Rachel Drew was the founder and CEO of Cadence, a technology startup that aimed to transform the chaos of estate administration into a grief-informed, compassionate process. Cadence had grown from Drew’s personal experience managing her mother’s estate. She had faced an overwhelming administrative burden and identified how a fragmented, non-user-friendly system for estate settlement forced grieving family members into essentially taking on a “part-time .....more

Teaching note for product W49094.

Tinia Pina was the Black founder and CEO of Nutrivolve Inc., a circular economy venture that transformed organic waste into sustainable agricultural products. In 2022, she was navigating a pivotal strategic decision for her company: should she pursue a lower-risk path with steady growth (Nutri Terra Grow Mats) or take a high-reward leap with significant operational risk (LoopGro Nutrient Concentrate)? With limited resources and a mission to align .....more

Teaching note for product W46045.

Teaching note for product W42773.

In January 2024, Stephanie Carteret, chief executive officer of environmental solutions provider Sensor-H, faced a pivotal moment in her young company’s development. A report summarizing responses to an internal employee consultation exercise revealed deep cause for concern about the management of the company. Rapid growth had brought in its wake a series of personnel problems, which she needed to fix if the company were to be properly positioned .....more

In March 2021, the founder of Hampstead Tea, a specialty-tea processor based in London, United Kingdom, found herself at a crossroads. Since 1995, the founder had been exporting packaged tea to countries in the European Union (EU) as well as selling it locally in the UK market. But effective December 31, 2020, the United Kingdom had exited the EU; in 2021, companies in the two regions could no longer buy and sell goods freely across their borders. .....more

Teaching note for Ivey product no. W37128.

Teaching note for product W37205.

In late 2020, Maria Judice and the other members of the senior leadership team of Code Tenderloin (CT), a Black-led, nonprofit community support organization based in San Francisco, were wrestling with several challenges, especially around hiring to expand the senior leadership team and restocking the organization’s advisory board, which had been sorely depleted following the COVID-19 pandemic. Judice knew that CT was at an inflection point: the decisions .....more