“Confront Their Reluctance”
“We believe women need to confront their reluctance to consider a leadership role and work actively to counter it with a more positive response.” This clarion call is issued by two top leaders in the academic and corporate world. Indira Samarasekera was the first woman president of the University of Alberta, and a director of Magna International, TC Energy, and Stelco. Martha Piper was the first woman president of the University of British Columbia, and a director of the Bank of Montreal, Shoppers Drug Mart, and TransAlta Corporation. Although neither was born in Canada, both are officers of the Order […]
Chill, Sisyphus
I had agreed to say a “couple of words” about the topic at hand. I was directed into an auditorium where a camera projected my every movement onto a giant screen. A spotlight shone on my frizzled hair and sweat-spotted shirt, and a microphone was thrust into my hand. The other hand, holding the paper with the outline of what I wanted to say, began to tremble… Has this ever happened to you? Has an apparently small meeting ever turned into something much bigger, attracting the attention of five times the number of people you expected? Fortunately I had been […]
Celebrity Gossip for the Finance Nerds
I stumbled on a small piece of paradise when I came across Milevsky’s book, The 7 Most Important Equations for Your Retirement: The Fascinating People and Ideas Behind Planning Your Retirement Income. This book is stuffed with anecdotes about the mathematical geniuses who derived the equations that are central to retirement planning. “Getting an equation named after you isn’t easy. Unlike a building, hospital ward or even a business school, money can’t buy you this sort of fame,” Milevsky writes. “You must own a very sharp set of knives.” In my undergrad days in chemistry, I recall the moment it dawned on […]
Bed-Time Tales for Business Folk
It’s a book that invites browsing. Open it to a random page and immerse yourself in one small business story. Riffle to a spot twenty pages earlier and taste another. It’s a book that can be enjoyed by someone on the go, someone only has time for, say, a ten minute skim before the next appointment. After a few chapters (sampled in non-linear fashion) I was reminded of Grimm’s Tales. The archetypes of the business world, in particular the entrepreneurial world, are practically the same. The plucky maiden, the resilient hero, the marrow-sucking ogre, the chastened warrior: they are present […]
Madoff Scandal: Three Books, Three Perspectives
The Madoff scandal has spawned a sub-genre of work. In the Toronto Public Library system, there are about twenty entries (books, e-books, DVDs) as of September 2012. It’s already a crowded arena. The books range from those written by victims (The Bag Lady Papers : The Priceless Experience Of Losing It All by Alexandra Penney, 2010) to those written by family (The End Of Normal : A Wife’s Anguish, A Widow’s New Life by Stephanie Madoff Mack, 2011) to those written by persons involved with hunting him down (No One Would Listen, by Harry Markopolos, 2010). Only one mistress has […]
Uncontrolled Risk
Uncontrolled Risk: The Lessons of Lehman Brothers and How Systemic Risk Can Still Bring Down the World Financial System by Mark T. Williams 220 pp., not including 27 pp of Appendix, Notes, and Index (Reprinted from The Analyst, March 2011 issue.) On September 15, 2008, the 158-year-old investment bank, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy, thereby unleashing a horde of systemic risk effects that continue to bedevil the financial system. In this recently-published investigation into how the collapse of one iconic institution contaminated an entire sector, Mark T. Williams draws some sobering lessons. In the 1990s, author Mark T. Williams worked […]
No One Would Listen
Book Review of: No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller by Harry Markopolos 376 pp., including three Appendices, Note on Sources, and Index (Reprinted from The Analyst, December 2010 issue.) In December 2008, Bernard Madoff confessed to running the world’s largest Ponzi scheme. This real-life thriller by Harry Markopolos details his five unsuccessful attempts to get the SEC to put a stop to a$65-billion investment fraud. Harry Markopolos spoke to the Toronto CFA Society about his experiences in September 2010. Early in his Wall Street career as a portfolio manager, Markopolos heard about a fund with an extraordinarily consistent […]