Governance at WeWork: Adam Neumann’s erratic behavior

Is a difficult employee really a problem, or a canary in the coal mine? Learn to diagnose systemic gaps and turn dissent into action.

The case places participants in the role of Helge Lund, chair of BP, on 4 October 2023. Only weeks earlier, BP's chief executive officer Bernard Looney had resigned over undisclosed relationships with colleagues. Looney had been the principal architect and public face of BP's 2020 strategy to transform BP from an international oil company into an "integrated energy company" aligned with a net-zero ambition by 2050. On the same day, activist investor Bluebell Capital Partners wrote to BP arguing that the strategy was "irrational" and had materially depressed the company's valuation. The challenge came amid conflicting signals: Shareholders had overwhelmingly backed BP's net-zero direction in 2022, but its share price had lagged key peers, raising questions about the economics, timing and execution of the transition. The case presents a board-level dilemma: How should Lund lead the board now, what strategic direction should it support and what CEO mandate should follow? Should BP defend the 2020 strategy, recalibrate it or pursue a more fundamental reset? The case concerns strategic governance and board oversight of transformation under pressure, rather than sustainability alone. It asks how boards should engage in strategy, interpret shifting stakeholder signals, assess investor fit and build support for a strategic pivot, and test organizational readiness for transformation. BP's 2020 strategy was bold and adapted to real external pressures, including climate policy, investor expectations and changing assumptions about the future of oil and gas. It also placed major demands on capital allocation, organizational capability, competitive advantage, stakeholder credibility and investor patience. By autumn 2023, the board had to ask not only whether the strategy remained directionally appropriate, but whether it had been sufficiently owned, explained, sequenced and governed.

Many companies around the world have made significant progress in adding a higher proportion of board directors from traditionally underrepresented groups, such as women and people of color. But despite the increased diversity, many boards lag on ...

Learn to lead with optimism: transform pessimism into constructive action using the LEARN framework for resilient, confident leadership.

Discover why effective board diversity requires constructive dissent, independent thinking and the courage to test business strategies against extremes.

The Bankamoda case looks at due diligence in the impact investing context. The protagonist, Estefanía Abello, is a Colombia-based senior associate at the Swiss AlphaMundi Group (AMG), an impact first but very commercially minded impact investor that invests in Africa and Latin America. Since 2017, AMG had been integrating gender analysis throughout its investment process. The case opens with Abello having completed the due diligence and considering her recommendation to the AMG Investment Committee on whether to invest in Bankamoda, a women-founded, women-led fintech offering loans to the underbanked micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the apparel and textile industry in Columbia. While this startup fit the profile gender lens investing perspective, the investment also carried significant risks. Students assume the role of Abello and need to balance impact and financial considerations and consider risk mitigation strategies as they make a recommendation. Through this case, students can experience a real impact investing due diligence, understand gender lens investing, explore the layers of considerations needed to build a compelling investment case and simulate how best to present proposals to an investment committee.

In March, I published an essay called “How Organizations Lose Their Minds.” I argue that the company firing employees the fastest in the name of AI redundancy is going to fail the fastest. That’s because I’ve seen it in Circuit City, which ran exa...

Learn why diversity data can conceal inclusion gaps and discover three practical steps to use workplace inclusion metrics across your organization.

Dow Inc succession example with tips for new CEOs and new board chairs to align leadership roles and responsibilities.