New Balance turned the 'dad shoe' joke into a tripling of sales.
Leaning into heritage styling and collaborations, New Balance grew from $4B in 2019 sales to $6.5B in 2023 — up 96.6% since 2020.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDTVS Motor's Sudarshan Venu became chairman at 36, sealing the next-generation handover
TVS Motor made MD Sudarshan Venu Chairman from August 25, 2025; he had already turned around market share and expanded abroad.
Read the casePoshmark turned anonymous classifieds into a trusted mobile fashion marketplace
Poshmark narrowed classifieds to fashion and owned the transaction, turning social closets into a cash-flow-positive resale marketplace.
Read the caseStorageTek emerged from 1984 bankruptcy by betting on automated tape libraries
Ryal Poppa cut StorageTek's moonshots, refocused on storage, and emerged from Chapter 11 in 1987 paying creditors 100 cents on the dollar.
Read the caseZynga's mobile-first pivot produced its first annual profit since 2010
After years of Facebook-game losses, Zynga rebuilt around live mobile games; 2017 net income was $26.6M, its first annual profit since 2010.
Read the casePalantir pledged its first GAAP profit for 2023, delivered it, and entered the S&P 500
Alex Karp committed Palantir to GAAP profitability for 2023, cut stock-based pay and cloud spend, rode AIP-driven AI demand, and reached the S&P 500 in 2024.
Read the caseAfter his father's 1998 death, Eric Babolat bet on Nadal and won
At 28 after his father's death, Eric Babolat gave free racquets to junior players like Nadal and turned a string maker into a tennis giant.
Read the caseValueAct's pressure helped push Microsoft closer to a focused, disciplined future
A 0.8% stake and a board-seat threat arrived just as Ballmer agreed to step down, pushing Microsoft toward a 'devices and services' reset.
Read the caseAvaya shed most of its debt in Chapter 11 and rebuilt around cloud customer experience
A prepackaged 2023 filing wrote down ~$4B of debt; Avaya re-emerged with $650M liquidity and pivoted to the cloud Avaya Experience Platform.
Read the caseWanxiang bought A123 out of bankruptcy and grew it into a global battery maker
After A123's 2012 Chapter 11, Wanxiang paid $256.6M, returned it to profit within a year, doubled capacity, and opened a Czech plant.
Read the caseTurkcell's digital-services push drove a 51% jump in data revenue
By pivoting to data and digital services, Turkcell lifted 2017 revenue 23% to TRY 17.6B and profit to TRY 2.04B despite currency and regulatory pressure.
Read the caseBritain's first privatisation, Amersham, was a test that ran hot
Thatcher's first ever big privatisation, The Radiochemical Centre, floated as Amersham International in Feb 1982 after over-subscription.
Read the caseWingstop's off-premise model turned COVID into 33% same-store sales growth
Having built 80% off-premise before the pandemic, Wingstop grew April same-store sales 33.4% while dining rooms shut.
Read the caseYutong's managers bought the group and pushed out its state owner in 2001
Yutong Bus management used a 2001 share deal plus a 2003 judicial auction to take Yutong Group private, turning a local SOE into China's bus leader.
Read the caseWendy's launched breakfast nine days before lockdown — and stuck with it
Wendy's rolled out breakfast nationwide on March 2, 2020, days before COVID-19 hit; it kept investing and breakfast drove a 7% Q3 same-store sales rise.
Read the caseNitori remade Japanese furniture by destroying retail markups — and beat IKEA at home
A Hokkaido interior shop cut out wholesalers through direct imports and own factories (from 1979) to become Japan's No.1 furniture retailer.
Read the caseVotingWorks open-source voting bet won real elections and passed a state audit
Ben Adida built VotingWorks as a nonprofit that opens its voting code; Mississippi used it from 2019 and New Hampshire passed it on audit in 2023.
Read the caseAntong Holdings exited court reorganization and rode the 2021 freight boom
Antong's 2019-2020 court reorganization wiped out its debt; 2021 container rates then lifted net profit 36.6% to ¥1.77B
Read the caseStephanie Stuckey bought her grandfather's fading brand and brought it back
The Stuckey family sold out in the 1970s and the brand decayed; granddaughter Stephanie bought it back in 2019 and sales went from $2M to $14M.
Read the caseElliott's 2024 pressure toppled Starbucks' CEO and kicked off a turnaround
Elliott built a sizable Starbucks stake and said it was underperforming; the board ousted CEO Narasimhan, hired Chipotle's Brian Niccol, and shares jumped 25%.
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