Claim OwnershipCold Call
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Cold Call distills Harvard Business School's legendary case studies into podcast form. Hosted by Brian Kenny, the podcast airs every two weeks and features Harvard Business School faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.
251 Episodes
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In 2022, Deion Sanders, known as “Coach Prime,” was hired as head coach of the University of Colorado football team, which had only one winning season in the previous 15 years. Many observers were excited to have the 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. Others wondered whether his “old school” leadership style 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 exhibited in the case study “Deion Sanders: The Prime Effect.”
One of the oldest Black-owned security firms in the U.S., Johnson Security Bureau credits much of its success to its status as a woman-owned, minority-owned family firm. To grow the business, however, CEO Jessica Johnson-Cope considers partnering with security firms in other states, something that threatens to weaken some of her company’s founding values. She also considers expanding the business into cybersecurity. In this conversation, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Henry McGee and CEO Jessica Johnson-Cope discuss the issues in the case “Johnson Security Bureau: Building Multigenerational Success.”
1Entrepreneur Duke Rohlen creates California-based Ajax Health under a new model. Partnering with private equity firms, Rohlen considers a $1 billion bid to buy medical device maker Cordis. If Ajax’s bid is successful, they will invest an additional $300 million to fund an accelerator to develop innovative new products to drive growth. Is Cordis the right opportunity for Rohlen and his team? Ajax Health founder Duke Rohlen (HBS MBA 2001) and HBS Professor Regina Herzlinger join host Brian Kenny to discuss the key success factors for both start-up and established medical technology firms. The case “Ajax Health: A New Model for Medical Technology Innovation” showcases how to structure a firm—in any industry—to maximize innovation and financial returns by better aligning incentives for the different skill sets required.
In 1985, pop music superstar Michael Jackson instructed his attorney, John Branca, to bid for the Northern Songs music catalog, which contained the songs of the Beatles. In a challenging negotiation, Branca secured the rights to the collection. Over the next three decades, first as Jackson’s attorney and later as the executor of his estate, Branca undertook numerous complex negotiations to secure and expand Jackson’s music publishing empire until it became the largest music publishing company in the world. Harvard Business School professor James K. Sebenius joins host Brian Kenny and a live audience of Harvard Business School alumni to discuss how to deal with tough negotiators effectively and ethically.
With operations in 70 countries and 20,000 employees, Pernod Ricard is a leader in premium international spirits. The company had achieved its leadership position in the market largely through strategic acquisition and an ability to build and grow its brand over time. But pressure to continually expand its extensive brand portfolio in order to meet customer demand meant that its traditional analog processes were not allowing the company to effectively manage its huge portfolio of products. In response, the company launched four key digital programs (KDPs) aimed at using data and artificial intelligence to automate processes and enable data-driven decision-making.
Katie Holyfield and Taylor Matkins founded Lucky Ones Coffee in 2017, a coffee shop with a mission to create jobs in Park City, Utah, for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The company quickly earned strong support from the local community, and by early 2023, Holyfield and Matkins employed 17 people across two coffee shops. The two entrepreneurs must now decide how to grow their business to create more jobs and how to structure the business to ensure that it remains a sustainable and financially sound enterprise as it scales.
Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 1972, grew to become one of the most storied venture capital firms in the world. The firm’s investment track record includes the names of some of the largest global companies. But the venture capital industry began facing new challenges in 2022, and investors were increasingly cautious. At that time Sequoia also began restructuring the firm and made other changes to their core identity. What would all of this mean for the future of Sequoia, and would the firm still be able to maintain their historical dominance?
Early in her career Brooke Boyarsky Pratt (MBA 2013) enjoyed considerable success in roles at McKinsey and Berkadia, a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio company. But a routine visit to the doctor in 2020, where she experienced weight stigma yet again, led her to address the problem of obesity care. Boyarsky Pratt had struggled with her weight since she was young. So when she started knownwell, an integrated weight and primary care provider that was designed to support people with obesity, it was a huge step for her both personally and professionally. In the spring of 2023, knownwell opened its first weight-inclusive clinic in the Boston area. But Boyarsky Pratt had to make a fundamental decision on how she wanted to grow the company. Should she grow slowly and build a small footprint of clinics in the Boston area over the next few years? Or should she scale fast to potentially help millions of people across the U.S.?
In 2017 Fawn Weaver launched a premium American whiskey brand, Uncle Nearest. It became the fastest growing and most awarded whiskey brand in America, despite the challenges Weaver faced as a Black woman and outsider to the spirits industry, which is capital-intensive, highly regulated, competitive, and male-dominated. In October 2023, Weaver announced plans to expand into cognac with the goal of building the next major alcoholic beverages conglomerate. But the company was still heavily reliant on capital. How could Weaver convince new investors that her plans for cognac would yield success?
In February 2023, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was deciding whether or not to sign off on a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for $39 billion in direct semiconductor manufacturing incentives. But this NOFO had several unconventional provisions: a pre-application (pre-app) to the actual application, upside sharing provisions to align incentives, and funding milestones so that only awardees making progress would receive additional funds. The funding had been made available through the U.S. Department of Commerce by the CHIPS (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors) and Science Act passed a few months earlier. Raimondo’s team had proposed additional measures that would help the U.S. regain technological leadership while protecting taxpayer funds. Should Raimondo move forward with the “innovative” NOFO, despite the risks?
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) was founded in 2020 by venture capitalist Kara Nortman, entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, and actor and activist Natalie Portman. As outsiders to professional sports, the all-female founding team had rewritten the playbook for how to build a sports franchise by applying lessons from the tech and entertainment industries. The club’s early success was reflected in its market valuation of $250 million as of its sale in July 2024 — the highest in the National Women’s Soccer League. Equally important, ACFC had started to bend the curve toward greater pay equity in women’s sports — the club’s ultimate goal. But the founders knew there was much more to do to capitalize on the club’s momentum. As they developed ACFC’s first three-year strategic plan in 2024, they weighed the most effective ways to build value for the franchise. Was it better to allocate the incremental budget to investments in digital brand building or to investments in the on-field product?
In early 2023, Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, started developing the EdTech firm’s strategy for incorporating GenAI into their offerings. By early 2024, the firm had made significant progress in bringing four key capabilities to market, but GenAI was evolving quickly and Coursera needed to continuously improve its offerings. While the firm had been an early mover, competitors were adapting fast. Was Coursera taking full advantage of the opportunities presented by the technology? What more could it do to remain competitive?
Nadine Vogel, Founder and CEO of Springboard Consulting, joins Harvard Business School professor Lakshmi Ramarajan and Harvard Kennedy School professor Hannah Riley Bowles to discuss her experience of starting and scaling a firm that works with Fortune 500 companies on issues related to disability and their workforce, as well as being a caregiver to two children with disabilities.
Today we’re sharing a special episode from Think Big, Buy Small, the new podcast from Harvard Business School. Think Big, Buy Small explores an innovative approach to entrepreneurship: acquisition entrepreneurship with conversations exploring how to buy your own business, be your own boss, and get the financial benefits of your efforts through the approach of entrepreneurship through acquisition In this episode, HBS Professors Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff chat with Robin Kovitz, who purchased Baskits—now one of Canada’s leading gift services companies—from its two retiring founders. Kovitz shares insights on her search process, investment criteria, and her perceptions of risk before and after purchasing Baskits. Listen to more episodes of Think Big, Buy Small wherever you get your podcasts.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which allow individuals to own their digital assets and move them from place to place, are changing the interaction between consumers and digital goods, brands, and platforms. Harvard Business School professor Scott Duke Kominers and tech entrepreneur Steve Kaczynski discuss the case, “Bored Ape Yacht Club: Navigating the NFT World,” and the related book they co-authored, The Everything Token: How NFTs and Web3 Will Transform The Way We Buy, Sell, And Create. They focus on the rise and popularity of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs and the new model of brand building created by owning those tokens.
In 2018, artisanal Italian vineyard Frank Cornelissen was one of the world’s leading producers of natural wine. But when weather-related conditions damaged that year’s grapes, founder Frank Cornelissen had to decide between staying true to the tenets of natural wine making, or breaking with his public beliefs to save that year’s grapes by adding sulfites. Harvard Business School assistant professor Tiona Zuzul discusses the importance of staying true to your company’s principles while remaining flexible enough to welcome progress.
The Insurtech firm Hippo was facing two big challenges related to climate change: major loss ratios and rate hikes. The company used technologically empowered services to create its competitive edge, along with providing smart home packages, targeting risk-friendly customers, and using data-driven pricing. But now CEO and president Rick McCathron needed to determine how the firm’s underwriting model could account for the effects of high-intensity weather events.
In March 2020, Twiddy & Company, a family-owned vacation rental company known for hospitality rooted in personal interactions, needed to adjust to contactless, remote customer service. With the upcoming vacation season thrown into chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic, president Clark Twiddy had a responsibility to the company’s network of homeowners who rented their homes through the company, to guests who had booked vacations, and to employees who had been recruited by Twiddy’s reputation for treating staff well. Who, if anyone, could he afford to make whole and keep happy?
Ferran Adrià, chef at legendary Barcelona-based restaurant elBulli, was facing two related decisions. First, he and his team must continue to develop new and different dishes for elBulli to guarantee a continuous stream of innovation, the cornerstone of the restaurant's success. But they also need to focus on growing the restaurant’s business. Can the team balance both objectives?
In 2020, Amazon built a shelter for women and families experiencing houselessness on its campus in Seattle, Washington. The shelter was operated in partnership with a nonprofit organization known as Mary’s Place and was designed to address what had become an urgent problem for Seattle and many other wealthy American cities, where communities were being displaced by a lack of affordable housing. Amazon’s partnership with Mary’s Place was an experiment in addressing this problem at its core, using some of the firm’s own resources to fund living space for unhoused families. But critics argued that Amazon’s apparent charity was misplaced because the company and other tech giants were actually making the problem worse. Instead, they argued, government and nonprofits should solve these societal issues. Harvard Business School professors Debora Spar and Paul Healy explore the role business plays in causing and addressing the larger problem of unhoused communities in American cities in the case, “Hitting Home: Amazon and Mary’s Place.”
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