A CEO reading list for 2019

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We have books on the brain, with the recent release of the Financial Times–McKinsey Business Book of the Year long list.¹ 1.Subscription required. (See coverage of last year’s winner, Bad Blood, on our blog, and check back December 3, when the 2019 award is given.) There’s inspiration aplenty in the selections, which offer compelling insights on topics crucial to business today. But we also wanted to see what CEOs and other business leaders are keeping on their shelves or tucking into their suitcases—consider it food for thought in picking your next read. Read on for selections from leaders at Novartis, PayPal, Walmart, and more.

Doug McMillon, CEO, Walmart

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness—Michelle Alexander (New Press, 2010, nonfiction)
Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal—Ben Sasse (St. Martin’s Press, 2018, nonfiction)
The Sixth Man: A Memoir—Andre Iguodala (Blue Rider Press, June 2019, nonfiction)
Become an Accelerator Leader: Accelerate Yourself, Others, and Your Organization to Maximize Impact—Alvin Rohrs (Gatekeeper Press, May 2019, nonfiction)

Meg Whitman, CEO, Quibi

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice—Bill Browder (Simon & Schuster, 2015, nonfiction)
The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West—David McCullough (Simon & Schuster, May 2019, nonfiction)
The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World—Melinda Gates (Flatiron Books, April 2019, nonfiction)

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, executive chairman, LEGO Brand Group

The End of the End of the Earth—Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018, nonfiction)
Let Love Have the Last Word: A Memoir—Common (Atria Books, May 2019, nonfiction)
Men in My Situation—Per Petterson (Forlaget Oktober, 2018, fiction)
Wholehearted Leadership—Morten Mortensen (MM Holding, April 2019, nonfiction)
A Little Book about Love—Frederik Dessau (Gyldendal Forlag, 1996, nonfiction)

Jonathan Franzen is one of the great authors of our times. His latest is a nonfiction collection that, among other things, argues for reading and writing essays (in contrast to reading quick messages, social media, and brief news stories).

Salman Khan, founder and CEO, Khan Academy

Breakfast of Champions—Kurt Vonnegut (Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1973, fiction)
The Upanishads—translated by Eknath Easwaran (Nilgiri Press, second edition, 2007, nonfiction)
A Short History of Byzantium—John Julius Norwich (Vintage, 1998, nonfiction)

Jacqui Canney, chief people officer, WPP

Becoming—Michelle Obama (Crown, 2018, nonfiction)
Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change—Beth Comstock, with Tahl Raz (Currency, 2018, nonfiction)
Leaders: Myth and Reality—Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone (Portfolio Penguin, 2018, nonfiction)

Andrew Penn, CEO and managing director, Telstra Corporation

Architects of Intelligence: The Truth about AI from the People Building It—Martin Ford (Packt Publishing, 2018, nonfiction)
Death of a River Guide—Richard Flanagan (Grove Press, reprint edition, 2002, fiction)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet—David Mitchell (Random House, 2010, fiction)

I found Architects of Intelligence incredibly interesting and helpful in understanding AI and its potential, where we are in the development cycle and different perspectives on the good and evil of it.

Dan Schulman, president and CEO, PayPal

People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent—Joseph E. Stiglitz (W. W. Norton, April 2019, nonfiction)
The Accidental Admiral: A Sailor Takes Command at NATO—James Stavridis (Naval Institute Press, 2014, nonfiction)
Lexicon—Max Barry (Penguin Books, 2013, fiction)
The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder—Sean McFate (William Morrow, January 2019, nonfiction)

Strive Masiyiwa, founder, executive chairman, Econet

The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong—Judith Rodin (PublicAffairs, 2014, nonfiction)
The Other Story: A Fireside Chat with African Achievers—Judy Dlamini (February 2019, nonfiction)
Africa at Work—Acha Leke et al. (2012, nonfiction)

Joerg Reinhardt, PhD, chairman, Novartis

Has the West Lost It? A Provocation—Kishore Mahbubani (Penguin, April 2019, nonfiction)
The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?—Seth Godin (Portfolio Penguin, 2012, nonfiction)
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine—Michael Lewis (W. W. Norton, 2010, nonfiction)

Beth Comstock, former vice chair, General Electric; author, Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change

The Overstory—Richard Powers (W. W. Norton, 2018, fiction)
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World—Peter Wohlleben (Greystone Books, 2016, nonfiction)
Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition—Walt Whitman (Penguin Classics, 1961, nonfiction)

Jesper Jos Olsson, group CEO and founding partner, White Peak Real Estate

Serotonin—Michel Houellebecq (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, November 2019, fiction)
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming—David Wallace-Wells (Tim Duggan Books, February 2019, nonfiction)
Aniara: An Epic Science Fiction Poem—Harry Martinson (1956, fiction)