We look at The CEO: The Rise and Fall of Britain's Captains of Industry, coming out in June 2025. See mor about the book here.

The CEO: The Rise and Fall of Britain's Captains of Industry reviewed

In many ways this book is a bit of a horror show in terms of management for British industries. The authors do a good job of taking us through a variety of types of leader. This is informative and well written, however the constant theme seems to be, regardless of their origin or training, they generally still ended up making either a real mess of it all, or at least not performing optimally. Sadly, as the authors also clearly point out, the only constant is the increasingly dizzy rise of the renumeration packages for this motley crew of incompetents. The approach seems to get ever shorter and shorter in terms of time frames and KPIs to aim for. To compensate for their likely impending dismissal, the renumeration packages are ever more ludicrous and higher and higher multiples of the average working person's salary.

This book is well written and researched, but it also became ever more depressing as you were reminded of the growing rogues gallery of poorly performing, but increasingly well paid CEOs that have had to be endured in many British companies. It is a challenging time when competence, ability or ethical integrity seem to be less and less in demand for leading companies or even countries. Here's hoping that this book helps to at least raise the level of debate even while we have to endure as series of self serving leaders.

More about the authors

Michael Aldous is a business historian and Senior Lecturer at Queen's Business School, Queen's University Belfast. He is a founder and co-director of the Long Run Institute (LRI), which uses historical analysis to help senior executives and policy makers make better decisions.

John D. Turner is Professor of Finance and Financial History, Queen's Business School, Queen's University Belfast, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. His previous Cambridge University Press book Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles (2021) was named an Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times.

More about The CEO

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