Ahead of the Curve by Philip Delves Broughton

Ahead of the Curve by Philip Delves Broughton

In the century since its founding, Harvard Business School has become the single most influential institution in global business. Twenty percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are HBS graduates, as are many of our savviest entrepreneurs (e.g., Michael Bloomberg) and canniest felons (e.g., Jeffrey Skilling). The top investment banks and brokerage houses routinely send their brightest young stars to HBS to groom them for future power. To these people and many others, a Harvard MBA is a golden ticket to the Olympian heights of American business. In 2004, Philip Delves Broughton abandoned a post as Paris bureau chief of the London Daily Telegraph to join 900 other would-be tycoons on HBS's plush campus. Over the next two years, he and his classmates would be inundated with the best-and the rest-of American business culture, which HBS epitomizes. The core of the school's curriculum is the case-an analysis of a real business situation, from which the students must, with a professor's guidance, tease lessons. Broughton studied over 500 cases and recounts the most revelatory ones here. He also learns the surprising pleasures of accounting, the allure of beta, the ingenious chicanery of leveraging, and innumerable other hidden workings of the business world, all of which he limns with a wry clarity reminiscent of Liar's Poker. He also exposes the less savory trappings of business school culture, from the booze luge to the pandemic obsession with PowerPoint to the specter of depression, which stalks too many overburdened students. With acute and often uproarious candor, he assesses the school's success at teaching the traits it extols as most important in business-leadership, decisiveness, ethical behavior, and work/life balance. Published during the 100th anniversary of Harvard Business School, Ahead of the Curve offers a richly detailed and revealing you-are-there account of the institution that has, for good or ill, made American business what it is today.

Philip Delves Broughton was born in Bangladesh and grew up in England. From 1998-2004, he served successively as the New York and Paris bureau chief for The Daily Telegraph of London and reported widely from North and South America, Europe and Africa. He led the Telegraph s coverage of the 9/11 attacks on New York and his reporting has twice been nominated for the British Press Awards. His work has also appeared in the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, and the Spectator. In 2006, he received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two sons.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780143115434
ISBN 10	014311543X
Title	Ahead of the Curve
Author	Philip Delves Broughton
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2009-06-30
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable