Here are seven current or forthcoming must-reads by Tuck alumni authors.
LOWEY BUNDY SICHOL T’02, author of the From an Idea to … business biography books for elementary/middle grade children, is also the founder and principal of Case Marketing, a writer/producer of MBA case studies for business schools.
Current Book: From an Idea to LEGO and From an Idea to Google, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, July 2019.
In her latest books From an Idea to LEGO and From an Idea to Google, marketing and brand management expert Lowey Bundy Sichol shares the entrepreneurial journeys of LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. She breaks down the business strategies that brought LEGO from wooden toys to an interlocking plastic brick system and Google from a Stanford dorm room project to one of the world’s most valuable brands.
Sprinkled with kid-friendly visuals, fun facts, and easy-to-read business definitions, these books explore such topics as how LEGO minifigures came to be, the importance of failing at Google, and how both companies changed the world through innovation. The books join a growing collection written by Bundy Sichol including From an Idea to Nike and From an Idea to Disney.
Author and keynote speaker PETER HORST T’88, named by Forbes as one of the World’s Top 50 Most Influential CMOs, is the founder and head of marketing consultancy firm CMO, Inc.
Current Book: Marketing in the Fake News Era: New Rules for a New Reality of Tribalism, Activism, and Loss of Trust, Advantage | Forbes Books, June 2018.
Horst’s book examines the increasingly complex challenges brands face and how much higher the stakes have become in the era of Fake News. “Leaders,” the publisher’s synopsis explains, “must now address a highly polarized marketplace in which consumers are energized by their tribal affiliations to take action for or against brands based on their perceived values, beliefs, and biases.” Marketing in the Fake News Era provides strategic and tactical guidance on how to take control and protect the company’s brand in the event of a PR crisis.
JORGE AGUILAR T’04, partner at Prophet, works with leaders to create momentum in their careers, with their teams, and in their organizations at large.
Current Book: Perspectives on Purpose: Leading Voices on Building Brands and Businesses for the Twenty-First Century, Routledge, March 2019.
Perspectives on Purpose is a compilation of essays by nearly two dozen senior executives who share stories from their jobs about social responsibility in business and how companies can, and should, do good while also doing well.
Aguilar’s chapter, titled “Activating Living Experiences: Building Brand Relevance by Putting Purpose to Work,” supports his perspective that purpose is necessary, but not sufficient to drive growth. “To be impactful,” he says, “purpose needs
to be translated into living brand experiences.”
ROGER MCNAMEE T’82, businessman, investor, venture capitalist, and musician,
is also a best-selling author and the founding partner of venture capital firm Elevation Partners.
Current Book: Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, Penguin Press, February 2019.
Zucked is McNamee’s highly personal account of his status as an early Facebook investor, his longtime mentorship of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and his more recent and growing fears that the social media platform has become a danger to society and democracy. The book is McNamee’s call to action for Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to contain the damage by reorienting the platform along more socially responsible lines that protect privacy and user data and curtail exploitation by bad actors. He also calls for regulatory oversight.
SHANNON HUFFMAN POLSON T’03, speaker, author, and veteran, is also the founder and CEO of online leadership training provider The Grit Institute and a former group manager for Microsoft.
Coming Soon: The Grit Factor: Courage, Resilience and Leadership in the Most Male-Dominated Industry in the World, Harvard Business Review Press, expected 2020.
An avid mountain climber in her teens and twenties who spent more than a decade traveling the world, Polson later became one of the U.S. Army’s first female attack helicopter pilots and went on to lead a platoon on deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina and a line company in Korea. Over the past three years, she has interviewed other women in the vanguard of their military fields. Those critical leadership lessons and stories, drawn from her own crucibles of experience and from this elite pack of female iconoclasts, form the basis of The Grit Factor: Courage, Resilience and Leadership in the Most Male Dominated Industry in the World. The book relays candid stories of combat and the careers of women such as Heather Penney, one of the first female F-16 pilots who was put on a “suicide mission” for 9/11; General Ann Dunwoody, the first female four-star general in the Army; Marine Commander Amy McGrath, the first woman to fly the F/A-18 in combat and a 2018 Congressional candidate; and dozens of other unstoppable women.
JIM CAMPBELL T’79, is host of nationally syndicated radio shows Business Talk with Jim Campbell and Forensic Talk with Jim Campbell on the Biz Talk Radio Network.
Coming Soon: Madoff Talks: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in History, McGraw Hill, 2020.
In a deeper dive on the subject matter of his two radio shows—business and crime—Campbell is currently completing a book about Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernie Madoff. Madoff Talks, publisher McGraw Hill reveals, is “an in-depth analysis of the largest Ponzi scheme in history—with new details from Madoff himself, in the most extensive communications he’s had with any media source.” Campbell exposes the systemic failure of Madoff’s scheme, investigating the roles of the SEC and SIPC, as well as Madoff’s biggest clients, his bank, the feeder funds, the whistleblowers, and others.
JOHN HAWKINS T’82, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry veteran, is vice chairman and board director of executive search firm Odgers Berndtson, LLC in New York.
Coming Soon: Conscience and Courage: How Visionary CEO Henri Termeer Built a Biotech Giant and Pioneered the Rare Disease Industry, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, October 2019.
In Conscience and Courage, John Hawkins, an insightful analyst of health care leaders, reveals the philosophy, principles, methods, and habits of prominent CEO Henri Termeer who defied convention to create an investor-owned global enterprise that put people before profits and improved the lives of thousands of forgotten patients. Hawkins argues that Termeer was one of the first of a pioneering group of business executives who built a disparate group of fledgling companies into a biotech industry that has driven decades of therapeutic innovation. During a 28-year career at Genzyme, including 26 years as CEO, he created a process of drug development that for the first time was patient-centered. Hawkins also reveals how Termeer helped forge biotech's public policy agenda and inspired a generation of entrepreneurs to take on large and important challenges.
