The Industrialist’s Dilemma — February 18, 2022 — As we approach the end of our journey in The Industrialist’s Dilemma, Maxwell Wessel and I were fortunate to host Jim Loree, CEO of Stanley Black & Decker, to our classroom last week. With a market capitalization of $26 billion, revenues greater than $15 billion, EBITDA over $2 billion, more…

The Industrialist’s Dilemma — March 4, 2021 — In our six years of teaching the course, only a few of our guests have attended multiple times. In the case of Charlie Scharf, he visited once as the CEO of Visa and once as the CEO of BNY Mellon. Thomas Tull came once as the CEO of Legendary Pictures…

The Industrialist’s Dilemma — February 26, 2021 — As we prepared for our session with Jim Fix, CEO of Waste Management (WM), Maxwell Wessel and I were debating the angle we should take for the session. To me it was obvious: We were going to talk about the transformation of an industrial giant. With revenues of $15 billion…

The Industrialist’s Dilemma — February 11, 2021 — As we reached the halfway part of this year’s course, we were fortunate to have Nick Tzitzon of ServiceNow as our guest. With a background as an executive at SAP and extensive experience in a variety of government roles, Tzitzon brought a unique perspective as we explored why ServiceNow is…

The Industrialist’s Dilemma — January 28, 2021 — Our fourth session this year was the first time we spent a whole class talking about a sports team — a new industry for The Industrialist’s Dilemma. With the rise of Esports and gaming, accelerated in popularity by the pandemic, we thought we had the perfect setup: an executive from…

The Industrialist’s Dilemma — January 21, 2021 — In our latest session we got to examine a high-flying company disrupting the retail fashion space. Stitch Fix has been on a roll in the last few quarters, with strong growth and an evolving business model that is positioning the company to continue to attack the $400 billion fashion retail…

The Industrialist’s Dilemma — January 14, 2021 — We began the sixth year of teaching The Industrialist’s Dilemma by revisiting two companies who have had their businesses radically impacted by the pandemic — strangely, in a positive way. Our first session was with Julia Cheek, CEO of Everlywell, whose company’s solution of supplying tests for home healthcare has…

Classes 8–10 — As we wrapped up the last three sessions of our course, we witnessed three very different leaders who showed contrasting styles and were facing unique challenges for their companies. Some were calm and decisive and some were passionate and enthralling. …

Classes 4–7 — As we hit the middle part of the course we saw patterns emerge in the leaders who visited: clarity on their challenges, strong perspectives on their markets, and the ability to make hard choices when required to do so. Each leader seemed to have a realistic outlook on the status…