In 2014, Neel Ghose (MBA 2019) created The Robin Hood Army, an organization entirely based on volunteer work that used food redistribution as a medium to bring out the best in humanity. By the end of 2018, the Robin Hood Army was present in twelve countries, was serving over 500,000 meals per month, and had helped more than 750 children enroll in public schools. All of it without raising a single rupee, in line with their “golden rule” of being a zero-funds organization. Harvard Business School’s Susanna Gallani and Ghose discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with fast growth and international expansion of a startup that operates with no monetary assets, including how to attract, retain, and motivate workers.

Launched in the midst of the financial crisis in 2009, Goldman Sachs’ “10,000 Small Businesses” program provided free business education, a network of support, and access to capital for small businesses across the United States. The company committed $500 million to fund the program and nine years later had graduated 7,300 participants, just shy of its goal. Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger discusses the success, impact, and future of the program in his case, “Goldman Sachs: The 10,000 Small Businesses Program.”

Harvard Business School professors John Deighton and Jeffrey Rayport discuss their case, “Gimlet Media: A Podcasting Startup,” and how two former public radio producers launch a podcast network, entering the last frontier of digital media. Can they turn a content supplier into a disruptive platform?

Children’s Hospital & Clinics COO Julie Morath sets out to change the culture there by instituting “Blameless Reporting,” a policy which mandates that employees report anything that goes wrong or seems substandard without fear of reprisal for the act of reporting. Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson discusses getting an organization into the “High Performance Zone” by creating an environment of psychological safety and high accountability in her case, “Children’s Hospital & Clinics.”

Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke discusses how past experience and intuition can be misleading when attempting to launch an innovative new product, service, business model, or process in his case “Booking.com” (co-author: Daniela Beyersdorfer) and his new book, “Experimentation Works.” Instead, Booking.com and other innovative firms embrace a culture where testing, experimentation, and even failure are at the heart of what they do.

Harvard Business School professors Rebecca Henderson and George Serafeim discuss the efforts of Hiro Mizuno, CIO of GPIF, the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund, one of the largest pools of capital in the world, to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into every aspect of GPIF’s portfolio. Mizuno believed the only way to meet his responsibilities to his beneficiaries was to improve the performance of the entire economy by improving corporate governance, increasing inclusion and gender diversity, and reducing environmental damage from climate change. But, would it be enough to change the world? Should a pension fund even try to change the world? Henderson and Serafeim discuss these questions and more in their case, “Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World? Inside GPIF’s Embrace of ESG.”

Much of the advertising purchased during the Super Bowl is about selling corporate brands rather than products. Harvard Business School professor Shelle Santana discusses her case, “Super Bowl Storytelling,” (co-author: Jill Avery), regarding the art of storytelling on the world’s biggest television stage. Which stories win (or fumble) on game day?

In his case, “JUUL and the Vaping Revolution” (co-authors: John Masko and Sarah Mehta), Harvard Business School professor Mike Toffel discusses the controversy surrounding the exponential growth of JUUL Labs in 2018, in particular the success of its e-cigarettes with teenage high school students who had never smoked. The company’s success had thrust it into the spotlight, with some advocacy groups and public policy makers speculating that the company had purposefully marketed its products to minors — an allegation JUUL Labs’s executives strongly denied. The company now faced an FDA probe and investigations by at least two state attorney generals. It needed a strategy to deal with its mounting regulatory and public relations problems.

Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones, an expert in business history, discusses the overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954 in a U.S.-backed coup in support of the United Fruit Co. (now Chiquita Brands International). Jones examines the impact and role of the company in the Guatemalan economy in his case, “The Octopus and the Generals: The United Fruit Company in Guatemala” (co-author: Marcelo Bucheli).

Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork, the leading platform for freelance labor, considers different pricing solutions and ways to improve the matching process as part of a business model redesign. Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie discusses his case, “Upwork: Creating the Human Cloud” and is joined by Michael Cusumano of MIT Sloan School. Along with Annabelle Gawer, they co-authored the book, The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power.