United Kingdom
July 2023
Alessandro Riccombeni Case A: Lessons in leadership
By Randall Peterson, Nick Mickshik
This case is aimed at helping executives understand the reasons why they may ‘derail’ when promoted to a new position or when they secure a new job that does not accord with their expectations of it. Case A describes the situation Alessandro Riccombeni found himself in when, having seemingly se...
July 2023
Alessandro Riccombeni Case B: Resolving the impasse
By Randall Peterson, Nick Mickshik
This case is aimed at helping executives understand the reasons why they may ‘derail’ when promoted to a new position or when they secure a new job that does not accord with their expectations of it. Case A describes the situation Alessandro Riccombeni found himself in when, having seemingly se...
May 2023
Nova Ventures: Searching for gems in the UK
By Luisa Alemany, Florin Vasvari
Zakib Sari, an aeronautical engineer and entrepreneur who had worked for Shell UK for several years, decided to pursue the entrepreneurship-through-acquisition path after his first year of the MBA programme at London Business School (LBS). In January 2016 he analysed several career options and concl...
September 2022
Feedr (B)
By Gary Dushnitsky, Kathryn Larin
The case describes the journey of Riya Grover and Lyz Swanton (MBAs from HBS and LBS respectively) who launched, scaled and sold London-based startup Feedr during the second half of 2010. Feedr introduced a sustainable solution offering nutritionally healthy food by leveraging technology to drive pe...
September 2022
Feedr (A)
By Gary Dushnitsky, Kathryn Larin
The case describes the journey of Riya Grover and Lyz Swanton as they launched, scaled and sold London-based startup Feedr during the second half of 2010. Feedr provided nutritionally healthy food to the workplace by leveraging technology to drive personalisation in choice and scale. Case A follo...
June 2022
Anne Boden at Starling Bank: Disrupting an industry
By Herminia Ibarra, Luisa Alemany, Nick Mickshik, Ken Mark
The case describes the start-up and evolution of UK-based digital bank Starling. Founded in 2014, Starling offered personal and business accounts, and lending products, promising a better customer-service experience, faster approvals and a more digital-friendly approach than traditional banks. By 20...
March 2022
Refinitiv: A private equity-led transformation
By Julian Birkinshaw, David Craig
In August 2019 CEO David Craig was considering the likely benefits and challenges of merging his company, financial-markets data and infrastructure provider Refinitiv, with the London Stock Exchange Group. Craig had led a turnaround of Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk division (F&R), then...
February 2022
TrueLayer: Innovation, regulation and the future of financial services
By Julian Birkinshaw, Ken Mark, Farhan Lalji
In April 2021, having just raised $70 million in a Series D funding, Francesco Simoneschi, Co-Founder and CEO of TrueLayer, was thinking about expansion plans. Should the company focus on product innovation, broadening its line-up within the 13 countries in which it operated, or should it look to gr...
September 2021
The fall of Greensill and the future of supply chain finance
By S. Alex Yang, Lisa Duke
In March 2021, Greensill Capital, the UK-based leading supply chain financing provider, with 16 offices across the world, filed for insolvency; its Germany-based bank closed by regulators. Less than two years earlier, Greensill had received a $1.5 billion investment from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, va...
November 2021
Pass the Keys (B)
By John Mullins
The past year, 2019, had been an exhilarating one for Alex Lyakhotskiy and his team. Buoyed by a new franchise model that was working well for opening new cities, alongside better execution in some of the company’s existing cities, Pass the Keys’ growth had accelerated. Happily, it was looking l...