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With the feminist movement of the late 1960‘s and early 1970’s, “fast track” women eagerly sought advancement within male‐dominated Corporate America. By 1990 women succeeded in entry‐level and middle‐manager positions, but failed, with few notable exceptions, to make substantial gains in upper echelons. Many reasons for the failure exist, including family considerations, stubborn cultural and gender biases, and a lack of adequate training and educational opportunities. In response, and in frustration, many women have turned to entrepreneurship as a way to succeed at the top. Changing demographics, such as the new cultural and ethnic diversity, will open the upper level corporate doors for women as white males become the new minority entrant to the work force. The fast track derailment experienced by women over the past twenty years is temporary, and will begin to change by the end of the 1990's.

This chapter provides discursive space for story-telling to provide narrative reflection on the experiences associated with struggles and advantages attributed to advancing non-traditional perspectives into practice. I utilize an auto-ethnography (L. Anderson (2006). Analytical autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 373–395; C. Ellis & A. P. Bochner (2000). Auto-ethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 733–768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; L. Richardson (2000). Writing. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 923–948). London: Sage) to detail my lived experiences as a scholar who has encountered the outsider-within status in academe (Collins, P. H. (2002). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.). I detail my dual role as a social agent and as an African-American female scholar and the complexities of teaching social justice while promoting the need for activism of social justice and equity in our U.S. schools. Therefore, this study amplifies silenced voices regarding challenges for African-American female scholars engaged in transformative pedagogy in academe. I will utilize a Critical Race Theory lens to examine the racialized experiences that persist for African-American faculty seeking to advance transformational perspectives in academe, and thus through teaching, helping students to realize inequities in K-12 classroom settings (Grant, C. (2012). Advancing our legacy: A Black feminist perspective on the significance of mentoring for African-American women in educational leadership. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 25(1), 101–117.).

Efforts to make the television landscape more equitable for people of color have been evident both within and outside the industry as early as the 1940s. These advancements made by individuals within broadcasting were an attempt to allow more people of color to get opportunities to prove themselves competent in front of and behind the scenes in broadcast television. While these early attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, they laid the groundwork for future diversity initiative efforts. The purpose of this chapter is to expose the landmark events that introduced changes in diversity policy that eventually resulted from diversity initiatives at NBC despite the racial barriers within its corporate structure. This chapter will show that the trajectory of these early events exhibits that the diversity initiatives seen today resulted from decades of pressure from the government, the press and outside citizen activist groups.

This case considers the buyout of Panera Bread from the perspective of a private equity fund. In early 2017, KLG Managing Director Tom Denning is considering a leveraged buyout of Panera Bread, a rapidly growing fast-casual restaurant company. A surprising Bloomberg News story signals that the deal process is broadening and KLG will have to act quickly if it hopes to buy Panera Bread. Students assume the role of Tom Denning as he prepares an investment recommendation for KLG's investment committee. In doing so, students are required to consider a very large and expensive investment. Students are challenged to create an investment recommendation by performing due diligence, determining additional questions to ask, and pricing a buyout bid that incorporates an optimal capital structure and meets KLG's return requirements. The Panera Bread case is designed to give students insight into the private equity investment process.