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- May 2025
- Teaching Note
Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA
By: Juan Alcacer and Noor Al Qadhi
Boutiqaat, a Kuwait-based e-commerce platform, scaled an influencer-driven beauty retail model across MENA and now faces critical strategic choices about offline expansion and globalization. Founded in 2015, Boutiqaat combined social commerce, localized logistics, and... View Details
- May 2025
- Case
Boutiqaat: Influencing Retail in MENA
By: Juan Alcacer and Noor Al Qadhi
Boutiqaat, a Kuwait-based e-commerce platform, scaled an influencer-driven beauty retail model across MENA and now faces critical strategic choices about offline expansion and globalization. Founded in 2015, Boutiqaat combined social commerce, localized logistics, and... View Details
- March 2025
- Teaching Note
Gavi and the 'Next' Pandemic
By: Tarun Khanna and Samir Junnarkar
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 725-351. View Details
- March 2025
- Case
GiveDirectly: Can Direct Cash Transfers End Extreme Poverty?
By: Natalia Rigol, Benjamin N. Roth, Sarah Mehta and John Schultz
Founded in 2008, GiveDirectly was a nonprofit organization that used direct cash transfers—giving people cash via mobile money—to combat poverty worldwide. By August 2024, the organization had transferred over $800 million to poor people in targeted communities and... View Details
- February 2025
- Case
Doing Business in Casablanca, Morocco
By: Karen G. Mills, Ahmed Dahawy and Choetsow Tenzin
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Morocco. The case explores the various historical, cultural, and social factors that impact the business environment. It also highlights Morocco’s unique economy where cash remains a dominant... View Details
- February 2025
- Supplement
eBee: Affordable Mobility for Africa
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Gamze Yucaoglu and Jordan Mitchell
- February 2025
- Supplement
eBee: Affordable Mobility for Africa
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Gamze Yucaoglu and Jordan Mitchell
The case opens in March 2023, as Sten van der Ham and Jaap Maljers, CEO and co-founder of eBee, an electric bike (e-bike) company in Africa, are contemplating the different avenues for growth and path to profitability for the young and ambitious company. In 2023, the... View Details
- February 2025
- Case
Ingersoll Rand: Broadening Employee Ownership
By: Ethan Rouen and Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago
Set in 2024, this case examines how Ingersoll Rand—a global leader in air, liquid, and gas handling technologies—approached broadening employee ownership. The company granted restricted stock units (RSUs) to all employees on their one-year anniversary, reinforcing a... View Details
- February 2025
- Case
Doing Business in Kigali, Rwanda
By: Andy Zelleke, Martin A. Sinozich, Julianne Bliss and Choetsow Tenzin
Rwanda’s transformation from a post-genocide recovery effort to one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies presents a compelling case for investors and business leaders. With an ambitious Vision 2050 strategy, Kigali has emerged as a regional hub for trade, innovation,... View Details
- January 2025 (Revised April 2025)
- Case
Doing Business in Cairo: Navigating a Path to Economic Resilience
By: A. Zelleke and Ahmed Dahawy
Egypt has long been a pivotal force in the Middle East and North Africa. Located at a crossroads of global trade routes, the country was a strategic partner for numerous regional and global powers. However, a substantial currency devaluation in 2016 brought many... View Details
Keywords: Egypt; Economy; Business; Country; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Inflation and Deflation; Macroeconomics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Economies and Regions; International Relations; Emerging Markets; Risk and Uncertainty; Culture; Egypt
- January 2025 (Revised March 2025)
- Case
Gavi and the 'Next' Pandemic
By: Tarun Khanna and Kerry Herman
In 2025, CEO Dr. Sania Nishtar and her team consider the lessons the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunizations (GAVI) learned from the pandemic. GAVI successfully brought COVID-19 vaccines to large swaths of the undeveloped and under-developed world by pooling... View Details
- January 2025
- Case
Untapped Global: Financing Africa's Missing Middle
By: Raymond Kluender and Emanuele Colonnelli
In November 2024, Jim Chu, founder and CEO of Untapped Global, faced mounting internal tensions over the company’s strategic direction. Untapped had developed a data-driven revenue-based financing (RBF) model to address the “missing middle” problem—the $5.2 trillion... View Details
Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Working Capital; Private Equity; Financial Strategy; Microfinance; International Finance; Currency Exchange Rate; Profit Sharing; Revenue; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Emerging Markets; Mission and Purpose; Small Business; Entrepreneurial Finance; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Information Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Africa; Nigeria; South Africa; Kenya; Uganda; California; San Francisco
- January 2025
- Case
PayJoy: Financing for the Next Billion
By: Boris Groysberg and Sarah L. Abbott
PayJoy, an impact-driven financial technology company founded in 2015, provides smartphone financing and other financial products to customers who lack access to traditional credit products. As of early 2025, PayJoy had issued $2.5 billion in loans to 13 million... View Details
Keywords: Social Impact; Fintech; Underbanked; Algorithm; Data Analysis; Technology; Business Startups; Business Model; Growth and Development; Information Technology; Social Enterprise; Developing Countries and Economies; Credit; Mission and Purpose; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; South America; South Africa; Asia; Latin America; Africa; Southeast Asia
- December 2024
- Case
Tropo Farms
By: David E. Bell, Pippa Tubman Armerding, Namrata Arora and Natalie Kindred
- November 2024
- Background Note
Social Enterprise in the MENA Region
By: Brian Trelstad and Ahmed Dahawy
This research note provides an overview of the socio-economic landscape of social enterprise in the Middle East and North Africa. It highlights the diversity of players in the region including social enterprise organizations (in their many forms) and supporting... View Details
Keywords: MENA; Non-Governmental Organizations; Nonprofit Organizations; Civil Society or Community; Social Issues; Diasporas; Social Entrepreneurship; Cultural Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Geographic Scope; Health Care and Treatment; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Social and Collaborative Networks; Demographics; Health Industry; Service Industry; Tourism Industry; Egypt; Morocco; North Africa; Tunisia; Jordan; Lebanon; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates; Dubai; Middle East
- September 2024
- Case
InfraCredit and the Project Inception Facility
By: John Macomber, Namrata Arora and Maagatha Kalavadakken
Around the world, large infrastructure projects are frequently stymied by the high cost and high uncertainty of the project inception phase: the research and engineering and planning prior to financial close and start of construction. Could there be a new kind of... View Details
Keywords: Infrastructure; Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Cost; Cash Flow; Capital; Assets; Financial Markets; Financial Strategy; Insurance; Energy; Product Development; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Strategy; Credit; Financial Services Industry; Energy Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Nigeria
- September 2024
- Article
Gender Gaps: Back and Here to Stay? Evidence from Skilled Ugandan Workers During COVID-19
By: Livia Alfonsi, Mary Namubiru and Sara Spaziani
We investigate gender disparities in the effect of COVID-19 on the labor market outcomes of skilled Ugandan workers. Leveraging a high-frequency panel dataset, we find that the lockdowns imposed in Uganda reduced employment by 69% for women and by 45% for men,... View Details
- August 2024
- Case
Ashesi University: The Journey from Vision to Reality
By: Ranjay Gulati and Caroline de Lacvivier
In 1997, Patrick Awuah had a dream: to bring liberal arts education to Ghana. Amid the country’s declining economy and pervasive corruption problems, Awuah saw education as an opportunity to reverse its fortunes by investing in the next generation of African leaders.... View Details
- August 2024
- Case
Zipline: Expanding the World's Largest Autonomous Drone Delivery Network
By: Tarun Khanna and George Gonzalez
Zipline initially established the world's largest logistics network in Rwanda and Ghana by delivering medical supplies to hospitals via automated drones from a centralized hub. The company is now looking to expand to the U.S. home delivery market and designed a... View Details
- August 2024
- Case
Quickmart: Sustaining Growth in a Challenging Economic Environment
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Kuria Kamau
In July 2023, Peter Kang’iri, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Quickmart, Kenya’s second-largest retail chain, sat in his Nairobi office reviewing the company’s first half financial results before the weekly executive committee (EXCO) meeting. The company was in... View Details