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Cold Call

Cold Call

HBR Presents / Brian Kenny 287 Episodes Sep 15, 2026

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.

Episodes

How GEO Is Changing the Role of Brand Manager
How GEO Is Changing the Role of Brand Manager Sep 15, 2026 1871 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. Co-founded by Andrew Yan, the company 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 r
Best of Cold Call: The Bumpy Road to Expanding a Fleet of Electric School Buses
Best of Cold Call: The Bumpy Road to Expanding a Fleet of Electric School Buses Sep 1, 2026 1920 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. 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 Harva
Can an AI-Powered Scribe Curb Physician Burnout?
Can an AI-Powered Scribe Curb Physician Burnout? Aug 18, 2026 1443 In 2024, Mass General Brigham, the largest health system in Massachusetts, piloted an AI-powered, ambient note-taking and transcription 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). Early results showed promising reductions in clinician
Why Metaphysic AI Looked to Hollywood for a Digital Rights Model
Why Metaphysic AI Looked to Hollywood for a Digital Rights Model Aug 4, 2026 1449 Founded in 2021, AI generative video company 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. The company had two revenue streams: high-end content creation for Hollywood studios and a platform allowing individuals to own and control their digital likeness thanks to
How a Museum Marketing Team Used AI to Bring People Closer to Art
How a Museum Marketing Team Used AI to Bring People Closer to Art Jul 21, 2026 1602 In 2025, Harvard Art Museums considered using generative AI 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 promi
Are We Entering a New Age of Creativity with the Help of AI?
Are We Entering a New Age of Creativity with the Help of AI? Jul 7, 2026 1788 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. The Atlantic’s journalists, however, were incensed,
How School of Rock Created Structure in Order to Scale with Agility and Creativity
How School of Rock Created Structure in Order to Scale with Agility and Creativity Jun 23, 2026 2235 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. One of Price’s major initiatives to aid better standardization was the Method App which
The Founder Mindset: Tim Ferriss on Experiments, Risk, and Freedom
The Founder Mindset: Tim Ferriss on Experiments, Risk, and Freedom Jun 9, 2026 1957 What does it take to be a founder? In this episode of The Founder Mindset, produced by Harvard Business School Foundry and hosted by Senior Lecturer Reza Satchu, Satchu sits down with writer, podcaster, and investor Tim Ferriss to discuss his blueprint for nimble decision-making and actionable success.
How Strong Teams Leverage Different Personality Types
How Strong Teams Leverage Different Personality Types May 26, 2026 1613 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 the TypeCoach personality classications taught them how to recognize and work acros
Microsoft’s Path to Adopting and Scaling AI Across its Sales Organization
Microsoft’s Path to Adopting and Scaling AI Across its Sales Organization May 12, 2026 1607 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
How a Family-Owned Greek Cement Company Evolved Its Leadership While Pivoting Its Product Portfolio
How a Family-Owned Greek Cement Company Evolved Its Leadership While Pivoting Its Product Portfolio Apr 28, 2026 2071 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
The Challenges of Scaling a Technology for Social Good
The Challenges of Scaling a Technology for Social Good Apr 14, 2026 1784 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 confro

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