Career Memoirs

When we’re moving at 115 MPH, we rarely see the wall coming. But it comes for all of us and when it does, we grasp for lessons, for meaning, for purpose. Each moment (good or bad) and each win or loss, provides us an opportunity to learn, and if we choose to take it, that opportunity can change our lives - and the world - for the better. The human spirit craves connection. Authenticity. Belonging. Touch. Gratitude. Purpose. We need to make our interactions count.

One of the world's most respected leaders, former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty overcame childhood and financial struggles to embark on a groundbreaking career that took her from entry-level engineer to eight years as the first woman CEO of an iconic global company. Forty years in business and public advocacy taught Rometty the transformative power of leadership that blends authenticity, relationships, and curiosity with vision, rigor, and conviction. In her personable yet direct voice, Rometty reveals experiences that taught her how to orchestrate change for clients, companies, and communities.

Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist. The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution.

This is not a straightforward memoir. Instead, it is a book that distills the processes and tactics Anthony 'Staz' Stazicker gathered throughout his career in the Special Forces—gunfights, door-kicking operations, and against-the-odds escape—and how these hard lessons informed his later successes with multi-million pound start-up clothing company ThruDark.

In 2006, Kristi Coulter left her cozy but dull job for a promising new position at the fast-growing Amazon.com, but she never expected the soul-crushing pressure that would come with it. In no time she found the challenge and excitement she'd been craving—along with seven-day workweeks, lifeboat exercises, widespread burnout, and a culture driven largely by fear. But the chase, the visibility, and, let's face it, the stock options proved intoxicating, and so, for twelve years, she stayed—until she no longer recognized the face in the mirror or the mission she'd signed up for.

Called “one of the most disruptive brands in beauty” by Forbes, Glossier revolutionized the beauty industry with its sophisticated branding and unique approach to influencer marketing, almost instantly making the company a juggernaut with rabid fans. It also taught a generation of business leaders how to talk to Millennial and Gen Z customers and build a cult following online.

When Carol Loomis first mentioned a little-known Omaha hedge-fund manager in a 1966 Fortune article, she didn’t dream that Warren Buffett would one day be considered the world’s greatest investor - nor that she and Buffett would become close personal friends. Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Loomis has provided commentary about each major arti­cle that supplies context and her own informed point of view.

The first thing Sophia Amoruso sold online wasn’t fashion - it was a stolen book. She spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and dumpster diving. By twenty-two, she had resigned herself to employment, but was still broke, directionless, and working a mediocre day job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was there that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay. Eight years later, she is the founder, CEO, and creative director of Nasty Gal, a $100 million plus online fashion retailer with more than 350 employees.

The way most white-collar crime works is by manipulating institutional psychology. That means creating something that looks as much as possible like a normal set of transactions. The drama comes later, when it all unwinds. Financial crime seems horribly complicated, but there are only so many ways you can con someone out of what’s theirs.

New York Times best-selling author Iyanla Vanzant recounts the last decade of her life and the spiritual lessons learned—from the price of success during her meteoric rise as a TV celebrity on Oprah, the Iyanla TV show (produced by Barbara Walters), to the dissolution of her marriage and her daughter's 15 months of illness and death on Christmas day.

The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.

Before being named President Trump's Secretary of Commerce in 2017, Wilbur Ross had already earned a reputation as the "King of Bankruptcy" over his fifty-five-year career on Wall Street. Often working on high-profile bankruptcies such as Pan Am and Texaco, Ross helped restructure more than $400 billion in assets, and was named among Bloomberg's fifty most influential people in global finance. After coming to Washington, Ross faced equally tough challenges, yet survived in his post for all four years.

In Cowgirl Power, advertising CEO and cowgirl Gay Gaddis shares insights and examples for women to lead like fearless, risk-taking cowgirls: enhance and exude confidence, developing personal power on all fronts. As the owner of one of the largest female-owned independent agencies in the U.S. and former chairman of C200, one of the country’s top women’s business organizations, Gay Gaddis knows a thing or two about empowerment. Gay’s secrets of success have roots in the spirited strength of real cowgirls who were fearless risk-takers in everything they did.

In Shark Tales, Barbara shares her hilarious stories about growing up, getting into trouble, failing miserably, and then starting over again. In each chapter, she comes back to one of her mom's unconventional lessons, and how it applies in the real world of business. Whatever your calling, the homespun lessons that work for Barbara will help you use what you've got to create success in your life.

Soul in the Game is a book of inspiring stories and hard-won lessons on how to live a meaningful life, crafted by investor and writer Vitaliy Katsenelson. Drawing from the lives of classical composers, ancient Stoics, and contemporary thinkers, Katsenelson weaves together a tapestry of practical wisdom that has helped him overcome his greatest challenges: in work, family, identity, health—and in dealing with success, failure, and more.

Today, even as so many of us spend hours in front of screens and in the virtual world, there is a growing movement that recognizes the power in the personal, the imperfect, the handmade. Eric Gorges, a metal shaper, taps into that hunger to get back to what's "real" through visits with the fellow artisans he has profiled for his popular public television program. In this book, he tells their stories and shares the collective wisdom of calligraphers, potters, stone carvers, glassblowers, engravers, wood workers, and more while celebrating the culture they've created.

By accepting the CEO job at Hewlett-Packard, an iconic company that had lost its way, Carly Fiorina confirmed her status as the most powerful businesswoman in America. But she also made herself a target for everyone who disliked her bold leadership style and resented her rapid rise. For six years, as she led HP through drastic changes and a controversial merger, Fiorina was the subject of endless analysis, debate, and speculation.

Once the poster girl for doing it all, after she had her first child, Tiffany Dufu struggled to accomplish everything she thought she needed to in order to succeed. Like so many driven and talented women who have been brought up to believe that to have it all, they must do it all, Dufu began to feel that achieving her career and personal goals was an impossibility. Eventually, she discovered the solution: letting go. In Drop the Ball, Dufu recounts how she learned to reevaluate expectations, shrink her to-do list, and meaningfully engage the assistance of others.

Ken Langone has seen it all on his way to a net worth beyond his wildest dreams. A pillar of corporate America for decades, he's a co-founder of Home Depot, a former director of the New York Stock Exchange, and a world-class philanthropist (including $200 million for NYU's Langone Health). In this memoir he finally tells the story of his unlikely rise and controversial career. It's also a passionate defense of the American Dream - of preserving a country in which any hungry kid can reach the maximum potential of his or her talents and work ethic.

Whole Foods Market's cofounder and CEO for forty-four years, John Mackey offers an intimate and provocative account of the rise of this iconic company and the personal and spiritual journey that inspired its remarkable impact.