Cold Call

The 2023 movie Barbie and its accompanying marketing blitz incited a worldwide craze. Suddenly Barbie was everywhere, a celebrated icon reinstated at the forefront of cultural conversation.

This flourishing of goodwill stood in contrast to decades of criticism of the Barbie brand. Although proponents had celebrated Barbie for her promise to “inspire the limitless potential in every girl,” detractors felt that the doll promoted a narrow beauty standard and perpetuated gender stereotypes.

In this episode of Cold Call, Harvard Business School Professor Elie Ofek and coauthor and doctoral student Ryann Noe join host Brian Kenny to discuss the case “Barbie: Reviving a Cultural Icon at Mattel.” They explore how Mattel planned to sustain the Barbie brand’s positive momentum and replicate the doll’s success across other toy brands in the company’s portfolio.

Launched in 2011, Duolingo grew into the most downloaded education app in the world. By late 2024, it boasted 100 million monthly active users, 8 million paid subscribers, and a market capitalization approaching $15 billion. The success stemmed from a gamified approach to learning, use of adaptive AI technology, and alignment of incentives: maintaining a streak on the app not only helped users master a language but also drove subscription growth and reduced costs.

Duolingo had focused almost exclusively on language learning. But the company recognized the enormous potential of Gen AI to power innovative products, such as conversational language practice. Severin Hacker, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, envisioned a future in which AI would transform the app into an educational ecosystem that covered many subjects beyond language, allowing the company to tap into the $56 billion edtech market.

Duolingo had recently started to explore this direction by adding new subjects, such as math and music. HBS Senior Lecturer Jeffrey Rayport and coauthor Nicole Keller join host Brian Kenny to discuss the case “Duolingo: On a Streak” and the long-term benefits and risks of this diversification strategy.

In 1948, Elia Nuqul fled his hometown in Palestine with his family to Jordan. The refugee overcame many hardships and started a trading business in 1952. Nuqul Group subsequently grew into one of Jordan’s largest family businesses. Its flagship company, Fine Hygienic Holding (FHH), was a leader in hygienic paper products across the Middle East and North Africa.

Nuqul died in 2022. In March 2023, his son Ghassan Nuqul, the chairman of FHH, was at a crossroads. He and his three siblings had decided to split the Group’s assets among themselves so that each branch of the family could forge its own path. They were in discussions to finalize the details of the agreement.

In this episode, Ghassan Nuqul and Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Christina Wing join host Brian Kenny. They discuss what it means to continue a family business into future generations, what determines legacy, and how business decisions affect family ties in the case “Ghassan Nuqul and the Nuqul Group: Preserving a Father’s Legacy.”

In 2021, Donna Lee and Duncan van Bergen founded Calyx Global, a carbon credit rating company. The startup worked to improve the quality of carbon credits sold in the voluntary carbon market. Organizations buy those credits to use in their decarbonization efforts to meet net-zero commitments.

The firm had carefully avoided perceptions of conflicts of interest. But Lee and van Bergen faced a series of dilemmas. It was a challenging time for the industry. They had to decide whether changing the business model to tap new revenue streams would jeopardize their trustworthy reputation.

In this episode, HBS Professor Mike Toffel and Duncan van Bergen join host Brian Kenny to discuss the company’s business model, its approach to ratings, and the emerging competitive landscape in the case, “Calyx Global: Rating Carbon Credits.”

How important is it to maintain a happy workforce? With this question in mind, Lanco Medical Group, a small but fast-growing pharmaceutical distributor serving Latin America, approached the design of their employee benefits and incentives program. But there were gaps between what leadership believed motivated employees and what employees truly valued.

With ambitions for regional and market expansion in the next few years, motivating and retaining employees was a top priority for the leadership team. So, the organization systematized the collection of data about drivers of employee motivation. Priorities varied by age group, organizational role, and geographic locations. A one-size-fits all solution was unlikely to succeed.

In this episode, HBS Professor Susanna Gallani discusses the case “Lanco Medical Group: Fostering Happiness for Growth” with host Brian Kenny. They highlight the tensions between accommodating employees’ preferences, maintaining fairness, and operating a manageable incentive program amid the pursuit of aggressive international growth targets.

Porsche has reigned as one of the world’s leading sports and luxury car companies for nearly 80 years. Central to the German automaker’s growth strategy is creating stellar customer experiences and great products, such as the legendary 911 Carrera sports car.

But the automotive industry is undergoing disruptive changes and bringing new competitive challenges from around the world. Company leadership is adapting Porsche’s product portfolio, recently adding the electric model Taycan. They’re also innovating new customer experiences like the “Track Your Dream” program.

In this episode, Harvard Business School Professor Stefan Thomke explores how the storied company will continue to change in a bid to stay relevant—yet also remain true to its legacy—in the case “Porsche.”

Google formally announced the innovative video game service Stadia at the 2019 Game Developer Conference. The company invested substantial resources and time into building a network able to support the demanding requirements of cloud gaming. But the early uptake by premium video gamers was disappointing.

The leadership team faced a decision. Should they double down on the streaming strategy, refocusing Stadia on the casual gamer segment? Or should they pull the plug altogether?

In this episode, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Derek van Bever and coauthor Akshat Agrawal explore Google’s strategic choice, which is featured in their case “Google Stadia: Game On or Game Over?”

Cold Call is celebrating its tenth year of distilling Harvard Business School case studies into podcast episodes. To kick off the 2025 anniversary, the show’s production team has curated three of their favorite episodes from 2024.

Host Brian Kenny recommends How One Leader Overcame Career-Ending Adversity with HBS Senior Lecturer Tony Mayo.

Show producer Robin Passias offers How to Bring Good Ideas to Life: The Paul English Story with HBS Professor Frances Frei and entrepreneur Paul English.

And audio engineer Craig McDonald highlights Angel City Football Club: A New Business Model for Women’s Sports with HBS faculty member Jeffrey Rayport and football club cofounder Kara Nortman.

Artificial intelligence is changing how we live and work in ways large and small. It’s why Cold Call has tackled the topic several times. And it’s why today we’re sharing an episode of Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work podcast, hosted by Professors Bill Kerr and Joe Fuller.

The show is all about the forces, like AI, that are reshaping the nature of work. In the episode “Microsoft’s AI perspective: From chatbots to reengineering the organization” from February 21, 2024, HBS Professor Bill Kerr talks to Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President of Modern Work and Business Applications at Microsoft.

They discuss how the tech giant is experimenting its way from AI assistants to autonomous agents as it engages with stakeholders. The conversation also touches on the company’s relationship with OpenAI and ensuring the technology is employed responsibly.

In 2022, Deion Sanders, known as “Coach Prime,” became head football coach of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU). Sanders was hired to bring CU’s struggling football program, which had only one winning season in the previous 15 years, back to glory.

Many observers were excited by the idea of having the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and two-time Super Bowl champion as CU’s new head coach. But some questioned whether Sanders had the experience needed to turn around a team in a highly competitive athletic conference. In addition, several wondered whether his “old school” leadership style, which demands a high level of discipline and personal accountability, would be effective with today’s student-athletes. Still others doubted whether his approach would be sustainable.

In this conversation with host Brian Kenny, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Hise Gibson discusses Sanders’ leadership style and effectiveness in the case “Deion Sanders: The Prime Effect.”