Summer Reads from Alumni Authors
In addition to distinguishing themselves in the world of business, Tuck alumni continue to achieve in the world of publishing.
By Tuck Communications
Jul 26, 2021
Alan Pesky and Claudia Aulum, Skyhorse, September 2021
Alan Pesky T’60, former ad executive and founder of Lee Pesky Learning Center, In 25 years, LPLC has benefited more than 100,000 children and has become a national force for early childhood literacy.
More to Life than More illustrates how, after his son’s death at the age of 30, Alan’s conception of more crumbles. He launches himself into keeping Lee’s memory alive by helping kids in a way he wasn’t able to help his son and created something positive and enduring from his loss: Lee Pesky Learning Center, a nonprofit in Idaho dedicated to understanding and helping children overcome obstacles to learning.
This chapter highlights how, for Alan, grief came with the realization that he had lost the chance to love his son as he was—not as he wanted him to be. Ambitious, successful, and always striving for more, Alan had a hard time relating to a son who struggled with learning disabilities at a time when there was little understanding or help for kids who had them. Their relationship was complicated, and now, Lee was gone.
More To Life Than More is Alan’s exploration of misunderstanding, loss, and learning. A memoir that will resonate with those who have lost a loved one, with anyone who has been impacted by learning challenges, and with parents who have struggled to understand a child.
Pictured above: Alan Pesky and his late son Lee Pesky. The Lee Pesky Learning Center was established in 1997 in memory of Alan’s son Lee, who struggled with learning disabilities and died of brain cancer at the age of thirty.
New Degree Press, December 2021
Valeria Aloe T’04, is a speaker, author, and principal and founder of AlphaQuest Consulting, a women and minority talent development consultancy. She combines over 25 years of experience in major corporations, nonprofits, and start ups in 7 countries and 3 languages.
Uncolonized Latinas supports Latinas who are the first ones in their families to step into new spaces, as well as allies who want to become more effective managers or mentors to them.
Many Latinas, who are immigrants or daughters of immigrants, are first generation to get a college degree, to pursue a corporate career, or to open a business. They generally feel that they are figuring their careers out on the go, as no trusted family member or relative can provide them with guidance or advice. At the same time, they struggle with some widespread limiting cultural narratives, like working too hard without asking for what they need, feeling unprepared for bigger and better opportunities, bypassing unique chances for career growth and personal development, or thinking they need to change who they are to succeed.
This book will allow Latinas to better support their journeys by gaining a new awareness on their limiting beliefs and how to overcome them, and by learning from dozens of Latinas who figured out how to navigate the system for a successful and balanced professional life. It will also be a relevant tool for allies, providing them with in-depth information and ideas to help Latinas succeed.
WRD Publishing, April 2021
Wendy MacKenzie Pease T'97, International President, Rapport International, is a language translation and global marketing expert.
In The Language of Global Marketing, Rapport International President Wendy MacKenzie Pease provides the roadmap for business-builders to find new revenue from a global audience with the right quality content and tools. Filled with easy-to-understand strategies and solutions to real-life situations, this is your guide to successful international expansion through global inbound marketing and translation services.
Jomba Media, 2020
Muyambi MuyambiT’18, Associate Investment Officer, International Finance Corporation (IFC), is the founder of nonprofit Cycle Connect.
Inspired by Muyambi’s own childhood in Uganda, The Magical Wooden Bicycle offers a new narrative about children growing up in rural Uganda. The book highlights a unique upbringing, loving community, and the pure joy embodied within a young Ugandan boy who does whatever it takes to reach his goal. No matter the obstacles a child may be facing, this uplifting story aims to inspire its young readers to look for creative solutions and never doubt the power and magic within themselves. Proceeds from The Magical Wooden Bicycle support Cycle Connect’s (formerly Bicycles Against Poverty) mission of financing productive assets such as bicycles, oxen & plow, etc for rural Ugandan farmers.
Harvard Business Review Press, 2020
Shannon Huffman Polson T’03, speaker, author, and veteran, is also the founder and CEO of online leadership training provider The Grit Institute and a former group manager for Microsoft.
An avid mountain climber in her teens and twenties who spent more than a decade traveling the world, Polson later became one of the U.S. Army’s first female attack helicopter pilots and went on to lead a platoon on deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina and a line company in Korea. Over the past three years, she has interviewed other women in the vanguard of their military fields. Those critical leadership lessons and stories, drawn from her own crucibles of experience and from this elite pack of female iconoclasts, form the basis of The Grit Factor: Courage, Resilience and Leadership in the Most Male Dominated Industry in the World. The book relays candid stories of combat and the careers of women such as Heather Penney, one of the first female F-16 pilots who was put on a “suicide mission” for 9/11; General Ann Dunwoody, the first female four-star general in the Army; Marine Commander Amy McGrath, the first woman to fly the F/A-18 in combat and a 2018 Congressional candidate; and dozens of other unstoppable women.
McGraw Hill, 2020
Jim Campbell T’79, is host of nationally syndicated radio shows Business Talk with Jim Campbell and Forensic Talk with Jim Campbell on the Biz Talk Radio Network.
In a deeper dive on the subject matter of his two radio shows—business and crime—Campbell is currently completing a book about Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernie Madoff. Madoff Talks, publisher McGraw Hill reveals, is “an in-depth analysis of the largest Ponzi scheme in history—with new details from Madoff himself, in the most extensive communications he’s had with any media source.” Campbell exposes the systemic failure of Madoff’s scheme, investigating the roles of the SEC and SIPC, as well as Madoff’s biggest clients, his bank, the feeder funds, the whistleblowers, and others.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, October 2019
John Hawkins T’82, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry veteran, is vice chairman and board director of executive search firm Odgers Berndtson, LLC in New York.
In Conscience and Courage, John Hawkins, an insightful analyst of health care leaders, reveals the philosophy, principles, methods, and habits of prominent CEO Henri Termeer who defied convention to create an investor-owned global enterprise that put people before profits and improved the lives of thousands of forgotten patients. Hawkins argues that Termeer was one of the first of a pioneering group of business executives who built a disparate group of fledgling companies into a biotech industry that has driven decades of therapeutic innovation. During a 28-year career at Genzyme, including 26 years as CEO, he created a process of drug development that for the first time was patient-centered. Hawkins also reveals how Termeer helped forge biotech's public policy agenda and inspired a generation of entrepreneurs to take on large and important challenges.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, July 2019
Lowey Bundy Sichol T’02, author of the From an Idea to … business biography books for elementary/middle grade children, is also the founder and principal of Case Marketing, a writer/producer of MBA case studies for business schools.
In her latest books From an Idea to LEGO and From an Idea to Google, marketing and brand management expert Lowey Bundy Sichol shares the entrepreneurial journeys of LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. She breaks down the business strategies that brought LEGO from wooden toys to an interlocking plastic brick system and Google from a Stanford dorm room project to one of the world’s most valuable brands.
Sprinkled with kid-friendly visuals, fun facts, and easy-to-read business definitions, these books explore such topics as how LEGO minifigures came to be, the importance of failing at Google, and how both companies changed the world through innovation. The books join a growing collection written by Bundy Sichol including From an Idea to Nike and From an Idea to Disney.
Routledge, March 2019
Jorge Aguilar T’04, partner at Prophet, works with leaders to create momentum in their careers, with their teams, and in their organizations at large.
Perspectives on Purpose is a compilation of essays by nearly two dozen senior executives who share stories from their jobs about social responsibility in business and how companies can, and should, do good while also doing well.
Aguilar’s chapter, titled “Activating Living Experiences: Building Brand Relevance by Putting Purpose to Work,” supports his perspective that purpose is necessary, but not sufficient to drive growth. “To be impactful,” he says, “purpose needs to be translated into living brand experiences.”
Penguin Press, February 2019
Roger McNamee T’82, businessman, investor, venture capitalist, and musician, is also a best-selling author and the founding partner of venture capital firm Elevation Partners.
Zucked is McNamee’s highly personal account of his status as an early Facebook investor, his longtime mentorship of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and his more recent and growing fears that the social media platform has become a danger to society and democracy. The book is McNamee’s call to action for Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to contain the damage by reorienting the platform along more socially responsible lines that protect privacy and user data and curtail exploitation by bad actors. He also calls for regulatory oversight.
Forbes Books, June 2018
Author and keynote speaker PETER HORST T’88, named by Forbes as one of the World’s Top 50 Most Influential CMOs, is the founder and head of marketing consultancy firm CMO, Inc.
Horst’s book examines the increasingly complex challenges brands face and how much higher the stakes have become in the era of Fake News. “Leaders,” the publisher’s synopsis explains, “must now address a highly polarized marketplace in which consumers are energized by their tribal affiliations to take action for or against brands based on their perceived values, beliefs, and biases.” Marketing in the Fake News Era provides strategic and tactical guidance on how to take control and protect the company’s brand in the event of a PR crisis.
Ten professors at the Tuck School share their must-reads for 2021.
Pay it forward. It’s the philosophy embedded within the heart of the Tuck alumni network—and it’s an adage that alumni do not take lightly.