Kotak Mahindra Bank: Uday Kotak's early exit enabled a seamless handover
Founder Uday Kotak quit as CEO four months early in September 2023, sequencing an interim chief and an outsider successor with no break in performance.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDGoelitz, on a shoestring, bet the firm on gourmet Jelly Belly beans in 1976
Crushed by the 1974 sugar spike, fourth-generation Herman Rowland borrowed to survive, then bet the firm on a gourmet bean that Reagan made famous.
Read the caseChennaiRains turned a $60 weather station into a hyperlocal forecast service
K. Srikanth turned a post-cyclone weather hobby into ChennaiRains, pairing a $60 home station with rapid hyperlocal updates.
Read the caseBest Buy shut its stores to shoppers in March 2020 and kept 81% of sales
Best Buy moved its whole US chain to contactless curbside within a day, then watched online revenue jump 242% as its big boxes doubled as fulfillment centers.
Read the caseBOE: from a Beijing tube factory to the world's biggest display panel maker
The listed successor of a state-owned vacuum-tube factory bought Korea's cast-off LCD lines, then out-built Japan and Korea to lead the global panel market.
Read the caseFPT pivoted from its 1988 food plan to computers in 1990, becoming Vietnam's tech giant
13 scientists founded FPT as a food-processing firm in 1988, renamed it a tech firm in 1990, and listed it in 2006 with shares at 40x par on day one.
Read the caseHyundai backed its bad reputation with the longest warranty in the industry
Hyundai's cars ranked among the worst in quality surveys after the Asian crisis forced deep layoffs. Its chairman offered a 10-year warranty anyway.
Read the caseFawry turned Egypt's bill-payment booths into the country's first $1B tech company
A 2008 bill-payment kiosk network digitized into Egypt's payments platform — 30x-subscribed 2019 IPO, first $1B Egyptian tech company (2020), 53M monthly
Read the caseGermany's 1960 Volkswagen Law sold 60% of VW as 'people's shares' — and kept a veto
West Germany privatised Volkswagen in 1960–61, selling 60% as small-investor 'people's shares' while keeping 40% public plus takeover-proof voting rules.
Read the caseRaleigh brought the Chopper bicycle back in 2004 and a 1970s icon sold again
Out of production for over 20 years, the 1970s icon returned in 2004 with only safety-driven changes, riding a wave of collector and nostalgia demand.
Read the caseMargaret Barbour took over in 1968 and turned a jacket maker into a global brand
A widow with no business training took over after her husband died in 1968 — 'that could have been the end of Barbour' — and built a global fashion brand.
Read the caseDiageo spent £185M to bring its two 1983 'ghost' distilleries back to life
Diageo sold vanishing Port Ellen and Brora stock for 34 years, then rebuilt both lost distilleries — Brora rekindled in 2021, Port Ellen reopened in 2024.
Read the caseIIT Madras turned theoretical training into a startup engine
IIT Madras added makerspace and incubation to fix theory-heavy training; since 2013, the cell helped develop 325 startups worth about $4.9B.
Read the caseCoupang doubled revenue through COVID and IPO'd at $35 a share
South Korea's Coupang rode lockdown demand to $12B of 2020 revenue, up 93% on the year, and priced its NYSE IPO at $35 a share in March 2021.
Read the caseAer Lingus: Willie Walsh's survival plan turned a €52m loss into profit in two years
Facing 'staggering' post-9/11 losses, Aer Lingus cut costs 22%, moved booking online, and went from €52m operating losses to profit within a year.
Read the caseAdobe turned boxed software into subscriptions, from a revenue dip to record sales.
Adobe launched Creative Cloud in 2012, absorbed a revenue dip as licenses fell, then compounded: subscription revenue hit $4.6B of $5.85B total by FY2016.
Read the caseA state leather maker in Yantai became the world's largest MDI producer
Forced by a failed technology license to build its own MDI process, Yantai Wanhua climbed from a loss-making SOE to the world's No. 1 MDI maker.
Read the casePower Grid India's 2007 IPO, 64 times subscribed, funded the national grid
India listed a 13.6% slice of its transmission monopoly in 2007; the offer was 64 times subscribed and Power Grid became a global grid leader.
Read the caseBabcock & Wilcox left asbestos-era Chapter 11 in 2006 and kept building power equipment
B&W filed Chapter 11 in 2000 over asbestos injury claims, won court approval for a settlement-funded plan, and exited in February 2006.
Read the caseMoon Boot rode Y2K nostalgia and luxury collabs back into fashion
Tecnica's 1969 astronaut boot had become a retro novelty; a new GM in 2021 rebuilt it as a fashion brand with streetwear campaigns and luxury collabs.
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