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Cold Call

HBR Presents / Brian Kenny

Cold Call distills Harvard Business School's legendary case studies into podcast form. Hosted by Brian Kenny, the podcast airs every two weeks and features Harvard Business School faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.

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#297
Yesterday · 22 min
When a Short Seller Came for Samsonite Over Accounting Flaws
In May 2018, the world’s largest luggage maker Samsonite had just acquired a well-regarded luxury brand, and its stock was traded at record highs. However, short seller Blue Orca Capital released a scathing report targeting Samsonite, believing it had uncovered flawed accounting, hidden conflicts, shaky governance, and perhaps outright fraud. CEO Ramesh Tainwala resigned amid accusations that he had faked a doctorate degree, but Samsonite pushed back against Blue Orca’s other allegations. Harvard Business School professor Aiyesha Dey and host Brian Kenny discuss Samsonite’s accounting policies, short seller Blue Orca Capital’s investigation, how Samsonite leadership responded, and what investors, managers, and students can learn in the case studies: Samsonite: Accounting Baggage?; Samsonite: The Short Seller’s Case; and Samsonite: The Rebuttal.
#296
October 27 · 29 min
How the CEO of Rolls-Royce Turned an Underperforming Company Around
In early 2023, Tufan Erginbilgiç took over as CEO of the U.K.’s legendary jet engine and power systems giant Rolls-Royce. Despite its legacy and a culture steeped in engineering brilliance, Rolls-Royce had underperformed for more than a decade–so much so that when Erginbilgiç took over, he told employees that they are standing on a “burning platform.” Erginbilgiç endeavors to develop a transformation playbook, combining its engineering-focused heritage with a high performing mindset and sets Rolls-Royce on the road to financial and operational health. Has Erginbilgiç’s leadership style and transformation taken hold enough for a new Rolls-Royce to thrive? Harvard Business School professor and former dean Nitin Nohria and host Brian Kenny discuss the case “Tufan Erginbilgiç at Rolls-Royce,” and interconnected ideas from Nohria’s new book, The CEO: The Role, The Reality, The Responsibility.
#295
October 13 · 36 min
Restructuring Mobile Game Giant Supercell for a Turnaround
Founded in 2010, Supercell was a Finland-based mobile gaming company that had developed and launched five global hit mobile games: Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Hay Day, Brawl Stars, and Boom Beach. The company’s early philosophy was that it could produce hits by designing the company with a structure and culture that would prove compelling to the industry’s top talent. Developers worked in small, autonomous groups called cells with little oversight. The formula was a success. Supercell had nearly $2 billion in annual revenues, and Clash of Clans alone had generated gross revenues of over $10 billion since inception. However, the company had not released a hit game in five years. In 2023, CEO Ilkka Paananen and the company’s leadership team decided to restructure the company into two divisions—New Games and Live Games. The New Game cells would retain the small team structures, which were largely flat and non-hierarchical, but the Live Game cells would add more traditional structure and hierarchy to exploit franchise hits. Now, Paananen wondered if Supercell could continue to attract top talent despite its shift to more traditional ways of managing the business. Senior Lecturer Jeffrey Rayport and host Brian Kenny discuss the case, “Supercell 2.0: Clash of Plans,” and the question at its crux: What would it take to restore the company’s winning streak?
#294
October 6 · 50 min
Getting Your Boss to Buy into Your Strategy (from “Coaching Real Leaders”)
You have a strategy you believe in. But what happens when your boss doesn’t? “Cold Call” presents this bonus episode from the podcast “Coaching Real Leaders,” where host and executive coach Muriel Wilkins works with an ambitious leader whose plan to drive growth is at risk because she hasn’t been able to get the alignment she needs from her boss. They explore what’s behind the resistance and how she can approach the relationship, and the strategy, differently. The conversation illustrates a key challenge at the heart of strategy execution: getting the people who need to support your idea on board. Find more from the “Coaching Real Leaders” podcast here: https://www.murielwilkins.com/podcast-coaching-real-leaders
#293
September 29 · 27 min
Considering the Future of the BBC and Its Funding Model
With viewership of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in decline, the country’s Culture Minister must recommend a new funding model for the venerated public institution which will allow the broadcaster to succeed in an increasingly competitive media environment. Harvard Business School senior lecturer Henry McGee and host Brian Kenny discuss the case, “The Future of the BBC: Public Ownership vs. Privatization,” and the different structures an institution like the BBC could have in order to operate in a financially sound and culturally impactful way.
#292
September 22 · 26 min
Dare to Be Bad at Something (from Fixable)
Sometimes the only way to win is by finding the courage to lose. Cold Call presents a special episode from TED’s Fixable podcast. In it, the show’s hosts, Leadership Coach Anne Morriss and Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei, challenge leaders to “dare to be bad” in order to free up capacity to excel at more important things. They share insight on the power of a strategic “no,” the value of ruthless prioritization, and how Steve Jobs and Apple delivered breakthrough innovation by strategically underperforming. Frances also explains why you can’t always trust your own instincts, and Anne reflects on the lessons she learned in her early days of parenting. You can listen to more episodes of Fixable wherever you get your podcasts or here: https://link.mgln.ai/htt2jp
#291
September 15 · 31 min
How GEO Is Changing the Role of Brand Manager
AthenaHQ, a startup that helps brands monitor, protect, and optimize their visibility across conversational AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini was founded in 2025. The company, co-founded by Andrew Yan, built a platform that enables major consumer brands, B2B software companies, and marketing agencies to track their share of voice, correct factual errors in AI responses, and manage their reputation across generative answer engines. In the case, “AthenaHQ: Building Brands for AI Search,” Yan faces a call with a global automaker after its newest vehicle has quietly vanished from chatbot recommendations. He must evaluate the platform’s expansion as he confronts core industry dilemmas: how AI disintermediates traditional marketing, who should own generative engine optimization (GEO) inside an organization, and how to prove value on an unattributable channel. In this episode, Harvard Business School associate professor Julian De Freitas and AthenaHQ co-founder and CEO Andrew Yan join host Brian Kenny to discuss the case, exploring how marketers are navigating the new world of GEO, the so-called “dark funnel” of customer engagement, and the need for brand managers to optimize for brand sentiment and accuracy not just search rankings.
#290
September 1 · 32 min
Best of Cold Call: The Bumpy Road to Expanding a Fleet of Electric School Buses
How do you scale innovation in a fragmented system you don’t fully control? That is the challenge Highland Electric Fleets faced as it worked to replace diesel school buses with electric vehicles across the United States. While Highland provided financing, infrastructure, and fleet operations, success depended on external partners, including manufacturers, utilities, and districts. Delays and disruptions forced the company to stay nimble and deliver under pressure. In this episode from 2025, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Highland Electric founder and CEO Duncan McIntyre join host Brian Kenny to discuss the Harvard Business School case, “’The Wheels on the Bus’ Go Electric: Highland Electric Fleets and Partners,” and what it takes to scale a climate solution while sustaining momentum and coordinating across public and private sectors.
#289
August 18 · 24 min
Can an AI-Powered Scribe Curb Physician Burnout?
In 2024, Mass General Brigham, the largest health system in Massachusetts, piloted an AI-powered ambient note-taking program among a subset of clinicians to address increasing rates of staff burnout and turnover — largely driven by the administrative burden of clinical documentation in the electronic health records (EHR). The pilot program aimed to test AI tools which used natural language processing to record, transcribe, and summarize physician-patient encounters, reducing time spent on documentation and allowing physicians to focus more on patient care. Early results showed promising reductions in clinician burnout, intention to leave, and increased physician efficiency. But concerns about the technology, including the generation of inaccurate notes with errors or hallucinations, made physicians resistant to learn and adopt it into their workflows. Harvard Business School Associate Professor Susanna Gallani and host Brian Kenny discuss the challenges leadership at the health care organization anticipated as they considered scaling the AI technology responsibly in the case: The AI Scribe: Enhancing Physician Presence and Curbing Burnout at Mass General Brigham.
#288
August 4 · 24 min
Why Metaphysic AI Looked to Hollywood for a Digital Rights Model
In early 2025, Thomas Graham, CEO of Metaphysic, a leading AI generative video company confronted fundamental questions about who should control digital identity in a world where AI could perfectly recreate human likeness. Founded in 2021, Metaphysic first rose to fame through viral deepfake videos. It achieved a significant milestone with “Here,” the first major film to use AI for de-aging actors, including Tom Hanks. Operating at the intersection of entertainment and ethics, Metaphysic had two revenue streams: high-end content creation for Hollywood studios and a platform allowing individuals to own and control their digital likeness. The case explores how Hollywood’s longstanding “separated rights” framework—ensuring creators maintain ownership of their work beyond contracted uses—provided a foundation for Metaphysic’s business model and the basis for creators to capture value from new uses of their talent with AI. However, as AI increasingly codified expertise across sectors, from consulting to private equity, these protections do not extend; employers own workplace data by default. In such environments, when an individual’s expertise can be digitally captured, replicated, and monetized, the case examines who can capture value, and the pivotal role of claiming data rights in complex multi-party negotiations. Harvard Business School Associate Professor Zoe Cullen and host Brian Kenny explore the tensions between individual rights and commercial applications of AI and the central question of what protections must be forged today to ensure professionals in the future continue to contribute and be compensated in the case, Metaphysic AI: Rethinking the Value of Human Expertise.
#287
July 21 · 26 min
How a Museum Marketing Team Used AI to Bring People Closer to Art
In 2025, Harvard Art Museums considered using generative artificial intelligence in a marketing campaign to increase visitor engagement and membership. Looking to boost attendance and appeal to a younger audience base, and facing intensified competition for leisure time, the Museums’ marketing team explored animating a canonical artwork using AI-generated avatars as part of a digital campaign. While the approach promised novelty and attention, it raised internal concerns about brand authenticity, interpretive authority, donor relations, and reputational risk—particularly given broader cultural anxieties surrounding AI and the museums’ association with the Harvard brand. Harvard Business School Associate Professor Julian De Freitas and Harvard Art Museums Director of Marketing John Connolly join host Brian Kenny to discuss the case, Harvard Art Museums: When Art Meets Artificial Intelligence. They explore tensions between innovation and brand stewardship in cultural marketing, organizational barriers to new technology adoption, and the strategic use of emerging technologies in brand management.
#286
July 7 · 29 min
Are We Entering a New Age of Creativity with the Help of AI?
In March 2024, The Atlantic announced a strategic content and product partnership with artificial intelligence giant OpenAI. OpenAI would license The Atlantic’s content to train its models and respond to user queries, while The Atlantic would receive a fee, privileged access to OpenAI’s technology, and “premium” positioning within the tech giant. At the time, over 70 similar deals had been struck between publishers and AI companies. The Atlantic’s journalists, however, were incensed, concerned that partnering with OpenAI was “a devil’s bargain.” The New York Times had also just sued the tech giant for allegedly using 16 million pieces of the Times’ copyrighted content without permission to train its large language models. Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire owner of The Atlantic, had to consider what was in the magazine’s best financial interest and what impact a continued partnership could have on the magazine’s journalism—and more broadly on the ideas landscape as a whole. But, what responsibility did Powell Jobs have to protect creativity and expression? Was Jobs undermining The Atlantic’s reputation, or was she bringing a new business model to bear on an industry facing major headwinds? Harvard Business School Professor Caroline Elkins joins host Brian Kenny to discuss the case, “The Atlantic and OpenAI.” They explore the question, “Is AI creative?” and how the answer affects not only journalism as we know it, but considerations for whether we can harness AI to enter an age of increased creativity for humankind.
#285
June 23 · 37 min
How School of Rock Created Structure in Order to Scale with Agility and Creativity
In the summer of 2021, School of Rock was a youth-oriented music education company with 291 franchise- and company-owned schools globally. Before Rob Price became CEO in 2017, School of Rock’s nonconformist culture led to variability in teaching styles, educational outcomes, and risks for copyright violations. Previous attempts to standardize curriculum and processes led to friction with franchisees. Price navigated those tensions by listening more closely to franchisees, clarifying core policies, and giving franchisees freedom in other areas. One of Price’s major initiatives was the Method App which provided a structure to empower and guide work at the school branches, featuring nearly 100 show programs and 1,000 copyright-compliant song choices tagged with the associated skill levels, musical concepts, and corresponding show programs. When the app launched in 2019, it struggled to gain traction. Some franchisees felt the functionality was flawed; others worried that the app threatened their pedagogical independence. Price’s team considered several options to increase adoption: a listening tour to communicate the app’s value and collect feedback for improvements; an exclusive marketing campaign for schools with a minimum level of app usage; and incentives based on School of Rock’s balanced scorecard that measured performance and other metrics. Harvard Business School Professors Tatiana Sandino and Jeffrey Rayport joined host Brian Kenny and School of Rock leaders Stacey Ryan, President, and Rob Price, Former CEO for a live taping of Cold Call on the HBS campus. They discussed the case, “School of Rock: Tuning into Structured Empowerment,” and explored how to drive adoption of the Method App across its franchisees without reigniting tensions with the corporate office.
#284
June 9 · 32 min
The Founder Mindset: Tim Ferriss on Experiments, Risk, and Freedom
What does it take to be a founder? It’s an important question and one that Cold Call has explored many times over the years. More people than ever before are choosing entrepreneurship as a career path and HBS faculty have written cases to undercover issues ranging from how to scale to how to recover from failure. Today, we’re sharing an episode of The Founder Mindset, produced by Harvard Business School Foundry and hosted by Senior Lecturer Reza Satchu. In this episode, “The Curse of Optionality: Tim Ferriss on Experiments, Risk, and Freedom,” Satchu sits down with writer, podcaster, and investor Tim Ferriss to discuss his blueprint for nimble decision-making and actionable success. Ferriss turned experimentation into a competitive advantage—authoring multiple #1 New York Times bestsellers, launching one of the world’s most influential podcasts, and investing early in companies like Uber, Facebook, Shopify, and Duolingo. His playbook isn’t about reckless bets—it’s about calibrated risk, smart experiments, and learning faster than the competition. You can find The Founder Mindset with Reza Satchu podcast wherever you listen.
#283
May 26 · 26 min
How Strong Teams Leverage Different Personality Types
Harvard Business School Professor Len Schlesinger and TypeCoach President Rob Toomey join Brian Kenny to discuss the two mini cases, Night Two in Hanoi: Team Dynamics Under Pressure and Day 6 in Buenos Aires: Fatto Bene. They explore MBA students’ journeys through the first-year FIELD Global Capstone course and how utilizing the TypeCoach personality classications taught them how to recognize and work across cognitive differences, ultimately improving team dynamics and their final project outcome. Cold Call listeners have complimentary access to the same suite of six TypeCoach tools provided to HBS students at this link: https://www.typecoach.com/podcast-cold-call
#282
May 12 · 26 min
Microsoft’s Path to Adopting and Scaling AI Across its Sales Organization
In early 2024, six months after the highly anticipated launch of Microsoft Copilot across the 62,000-person Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) organization—one of the world’s largest sales organizations—the initial excitement had not yet materialized into widespread adoption and transformation. But, two years after initiating their AI transformation journey, the organization’s daily active usage of AI tools had reached over 60% and monthly active usage over 98%, significantly altering how sales professionals approached their work. The path to adoption had required Microsoft to evolve its approach based on early deployment insights. The company had simultaneously developed autonomous sales agents capable of managing end-to-end customer interactions. Unlike Copilot, which acted as an assistant in the flow of work, Sales Agent could take action on its own: it was designed to automate the sales process under pre-specified constraints or guardrails. This innovation presented new and unique challenges. Harvard Business School Associate Professors Iav Bojinov and Shunyuan Zhang join Brian Kenny to discuss the case, “Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions: The Deployment of Copilot and Agents.” They explore the company’s journey to successfully mobilizing AI adoption within the sales process, the challenges it faces integrating autonomous sales agents, and what it takes to get thousands of employees to fundamentally change how they work.
#281
April 28 · 34 min
How a Family-Owned Greek Cement Company Evolved Its Leadership While Pivoting Its Product Portfolio
Over 26 years at the helm, Dimitri Papalexopoulos, fourth-generation CEO of TITAN Cement, has turned the company from a domestic player into an internationally diversified group and championed an AI-driven productivity leap, even while steering the company through multiple economic crises. As TITAN prepared for its next phase of growth, Papalexopoulos faced the consequential decision of whether to continue leading the company, promote a trusted insider, or become the first in the company’s history to recommend to the board appoint a non-family CEO. After a global search the board does decide to appoint Marcel Cobuz—ex-LafargeHolcim executive with deep innovation experience—as TITAN’s first non-family CEO. Cobuz co-creates a four-pillar roadmap: sharpen the core cement portfolio, accelerate low-carbon products and aggregates, build a tech-driven innovation engine and empower country units while tightening performance accountability. Two years on, TITAN posts record revenues and profitability, green products reach 30% of output and a minority stake in TITAN America lists on the NYSE. Yet initiative overload strains the organization, raising the question: is Cobuz’s stretch agenda visionary or too much, too fast? Harvard Business School Professor George Serafeim and TITAN former CEO Dimitri Papalexopoulos join Brian Kenny to discuss the case, “Transforming a Titan,” exploring digitalization, globalization, and succession planning of an established family business as well as how to accelerate low-carbon efforts in a carbon intensive industry.
#280
April 14 · 29 min
The Challenges of Scaling a Technology for Social Good
In 2021, a breakthrough in sanitation technology – developed under the Gates Foundation’s “Reinvent the Toilet” challenge – stood ready for commercialization. The Single User Reinvented Toilet (SURT) offered an off-grid, self-contained system capable of processing waste, generating water, and reducing environmental impact. Turning this technical success into a viable product, however, meant confronting intertwined challenges around behavior change, infrastructure compatibility, financing models, and stakeholder incentives. Against this backdrop, engineer Dr. Shannon Yee and his team faced a tough decision about SURT’s path to market: pilot the technology independently in a developing market, license it to appliance firms, or tailor it for government or military procurement. Each path entailed distinct strategic, operational, and ethical implications for how a technology designed to serve the world’s most underserved populations would scale. Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Maria Roche and SURT engineer Dr. Shannon Yee join Brian Kenny to discuss the case “Toilets for the Underserved: The SURT Commercialization Challenge” and the central question of how to launch and then scale a technology particularly important for underserved markets, but not a lucrative short term investment opportunity.
#279
March 31 · 27 min
Should Wasabi Technologies Make the Move from Direct Sales to a Channel Strategy?
After launching Wasabi Technologies, a successful cloud storage company, founder and CEO David Friend was ready to scale the venture rapidly. The company had focused primarily on direct sales, but an opportunity to pivot toward channel sales was on the horizon. However, making this pivot would mean changing its sales, marketing, and staffing strategies dramatically, and effectively veering the company away from its already successful course. Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Lou Shipley joins Brian Kenny to discuss the case, “Wasabi Technologies” and the questions Friend wrestled with: Was channel sales the right play for the burgeoning cloud storage provider? If so, how should it best be implemented? They also explore ideas connected to Shipley’s new book, Unlikely Entrepreneurs.
#278
March 17 · 31 min
How Software Startup InsightSquared Wrestled with Creating an Optimal Sales and Marketing Strategy
Software startup InsightSquared had recently hit $2 million in revenue and secured an $8 million round of venture capital. However, the founders disagreed on the path ahead, specifically on the sales and marketing plan. Should they focus on a sales-centric approach to growth or a marketing-centric one? Which strategy was optimal for their venture’s next phase of growth? Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Mark Roberge joins Brian Kenny to discuss the case, “InsightSquared: Developing the Sales and Marketing Plan” and ideas related to his new book, The Science of Scaling. They explore the penultimate startup question of how to scale and point to the importance of implementing and communicating an effective sales and marketing strategy.

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