The New Global Leaders: Richard Branson, Percy Barnevik, David Simon and the Remaking of International Business » (1 ED)

MANFRED F.R. DE VRIES is a professor at INSEAD, the world's leading global business school, as well as a practicing psychoanalyst and consultant. Author of fifteen books, including the award-winning Life and Death in the Executive Fast Lane (Jossey-Bass, 1995), he has been featured in the New York Times, Fortune, The Economist, Harper's, and the Financial Times. He lives in Paris, France. ELIZABETH FLORENT-TREACY is a research affiliate in management and leadership at INSEAD. She lives in Fontainebleau.

Spend some time with three of today's most noted business pioneers and share their secrets for achieving international success. The New Global Leaders takes readers into the private worlds of Asea Brown Boveri's Percy Barnevik, Virgin founder Richard Branson, and British Petroleum titan David Simon to provide rare and candid profiles of how these charismatic leaders have redefined organizational growth and development in the latter 20th century. The authors were granted unprecedented access to these men and the results are as fascinating as they are informative. Readers are treated to personal interviews with these very powerful and very different personalities, each of whom provides a behind-the-scenes account of how he put his company on the global map. Sharing their philosophies, visions, and strategies, they exemplify leadership in an age of rapid and relentless change and provide new models of success for our post-industrial era.

Library Journal

The authors, affiliated with INSEAD, an international business school in France, call Branson the "Builder," Barnevik the "Integrator," and Simon the "Transformer." These three corporate executives (of Virgin, Asea Brown Boveri, and British Petroleum, respectively) are presented as role models of leadership styles for the new global executive. Such leaders must be "charismatic" and "architectural." The executive profiles, including personal interviews, are uneven, often rambling. The authors attempt to throw in a dash of nearly every management concept in vogue in the past ten years. Each of the three units in the book ends with a "key points" page outlining the company's competitive edge based on the executive's style. At least that feature pulls together elements of the unit, giving some structure to the content. Not a necessary purchase, except for collections striving to be all-inclusive.--Susan DiMattia, "Library Journal"

Preface: Role Models for Tomorrow.
Introduction: Global Leadership.
RICHARD BRANSON.
Richard Branson: The Builder.
Branson's Virgin.
An Interview with Richard Branson.
PERCY BARNEVIK.
Percy Barnevik: The Integrator.
Percy Barnevik and ABB.
An Interview with Percy Barnevik.
DAVID SIMON.
David Simon: The Transformer.
Transformational Leadership at British Petroleum.
An Interview with David Simon and John Browne.
Conclusion: Practices of Vanguard Companies.