Leadership Biography

Candid conversations with top leaders around the world on how they approached pivotal moments in their careers.

Not everyone will have the chance to chase and seize Colombian cocaine cartel smuggling boats, assist in post-9/11 security in New York City, keep the peace between warring mountain tribes in Southeast Asia, or build and run successful American manufacturing companies. But everyone has the chance to become their very best self and build a bulletproof life of their own!

The road to success is rarely linear and never easy. But with courage, hard work, perseverance, and dedication to duty, Jim Ovia, founder and chairman of Zenith Bank, proves we can achieve the unthinkable. Jim has been called the Godfather of Banking by Forbes Africa. And this should be no surprise. In a time of tension between military and civilian regimes, periods of incredible economic instability, and a decaying infrastructure, Jim founded Zenith Bank in Nigeria.

There are not many successful entrepreneurs who will enthusiastically break off in the middle of a multi-million pound deal to have a huge snowball fight in the car park with their finance director. But then, Mark Mills is not just any successful entrepreneur. Whether organizing one of his infamous summer Christmas parties, flying to New York to find a new business idea, or staying up all night to celebrate a successful deal, Mark Mills has always believed in the absolute importance of having fun in business. And not just for him, but for his employees, customers, and suppliers, too.

Starting and running a small business is hard! These 21 authors have done the hard work and overcome the risks. Their stories will help every listener to empathize with the challenges of being an entrepreneur and to join in and celebrate the victories. The stories provide lessons in grit, determination, and faith. Whether you have "made it" in your business, are still struggling, or have just started thinking about getting into business, these lessons will be useful in motivating you through difficult days or circumstances.

The Big Bing will be a mandatory addition to the library of everyone who works for a living, or would like to. For nearly 20 years, Stanley Bing's funny, wise, pleasantly mean-spirited, and at times even useful columns have delighted readers in the pages of Esquire, Fortune, and a variety of other national publications. Bing has lived the last two decades inside the belly of the corporate beast, clawing his way to the top of one of the great multinational companies in the cosmos.

Jim McNerney was one of Jack Welch's top protégés at General Electric and a finalist to replace the retiring Welch as CEO. McNerney lost that competition in 2001, but since then he has emerged as one of the most effective leaders of his generation.

In Aim High: Chart Your Course and Find Success, Deborah James shares her personal and professional challenges, outcomes, strategies for success, and the problem-solving principles she used to overcome the daunting pressures, threats, and challenges that come with rising to the top of the US Armed Forces. As a supplement to her storytelling, Bain and Company, a top-tier management consulting firm, offers research and statistics that prove James's insights have widespread impact.

Reed Hastings is one of the world's foremost business leaders. As co-founder, chairman and CEO of Netflix, he has built one of the largest media and entertainment companies on the planet, with an estimated personal net worth of $3.6 billion. A notable philanthropist, he has served on the boards of Facebook, Microsoft and a number of non-profit organisations. This concise but detailed biography provides an overview of Hastings' career trajectory, providing insights into his success.

Biography of Play, by CEO Nicolas Breedlove, offers strategies on topics ranging from choosing the best domain name for your company and protecting it under copyright to negotiating partnerships with companies both domestically and internationally. Written from the perspective of a goal-driven CEO and industry leader, this book provides a wealth of insights bound to boost your standing.

In Good Business, Novelli begins with his early career success in Mad Men-era marketing, which left him feeling unfulfilled. He describes the process of changing career trajectory: how he helped reposition the Peace Corps; built Porter Novelli, a global PR agency for social impact; fought the Tobacco Wars; and became CEO of AARP, the largest nonprofit in America.

Civil War historian Earl J. Hess presents a compelling biography of Braxton Bragg, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee from the summer of 1862 to the end of 1863.

With Schwarzkopf is Gus Lee's remembrance of his mentor and friend H. Norman Schwarzkopf, and his firsthand account of how Schwarzkopf shaped his life. In 1966, Lee, a junior-year cadet at West Point, was bright, athletic, and popular. He was also on the verge of getting kicked out. Nearing the bottom of his class due to his penchant for playing poker and reading recreationally instead of studying engineering, he was assigned a new professor: then-Major Norman Schwarzkopf.

Super Agent. Maverick. Reformer. Iconoclast. Dealmaker. Dentist? Jerry Argovitz has worn many hats in his remarkable life, both inside and outside of the world of sports. As a player agent representing and advising some of the biggest names in the game, Argovitz challenged the NFL both at the negotiating table and in the courtroom, earning a reputation as one of the most powerful men in professional sports.

Fresh from her triumph at Lucent, Carly Fiorina took command of Hewlett-Packard in July 1999. Suddenly a woman was running one of the largest technology companies on earth, venturing farther than anyone else dared into traditional men's territory. Perfect Enough is the definitive account of her daredevil bid to remake HP with a record-shattering $20 billion acquisition of archrival Compaq Computer.

Journalist Alison Owings slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism surrounding San Francisco’s Tenderloin to reveal a harrowing and life-affirming account of Del Seymour—whose addiction led him into eighteen years of homelessness, pimping, and drug dealing. Once sober, he started Tenderloin Walking Tours and later Code Tenderloin, the remarkable organization teaching homeless, recovering addicts, sex workers, dealers, ex-felons, and other marginalized people how to get and keep a job.

John Dalton's life is an inspirational American success story. At the Helm traces his journey from modest beginnings in Louisiana to traveling the world and working across private and public sectors and four presidential appointments all culminating in his appointment as the 70th Secretary of the Navy. As CEO of the Department of the Navy, including both Navy and Marine Corps, Dalton had to weather the storm of the Tailhook controversy, navigate through the Naval Academy cheating scandal, manage the new policies of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and women serving in combat.

Topgun on Wall Street chronicles one man’s extraordinary journey from the cornfields of Ohio, to the cockpit of an F-14, to the boardrooms on Wall Street. Lieutenant Commander Jeffery Lay and number-one New York Times best-selling author Patrick Robinson bring a provocative, ground-breaking voice to the business landscape with a revolutionary answer for stabilizing corporate America: business - the military way.

In seinen vier Jahrzehnten für den Weltkonzern Siemens durchlebte Heinrich von Pierer Höhen und Tiefen des Managerdaseins. Was muss ein Topmanager können, um sich an der Spitze zu behaupten? Wie geht er erfolgreich mit Mitarbeitern und Mitarbeiterinnen um, wie mit Betriebsräten, Investoren, Kunden - aber auch mit der Prominenz aus der Politik? Er beschreibt, wie begrenzt "Macht" sein kann, auch wenn man an der Spitze steht.

In Refounder: How Transformational Leaders Take What's Broken and Make it Better, you'll see how a small but committed group of visionaries took a broken health technology startup and created a thriving, humanity-enriching company. Are you ready to be a Refounder? Whether you're a C-suite executive hoping to change a struggling business, a middle manager tasked with revitalizing a dysfunctional team, or a community organizer attempting to renew the city block, Refounder is an invitation.