Harvard Business Review

APRIL 26, 2017

By comparison, online lenders face capital costs that can be higher than 10%, sourced from potentially fickle institutional investors like hedge funds. This amounts to putting a toe in the water, while keeping current operations relatively separate and pristine.

Banking 12

Banking Stage-Gate Credit Scoring Competitive Advantage 12

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 27, 2017

The bad news: Petabytes of new data and algorithmic innovation assure that “autonomy creep” will relentlessly challenge human oversight from within. In reality, “handoffs” and transitions prove to be significant operational problems. These distinct approaches enjoy demonstrable real-world success.

Outsourcing 8

Outsourcing Software CAPEX Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 3, 2011

There's a beguiling little moment in the financial-crisis documentary Inside Job where hedge fund billionaire George Soros describes the principles of oil tanker design. To mainstream economists the Glass-Steagall Act that separated the banking and securities industries looked like a competition-restricting, innovation-damping anachronism.

Banking 14

Banking Crisis Letter Hedge 14

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 30, 2013

In fact, Amazon was only operating at such a high burn rate because it could. Well, he's a hedge fund veteran who has always taken a skeptical view of Wall Street, treating it more as a loopy rich uncle than the efficient information processor of standard finance theory. How has Bezos done this?

Training 10

Training Bond Christensen Long-term 10

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

Or you could participate in projects financed in part by conventional investors and in part by non-profits. Even in the most hard-nosed of private equity firms or hedge funds you will find that people align with strategies that mean something to them, that they’re passionate about.

Insurance 9

Insurance Bond Hedge Bottom-up 9

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 11, 2016

Investors from hedge funds to insurance companies are operating in an environment of low yields, near-zero interest rates, and a glut of savings. In traditional financing models, it’s just not possible for investors to see their way to a financial return based on some abstract added value of the integrated whole.

Finance 8

Finance Innovation Bond Incentives 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 7, 2017

But with the departures of a number of high-level HR leaders in late 2016, head of operations Ryan Graves largely took on the head HR role in addition to his other duties. As Pete Ramstad and I note in Beyond HR , leaders often have far better developed frameworks for the value proposition of the finance function than for HR.

Compliance 12

Compliance Hedge Human Capital Finance 12

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 24, 2017

What traditional investors don’t like about any of this is the regulatory uncertainty; the high valuations and over-capitalization; the lack of control over financials, strategy, and operations; and the lack of business use-cases. ICOs are the Wild West of financing — they sit in a grey zone where the U.S.

Venture Capitalist 12

Venture Capitalist Due Diligence Finance Long-term 12

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2017

But the solution to this innovation logjam has emerged: blockchain. After all, most financial intermediaries themselves rely on a dizzying, complex, and costly array of intermediaries to run their own operations. The unstoppable force of blockchain technology is barreling down on the infrastructure of modern finance.

Finance 8

Finance IPO Banking Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 20, 2011

DuPont sent Donaldson Brown, a promising engineer-turned-finance staffer, to Detroit to sort things out, and sort them out he did. And in terms of its effects on managerial decision-making, the new system should create feedback and incentives that nudge managers toward innovating for tomorrow's world, not optimizing for today's.

ROE 12

ROE Debt to Equity Ratio Innovation Incentives 12