; Risk and Uncertainty; Change; Prejudice and Bias; Decision Making; Technology Industry; California;

  Citation:

  Neeley, Tsedal, and John Masko. "Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (A)." Harvard Business School Case 420-071, June 2020.  View Details

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• Supplement | HBS Case Collection | June 2020

  Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (B)

  Tsedal Neeley and Briana Richardson

  With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has struck for Shellye Archambeau once again. As CEO of MetricStream, she had spent the last seven years turning a tech startup on life support after the dot-com bust into a market leader of governance, risk, and compliance software for businesses. As a black female CEO, Archambeau is no stranger to adversity. Becoming a leader had been her goal since high school and she had achieved it through decades of hard work and skillful decision making. Now she faces her most critical leadership decision. She calls a meeting with her board chairman, Gunjan Sinha, to discuss the best path forward: Sell MetricStream while offers are on the table, or try to save it by looking for a big customer of the company’s risk management software against the backdrop of the financial crisis? Both options have dire consequences. Valuations are plummeting by the day. Cash is disappearing by the minute. Archambeau and Sinha need to decide and act swiftly.

  Keywords: Race; Gender; Leadership Style; Risk and Uncertainty; Change; Prejudice and Bias; Decision Making; Technology Industry; California;

  Citation:

  Neeley, Tsedal, and Briana Richardson. "Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 420-073, June 2020.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2019 (Revised February 2020)

  Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)

  Tsedal Neeley, Paul Leonardi and Michael Norris

  Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio—a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies—was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build a check scanner feature inside their management software? AppFolio’s founders had instructed to never build a check scanner; providing technologies to help businesses move into the digital era was a primary company goal. A scanner for paper checks would contradict the hard-won culture of software innovation and project self-selection that AppFolio and Hawkins’ teams lived by. Hawkins also worried that creating a new team to work on the check scanning project would cause workload and morale issues. But the sales team believed that this technology could close deals with larger, more complex property management companies, some with managers who wanted the check scanner feature. Several large-scale deals were on the line. Hawkins quickly assembled an agile market validation team and considered two options: hold fast to the company’s values and refuse to build the check scanner feature or capitulate and build a basic check scanner with minimum functionality. Engineers would likely consider this a “loser” project, yet sales might get a boost that could open a new revenue stream. Hawkins had to make his decision quickly.

  Keywords: digital transformation; values; Agile; vision; corporate culture; Leadership; Values and Beliefs; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; United States; California;

  Citation:

  Neeley, Tsedal, Paul Leonardi, and Michael Norris. "Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)." Harvard Business School Case 419-066, June 2019. (Revised February 2020.)  View Details

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