A groundbreaking initiative that will highlight the leadership role women play in businesses worldwide has been announced by the Business School (HBS) and the Committee of 200 (C200), a national organization of women business executives.

The initiative represents an important collaboration between HBS and the C200. Their goal is to develop a growing number of HBS cases focusing on important management issues involving women business leaders.

The initiative was made possible by a grant from Marjorie Alfus, businesswoman, lawyer, and longtime member of the C200. The Marjorie Alfus/Committee of 200 Fund at Harvard Business School was formally announced at the Committee's fifteenth anniversary dinner in Chicago on Oct. 24.

According to the terms of the initiative, as Harvard Business School faculty members continue to identify topics of interest for new cases as part of their research and course development agenda, the Committee of 200 will work with them to help find organizations whose women business executives might serve as suitable case subjects.

The C200 will also participate with HBS professors and students in programs to encourage women to pursue leadership careers in management.

Harvard Business School Dean Kim B. Clark praised Alfus as "a catalyst for a project that will be of great significance in the world of management education. Our faculty is committed to making it a great success," he said.

"As pioneers in the use of the case method of instruction and as the world's leading producer and distributor of cases," Dean Clark continued, "we are well positioned to make significant additions to the number of business cases that feature businesswomen in leadership roles. We are delighted that the Committee of 200 will help us identify women who are key decisionmakers and encourage them to cooperate in the development of cases that provide insights into their careers and companies."

Alfus will be closely involved with the initiative as chairwoman of an advisory council consisting of C200 members who have agreed to participate in both the case development effort and other activities designed to prepare women for leadership positions in business.

Alfus said her decision to fund an initiative that would encourage the writing of case studies that featured women came about after speaking with educational leaders at a number of schools.

"It became clear that there was a dearth of case studies on women in business," she said. "I'm a very hands-on kind of person, and this approach really appealed to me."

She was familiar with the case method from her days as a law student and was intrigued with the idea of making cases with women protagonists more available to business students.

"It turned out that Harvard was just as anxious to get this under way as we were, and so it was the perfect marriage," she said.

The research and course development for this initiative will be coordinated for the Business School's Division of Research by Myra M. Hart, a member of the HBS faculty. After earning her M.B.A. at the School, Hart was one of four founding officers of Staples, where she participated in raising venture capital and served as the company's first vice president of operations.

As group vice president of growth and development from 1987 to 1990, Hart was responsible for identifying and overseeing Staples' geographic and business expansion during its early growth years. She returned to HBS and earned her doctorate in 1995 and joined the School's Entrepreneurial Management Unit.

"The purpose of the initiative is to make the educational process more like the business world, to show that women can be and are business leaders," Hart said. "Generally, there is a five- to seven-year lag in the writing and publishing of cases, and the result is that the cases we're using now do not give a representative picture of what business management looks like today."

As part of her research effort, Hart has been conducting an inventory of existing cases to determine which ones feature women protagonists. She is also interviewing faculty to identify key business issues, then trying to match these issues with actual case sites that feature women protagonists. Finally, a specially selected team of three experienced women case writers will turn the cases into written form.

Since the initiative was first announced, Hart said, "there has been an inundation of positive responses from senior women executives who are willing and able to provide assistance. This will enable us to build up a large inventory of potential case sites which will be available to the faculty as a whole."

The case method has been Harvard Business School's primary form of instruction for decades. An interactive approach to learning that combines both analysis and action, it requires students to exercise judgment and make decisions regarding the actual management situations described in the case.

Each year the HBS faculty develops more than 700 new cases and other teaching materials. Approximately 7,500 titles are available in the School's collection, which is also used by other schools and organizations.

The Committee of 200 was founded in 1982 to support and promote the growing role of women in business and to facilitate the exchange of ideas among preeminent businesswomen on critical issues in business and industry. It defines its mission as "exemplifying and promoting entrepreneurship and corporate leadership among women of this generation and the next." The organization is headquartered in Chicago.