Harvard Business Review

MARCH 16, 2018

Most of us don’t oversee huge IPOs, but sooner or later, every team faces an unexpected crisis: technology breaks, a competitor makes a disruptive move, a promising project fails, a key employee quits, consumers have a negative reaction to a new product—the list goes on. Learn to stop. Do, monitor, diagnose.

Crisis 8

Crisis IPO Film How To 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 20, 2018

Katzenberg recently hired Meg Whitman, the ex-CEO of HP and eBay, as CEO of NewTV. Tech IPO prices and subsequent trading prices were disconnected from revenue and profits. IPOs dried up. And to do that they needed a different method than just “build it and they will come.” Then one day it was over.

IPO 8

IPO First-mover Advantage Business Model Agility 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 20, 2015

As the CFO of a well-funded IPO-bound company, Dan had many years of experience and he had the results to show that he had outworked and out-delivered many of his internal and external counterparts. One can chalk this up as an isolated incident as Scott, Dan’s boss, was tempted to do. But that would be a mistake.

Execution 8

Execution IPO CFO Diversity 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 20, 2015

As the CFO of a well-funded IPO-bound company, Dan had many years of experience and he had the results to show that he had outworked and out-delivered many of his internal and external counterparts. One can chalk this up as an isolated incident as Scott, Dan’s boss, was tempted to do. But that would be a mistake.

Execution 8

Execution IPO CFO Diversity 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 21, 2016

I learned the importance and challenge of focus early, when I served as CEO of a startup called Intralinks. By trying to do so many things, we were unlikely to succeed at any. Albert Einstein is credited with saying insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur IPO Banking Price 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 24, 2017

So four years ago, when I was CEO of GE Capital Retail Finance and tapped to lead a mega change initiative — splitting off our unit into a new, publicly traded company, Synchrony Financial — I’ll admit I viewed it as a huge challenge. This is what I learned: Ask, listen, and be transparent with employees.

Management 8

Management IPO Diversity Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 16, 2018

But for entrepreneurs who prefer to be safe than sorry, the question remains: what should you do when the next crisis hits? Second, what access to cash do you have left, and how willing are you to gamble with it? Several individuals I spoke to for my book, Before I Was CEO , provide a helpful guide.

Crisis 8

Crisis Entrepreneur Business Model IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

Several years ago I sat down with the CEO of a fast-growing retail business. The company started as a single store, but about a decade later it was a national chain on the heels of filing an IPO. I asked the CEO, whom I’ll call Mike, about the secret of his company’s rapid growth. His answer blew me away.

Creativity 8

Creativity Budgeting IPO Merchandising 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

After five years, in 2004, Tickle was profitable with more than $20 million in revenue; it received an acquisition offer for $100 million, as well as IPO entreaties. If you excel in one of these areas, you can always get a well-paying job doing interesting work — at startups or established firms. Other risk-mitigation strategies .

Career 8

Career Company IPO Christensen 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 17, 2017

Despite rapid innovations in data processing and machine learning, many businesses have yet to make the leap from the Industrial Age to the information age, and the gap between technological and organizational progress is widening. The consequences for not doing so can be dire. Insight Center. Crossing the Digital Divide.

Industry 9

Industry Short-term Planning Long-term 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 29, 2012

The heady winds of Facebook's IPO have left in their wake gnawing questions about the durability of the social network behemoth's brand, as critics point to declining revenue growth and a less-than-spectacular earnings outlook. But the troubled IPO should direct attention to more fundamental elements of the company's strategy.

IPO 11

IPO PR Brand Globalization 11

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 12, 2011

For HBR's April issue on failure, I penned a piece on the experience of going through a failed IPO. You may have chosen to frame it some other way ("experience," "lessons learned," etc.), Failure has much to do with internal expectations. If you could start over, what would you do differently? but it was failure.

Short-term 14

Short-term Long-term IPO Middle Management 14

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 30, 2016

It invested in its bad businesses hoping that they would become more like the good ones, and it didn’t invest massively in the good ones, because they were doing fine. The company’s success has made it one of the best-performing IPOs in Asia in the last decade. How did Verghese do it? The result?

Supply Chain 10

Supply Chain Company IPO Talent Management 10

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Since filing their S-1 ahead of their potential IPO , Groupon scrutiny has been intense. And when asked at the recent Gravity Summit if his company's program was profitable for merchants, the CEO of BuyWithMe (another deals site) responded: "We don't know." How often do my customers come back? What do they spend?

Incentives 11

Incentives Loyalty Discount IPO 11

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

In 2014, for example, 18 IPOs raised a record-breaking $9.8 So how do Israeli ventures scale up? Eighty-two percent have global offices, and yet 91% are still run by Israeli CEOs, as opposed to foreign executives hired from the outside. That’s disappointing for a country with so much potential. billion in 2013.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Marketing IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 7, 2016

Few things are more damaging to a brand’s reputation than a hack in the headlines, and in the event of a public security incident, it’s highly likely that the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and the Chief Security Officer (CSO) will be the first people the CEO looks to and says “What do we do now?”

Planning 8

Planning Company Crisis Brand 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 20, 2014

Unlike Mr. Icahn, I do not write to you as an Apple shareholder (I hold no Apple shares). Nor do I write as the satisfied Apple customer that I am. As I pointed out in my earlier post , the only funds that Apple ever raised on the public stock market was $97 million (about $274 million in today’s dollars) at its IPO in 1980.

Innovation 8

Innovation EPS Incentives Supply Chain 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 6, 2014

Sue Decker, Yahoo’s former president, describes how the deal came about and what Yahoo learned from doing business in China. This success was built on what we learned from our prior efforts, as well as a resolve to take new risks to do what was necessary to succeed.

Chief Financial Officer 8

Chief Financial Officer Operations Learning-by-Doing IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

She held up a printout of an article by Will Sonenberg, the CEO of GlobeBank. He had no business doing that," Charles said. The line in Will's article made it sound as if Charles and his team had been sitting around doing nothing for the past four years. CEO Says Lack of Diversity Disgraceful'? I do take it personally.".

Case Study 8

Case Study Diversity Taylorism Taylor 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2013

It wasn''t profitable, or scalable, but it was a brilliant way to learn what the business would really need. Investors are involved for the long haul, understanding that startup managers will have to experiment and fail along the way to a successful IPO. One of these young entrepreneurs in particular stood out. three times.

Company 8

Company Ries Maturity Innovation 8