Colombia’s finance minister put forward an urgently needed tax-reform package in April 2021 meant to raise revenues and target the complexity, inefficiency, and low redistribution of the existing system. The bill was widely praised by tax experts for being fair and technically sound, but triggered largescale protests for seeming to target the middle class. A new finance minister, José Manuel Restrepo, came to office. How should he redraft the bill?

When Soledad Núñez became housing minister of Paraguay in October 2014, she knew she was taking on one of the most corrupt and ineffective public institutions in the country. Determined to make meaningful changes, she set about reforming the ministry and even dismissed the senior official at the centre of the corruption. But, one year later, he had returned with a court order reinstating him. With her fragile new culture on the line, how should Núñez respond?

The build-up to the 2020 US presidential elections between Joe Biden and Donald Trump saw disinformation spreading rapidly. Trump-appointee Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), had spent years enhancing election security while developing an apolitical reputation. But now Trump was questioning the election’s validity, and his close allies were sharing a false story about a supercomputer flipping votes. How could Krebs respond in a way that preserved widespread trust in the elections?

The Vatican Bank, central to the mission of the Catholic Church, largely operated outside the global financial regulatory system, but its culture of secrecy had gained notoriety for enabling financial irregularities. In 2012, Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer, was appointed as director of the Vatican’s financial regulator to address these concerns. As a relative outsider, what steps could he take to achieve organisational change at the tradition-bound Vatican?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, London’s Metropolitan Police Service (Met) reported data on its use of stop and search. In May 2020 alone, the Met had conducted 44,000 searches – an eight-year high – and searched Black Londoners at four times the rate of white Londoners. This racial disproportionality had endured for decades, but gained renewed visibility in 2020 as Black Lives Matter protests highlighted discrimination in policing. How should Met Commissioner Cressida Dick respond to the growing scrutiny?

The early days of the Covid-19 pandemic saw national UK guidelines constantly changing and urgent operational challenges emerging. Meanwhile, the chief medical officer at a prestigious NHS hospital trust learned that some members of her staff no longer wanted to conduct elective surgeries due to safety concerns, going against national guidance. How should she respond to her team of surgeons?

In 2017, London’s transportation regulator made the surprise decision not to renew the licence of the global ride-sharing company Uber, citing safety concerns. While Uber received a probationary licence, now in 2019, the regulator had to make a more permanent decision. London’s cab drivers argued that Uber operated outside of the otherwise strictly regulated industry, but Uber insisted it enhanced competition and choice. Should the regulator renew the licence?

In 2002, Berlin Brandenburg Flughafen GmbH (BBF), a company owned by the federal and state governments, began a second attempt at privatising a planned international airport in Berlin, following a failed first tender. It had been more than a decade since German officials first announced plans for the airport. But the new tender resulted in just one bid, with contentious terms and a low price. Should BBF proceed with the bid, or delay the project further?

In 2020, India was laying the groundwork to deploy 5G telecom technology expected to transform economies and societies worldwide. China-based Huawei was the dominant vendor, with cheaper, faster, and more advanced technology than its competitors. However, Western intelligence agencies, including the US, suspected that Huawei would enable espionage by the Chinese government. Ahead of a meeting with the US president, India’s prime minister had to decide: should – and could – India deploy Huawei’s 5G equipment, despite its allies’ security concerns?