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  • Published: 3 September 2015
  • ISBN: 9780753551752
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

Connect

Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues




Connect fundamentally redefines the role of business, combining captivating stories from inside today’s boardrooms with absorbing history and original research.

The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller.

Drawing on the experience of John Browne, former CEO of BP, and the insight of two McKinsey experts, Connect articulates and explores the recurring rift between big business and society, offering a practical manifesto for reconciliation. This timely and important book features candid interviews with global leaders at the heart of this debate, from Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein to Tony Blair and Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web.

Connect shows how companies and executives can enhance their performance by engaging radically with the world around them.

  • Published: 3 September 2015
  • ISBN: 9780753551752
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

About the authors

John Browne

JOHN BROWNE (Lord Browne of Madingley) was CEO of BP from 1995–2007, where he built a reputation as a visionary leader, transforming BP into one of the world‘s largest companies. He was president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, is a fellow of the Royal Society, a foreign member of the US Academy of Arts and Sciences and chairman of the trustees of the Tate Galleries. He holds degrees from Cambridge and Stanford universities, was knighted in 1998, and made a life peer in 2001. He is now a partner at Riverstone Holdings and the author of the memoir Beyond Business,
popular science book Seven Elements that Have Changed the World and revealing business polemic, The Glass Closet.

Robin Nuttall

Robin Nuttall is a Partner in McKinsey’s London office. He leads McKinsey’s Regulatory and Government Practice and has served both regulators and regulated clients on strategy and organizational issues across a range of sectors and geographies. These include transportation, oil & gas, mining, high tech, healthcare, telecommunications, and consumer goods companies in Europe, Asia and North America. Nuttall has a DPhil in Economics from Oxford University and an MPhil from Cambridge University. He was a Henry Fellow at Harvard University.

Tommy Stadlen

Tommy Stadlen is the Co-Founder of Swing Technologies, which exited to Microsoft in 2017. Swing, chaired by Twitter founder Biz Stone, created the #1 app on Apple's App Store. A best-selling author, Tommy is a frequent speaker and media commentator, including as a contributor to the New York Times and Financial Times, and guest on CNBC, Bloomberg and BBC. Tommy is a former McKinsey consultant and previously worked for President Obama. He graduated with First Class honours from Oxford and holds an MSc (Distinction) from the LSE. He is an advisor to NYU Stern Business School and a Venture Partner at firstminute capital, a $100m technology venture capital firm. Tommy has been recognised by the FT as a top 50 Global Ally Executive and by Entrepreneur Magazine's ‘Best Companies in America’ award.

Praise for Connect

This bold and timely book helps us redefine the way we think about business and serves as a compelling blueprint for the future.

Arianna Huffington

More than ever before, the world, both developed and developing, is going to need its businesses to survive and prosper. As a start, the 2,000-year-old history of anti-business sentiment needs first to be understood and then acted upon. Gaps need to be closed; gaps not just of perception but of reality. And it will be businesses, not society, who will need to make the bigger moves. This intelligent, practical book suggests what those moves should be. Of immediate value, I believe that only three years from now it will be seen to have been a trail-blazer.

Sir Martin Sorrell

The mission statements of corporations often include shareholders, customers and employees, but as Browne shows, a commitment to society at-large has been largely absent. Rather than transparency and engagement, businesses have become more closed and isolated. Connect shows why and how business must radically change to thrive in the 21st century.

John Hennessy

This book redefines three discredited words: Corporate Social Responsibility. Far too often they exist as a bit of window dressing or conscience-salving. John Browne wants to put them at the centre of businesses – both because it’s right and because success in business is inextricably linked with sustainability. It’s all the more compelling because of Browne’s own years at the top in business.

Alan Rusbridger

Connect offers a radical and different way of thinking about business. Typically of John Browne, he has put together an inspiring call-to-arms to create the companies society deserves.

Alastair Campbell

John Browne argues that the relationship between business and the society it seeks to serve is vital, but the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility is dead. His interviews with top business leaders show, however, that a new connected paradigm is possible and it can be highly profitable. This book delivers huge insight into a vital topic that affects everyone.

Tony Hall

Browne aims to rehabilitate Corporate Social Responsibility, and move it from the periphery of a Board’s agenda to the centre. Through a mixture of careful analysis and compelling anecdote, he succeeds where others have failed.

Sir Howard Davies

Lord Browne delivers a beautifully written tour de force, spanning ancient China to Silicon Valley. Rich with personal examples and extensive global interviews, he makes the powerful and persuasive argument that CEOs must connect with government and society to build sustainable organisations. A must-read.

Professor David Yoffie

Every business leader can learn from Connect. John Browne skillfully draws on deep historical research, clear insight into the future and his unique business experience to provide a path to business success in our turbulent times.

Senator George J. Mitchell

Big business is vilified, lauded and feared in equal measure. This stimulating book shows that this predicament is far from new. John Browne and colleagues analyse the challenges and offer some timely counselling to leaders who seek to establish some bond of trust and authenticity between the Boardroom and the Street.

Professor John Van Reenen

Connect provides a clear understanding of the value of connected leadership. This is beyond CSR or philanthropy. Companies must play a stronger role as global corporate citizens and do so authentically and with a sense of urgency.

Peter T. Grauer

John Browne, in this fast-paced book, lays out the enormous challenges that companies and society face together. For many, business is the antagonist, but Browne shows that corporate enterprise is central to the well-being of society. He demonstrates from his rich experiences how commercial success depends on integrity and building trust.

Jerry Brown, Governor of California