Business Memoirs

Unprecedented is an extraordinary business book for extraordinary times: a collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from twenty-nine chief executives at Canada’s most iconic and largest companies. These are unforgettable accounts from senior leaders at companies on the front lines during the pandemic—nursing homes, grocery stores, airlines, hotels, pharmacies, shopping malls—along with valuable lessons on crisis management. At their heart, these are stories about overcoming adversity.

With $1,500 and no business experience, Mel and Patricia Ziegler turned a wild idea into a company that would become the international retail colossus Banana Republic. Reimagining military surplus as safari and expedition wear, the former journalist and artist created a world that captured the zeitgeist for a generation and spoke to the creativity, adventure, and independence in everyone.

Ponzinomics by Robert L. FitzPatrick, author of False Profits, is the first comprehensive account of how "multi-level marketing" was created in America, escaped criminal and civil prosecution, and spread all over the world. It is the first book to fully explain how the legitimate business of "direct selling" was turned into pyramid recruiting. Ponzinomics reveals how multi-level marketing helped to lay a foundation on Main Street of pervasive deception, financial self-destruction, authoritarian leader-worship, and economic make-believe.

Portraits of Power is not just an autobiography of a man who for several decades has played an active role in India’s march towards becoming a formidable economy; it is indeed, on multiple levels, a book that profiles myriad institutions that work in harmony to make things happen. And in everything that N. K. Singh has done, so in this book, too, there is both incisive clarity and insightful anecdotal heft.

From the small country town of Abbotsford to the skyscrapers of New York, this book shares the hard-learned lessons and captivating story of the start-up of Naked Boxer Briefs, a Nasdaq publicly-traded company that had A-list celebrity endorsements, raised over 17 million dollars, and sold its product in department stores around the world, including Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s.

Veteran adman and author Ambi Parameswaran has relied on one process of learning above all others: powerful conversations with clients and customers. A challenging customer, in his view, goes from being someone who poses an obstacle to quality work to someone with eye-opening ideas and concepts. Approached as an exercise in listening and learning, these conversations can become long-term lessons.

“Smart, fast, clever, and funny (As f*ck!)” (Tiffany Haddish), this collection of side-splitting and illuminating essays by the popular stand-up comedian, alum of Chelsea Lately and The Mindy Project, and host of truTV’s Talk Show the Game Show is perfect for fans of the New York Times...

Révélant les expériences qui l'ont marqué de son enfance à l'âge adulte, François Lambert, l'intransigeant dragon aux yeux bleus, se livre à nous : d'où il vient, ce qu'il est devenu et comment il a réussi. Il nous fait partager les obstacles de son parcours en affaires, livre les secrets de son succès et nous aiguille vers la réussite avec une quarantaine de capsules qui nous entraînent à travers la grande aventure qu'est la vie d'entrepreneur.

In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and...

Débarqué à Paris à 20 ans, Jean Michel Karam a tout laissé derrière lui : sa famille, ses amis, son pays, le Liban, ravagé par la guerre. De la microélectronique à la beauté, son empire mondial est désormais valorisé à plusieurs centaines de millions d'euros (MEMSCAP, IEVA Group, SKILL). Celui que l'on surnomme « le soldat du bien » dans le milieu des affaires partage aujourd'hui les clés de son succès. Une magnifique leçon de résilience, qui nous invite à révéler notre plein potentiel.

Journalist Leander Kahney reveals how CEO Tim Cook has led Apple to astronomical success after the death of Steve Jobs in 2011. The death of Steve Jobs left a gaping void at one of the most innovative companies of all time. Jobs wasn't merely Apple's iconic founder and CEO; he was the living...

To most Canadians, the Molson name is part of the very fabric of Canada. Since 1786, when John Molson founded his first brewery in Montreal, it has become synonymous with beer, hockey, and philanthropy. Few realize, however, how close the family came in recent years to losing control of the enterprise. Back to Beer...and Hockey offers intimate details of the life and work of Eric Molson, who not only saved the company, but positioned it to thrive as a global brewery into the 21st century.

FOREWORD BY JANE FONDA A timeless collection of philosophies from renaissance performer and the world’s most famous shape-shifter RuPaul, whose sage outlook has created an unprecedented career for more than thirty-five years. GuRu is packed with more than 80 beautiful photographs that...

First published in 1923, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the fictionalized biography of Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest speculators who ever lived. Now, almost 90 years later, it remains the most widely read, highly recommended investment book ever written. Generations of investors have found that it has more to teach them about themselves and other investors than years of experience in the market. They have also discovered that its trading advice and keen analyses of market price movements rings true.

In Morgan, noted biographer Jean Strouse creates the first complete portrait of a man who defined American commerce and banking. Contemporaries described J. Pierpoint Morgan as “the financial Moses of the New World.” She shows J.Pierpoint Morgan in the full context of his childhood and health, travels and tastes, personal affairs and business relationships. And through Nelson Runger’s thoughtful narration, this accessible biography becomes a fascinating audio production.

A funny, closely observed, and briskly honest guide to the pleasures and perils of living life fully as a woman on the road to the far side of mid-life. At the age of sixty-eight, with children well-launched and husband long-exed and recently retired from a demanding career, Cathrin Bradbury...

Rarely does a week go by without a well-known executive being indicted for engaging in a white-collar crime. Perplexed as to what drives successful, wealthy people to risk it all, Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes spent seven years in the company of the men behind the largest corporate crimes in history - from the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the Ponzi schemers Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford.

Rockefeller was the quintessential industrialist. He created an industry out of nascent oil and gas start-ups during a time when none existed. His strategies and tactics may not have been approved by all, but he was certain he was doing God’s work. We live in a world today that is based on the actions of John D. Rockefeller. Everything we do and how we live are the result of oil and its power. This inherent structure is based on what one man did when the oil industry was just starting off.

This riveting biography from the American Bar Association visits the spectacular life of Edwin Land, breakthrough inventor. At the time of his death, he stood third on the list of our most prolific inventors, behind only Thomas Edison and one of Edison's colleagues. Land's most famous achievement was the creation of a revolutionary film-and-camera system that could produce a photographic print moments after the picture was taken.

Als Steven Bartlett achtzehn ist, schreibt er in sein Tagebuch: »Persönliche Ziele: mit fünfundzwanzig ein sexy Millionär sein«. Die Realität sieht jedoch wenig vielversprechend aus, denn Bartlett ist pleite, fühlt sich einsam und planlos. Aber das scheinbar Unerreichbare tritt ein: Sieben Jahre später ist Bartlett tatsächlich Multimillionär und Gründer eines millionenschweren Unternehmens.