Women on Boards: No More Excuses

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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 ...

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.

Founded in 1920 as a modest trading house in the Arabian Gulf, Zamil Group has grown into one of the Middle East's most diversified business groups, with activities spanning manufacturing, petrochemicals, real estate and investments. As the portfolio expanded and some operating companies were listed or divested, the family gradually shifted from a family‑managed operating conglomerate toward a financial holding model. This strategic transition fundamentally reshaped the family's role – from hands‑on operators to long‑term owners and stewards of a diversified portfolio. At the heart of the case is the question of how enterprising families define success. Rather than equating success solely with financial performance or the preservation of specific legacy assets, the AlZamil family articulates a broader, multi‑dimensional conception of success that includes long‑term continuity, professionalization, societal contribution and the preparation of future generations. The case explores how this definition of success informs key governance choices, such as stricter family employment policies, the increasing reliance on non‑family executives, and the creation of a family office dedicated to wealth management and next generation development. The case also surfaces an important tension faced by many long‑lived family firms: whether selling a founding or symbolic business should be viewed as a failure or a responsible act of stewardship. By presenting the sale of the AlZamils' legacy business, the case invites participants to contrast a heritage‑preservation logic with a stewardship‑and‑portfolio logic and to reflect on how different families reconcile emotional attachment with long‑term adaptability. The case is based on interviews with four family members holding leading roles in the AlZamil family enterprise system.

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