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Case Study

Atera NYC (C): New leadership in the cuisine

By Benoit F. Leleux, George Kohlrieser and Ole Borregaard

9 pages

June 2016

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Reference: IMD-7-1788

Atera Restaurant, New York City, February 2015. Jodi Richard closed the door behind her with a ton of questions. She had just come out of the final meeting with Matthew Lightner, the executive chef of her two-Michelin-star restaurant in lower Manhattan. Matthew had just announced he was quitting to “pursue new opportunities.” This was the final straw in a long string of events that had unfolded before her eyes. The departure of the multi-starred chef would leave a huge vacuum in the restaurant’s organization. Worse, they has agreed that Matthew’s departure would be effective very rapidly, by end of March. The situation was critical: finding a new star chef for a fashionable restaurant in the competitive lower-Manhattan food scene was going to be a huge challenge. Several other crucial questions preoccupied Jodi. Should she just close down the restaurant and rent the space out to somebody else? Should she change the restaurant concept completely, moving to something easier like a sushi restaurant? Was a trip to Japan to find a young ambitious chef an option in that respect? How would the staff feel about the chef’s departure? Would they follow the exit sign as well?

Learning Objective

Hospitality management, culture, secure-based leadership, incentives, crisis management, entrepreneurship, restaurant management, service marketing, social networks, public relations.

Keywords

Leadership, High Performance, Performance Management, People Management, Secure Base Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Restaurant, Crisis Management, Social Network, Facebook, Marketing, Strategy, Team Dynamics, Hospitality

Settings

Northern America, United States of America
Atera, Travel and Leisure, Hotels and Restaurants, Travel and Leisure, Hospitality
2014-2016

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Teaching note, Video

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This case study is part of a series

Atera NYC (A): Turbulent times in the kitchen
Atera NYC (B): Food war declared
Atera NYC (C): New leadership in the cuisine

This case study is part of a series

Atera NYC (A): Turbulent times in the kitchen
Atera NYC (B): Food war declared
Atera NYC (C): New leadership in the cuisine

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