Roasting Plant coffee: From engineer's dream to customer's delight

Former COFCO International CEO shares leadership lessons on globalization, cross-cultural management, and building a global agricultural business.

The case investigates the supported search fund model pioneered by Novastone Capital Advisors (NCA) through which mid-career executives can achieve their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs though the acquisition of an SME. NCA provides support through the various phases of the program, from talent selection, training, target searches, due diligence, M&A, value creation and exit engineering.

HubSpot-style insight on AI leadership: Embrace your inner founder to achieve operational clarity, dynamic direction, and reimagined teams that leverage AI.

HubSpot CPO Helen Russell argues that leaders need to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset and master three key skills to thrive in an AI-driven world​.

Positive social impact is the aspirational raison d'être of social entrepreneurship, driving its mission and actions, yet it remains theoretically ambiguous across the academic literature. This systematic integrative review identifies two distinct...

Most entrepreneurs become parents while actively growing their ventures. While prior entrepreneurship research has examined how parenting responsibilities influence entrepreneurial entry and outcomes, less is known about how founders already leadi...

Sunrise demonstrates how HR metrics map to business goals, boosting loyalty and performance through clear ownership and cross‑functional collaboration.

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.

Are you acting as a corporate shock absorber? Learn how middle managers can stop absorbing organizational friction and frame it as business risk.