On September 19, 2013, The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs announced the shortlist for the ninth annual Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, now an essential calendar fixture for business people and authors alike. The award aims to identify the book providing the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues.
This year’s distinguished judges have chosen the six most influential business books in 2013:
o The Alchemists: Inside the Secret World of Central Bankers
Neil Irwin, Headline Business Plus; The Penguin Press
o Making it Happen: Fred Goodwin, RBS and the Men Who Blew Up the British Economy
Iain Martin, Simon and Schuster
o Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier, John Murray; Eamon Dolan Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
o The Billionaire’s Apprentice: The Rise of The Indian-American Elite and The Fall of The Galleon Hedge Fund
Anita Raghavan, Hachette Book Group/Business Plus
o Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Sheryl Sandberg, WH Allen/Random House Group; Knopf
o The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Brad Stone, Transworld/ Bantam Press; Little, Brown
The judging panel, chaired by FT editor Lionel Barber, includes:
• Vindi Banga, Partner, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice
• Steve Coll, Dean, School of Journalism at Columbia University, New York and Staff Writer, The New Yorker magazine
• Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, London Business School
• Arthur Levitt, former Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
• Jorma Ollila, Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell
• Shriti Vadera, Director of Shriti Vadera Ltd, Non-Executive Director of BHP Billiton and AstraZeneca
Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, said: “The list this year strikes a good balance between the quality of writing and ability to stir a powerful debate. The books cover topics from leadership to the digital revolution and the financial crisis five years on, and offer important business lessons for the world today”.
Lloyd C. Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. added: “This year’s short list demonstrates the breadth of smart and provocative writing about business today.”
The winner will be announced at the award dinner on 18th November in London, co-hosted by Lionel Barber and Lloyd Blankfein. Simon Schama, historian, broadcaster and critic, will give the keynote speech.
The winner of the Business Book of the Year Award 2013 will be awarded £30,000, and each of the remaining shortlisted authors will receive £10,000.
Previous winners of the award are: Steve Coll for Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (2012); Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo for Poor Economics (2011); Raghuram Rajan for Fault Lines (2010); Liaquat Ahamed for The Lords of Finance (2009); Mohamed El-Erian for When Markets Collide (2008); William D. Cohan for The Last Tycoons (2007); James Kynge for China Shakes the World (2006); and Thomas Friedman, as the inaugural award winner in 2005, for The World Is Flat.