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Jeff Bezos
By Chris McNab. 2022
O HOMEM QUE REVOLUCIONOU O MUNDO DOS NEGÓCIOS Fundador e CEO da Amazon até 2021, Jeff Bezos é amplamente considerado…
um dos empresários mais bem-sucedidos do mundo, aparecendo nos lugares cimeiros do índice de riqueza da Forbes.Este livro debruça-se sobre as suas primeiras influências, a sua educação, as decisões que tomou na sua impressionante carreira e o modo como construiu e gere o seu império de negócios, que teve início numa startup fundada na sua própria garagem. Atualmente, Jeff Bezos mantém-se como o principal acionista da Amazon, mas os seus interesses viram-se agora para áreas como a filantropia, a educação da geração mais jovem e a exploração do espaço, tendo fundado a empresa de astronáutica Blue Origin e realizado em 2021 a sua primeira expedição ao espaço.
Invested: Changing Forever the Way Americans Invest
By Charles Schwab. 2004
“To say Charles Schwab is an entrepreneur is actually an understatement. He really is a revolutionary.”—Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike,…
author of Shoe DogThe founder of The Charles Schwab Corporation recounts his ups and downs as he made stock investing, once the expensive and clubby reserve of the few, accessible to ordinary Americans. In this deeply personal memoir, Schwab describes his passion to have Main Street participate in the growing economy as investors and owners, not only earners. Schwab opens up about his dyslexia and how he worked around and ultimately embraced it, and about the challenges he faced while starting his fledgling company in the 1970s. A year into his grand experiment in discounted stock trading, living in a small apartment in Sausalito with his wife, Helen, and new baby, he carried a six-figure debt and a pocketful of personal loans. As it turned out, customers flocked to Schwab, leaving his small team scrambling with scarce resources and no road map to manage the company’s growth. He recounts the company’s game-changing sale to Bank of America—and how, in the end, the merger almost doomed his organization. We learn about the clever and timely leveraged buyout he crafted to regain independence; the crushing stock market collapse of 1987, just weeks after the company had gone public; the dot-com meltdown of 2000 and its reverberating aftermath of economic stagnation, layoffs, and the company’s eventual reinvention; and how the company’s focus on managing risk protected it and its clients during the financial crisis in 2008, propelling its growth. A remarkable story of a company succeeding by challenging norms and conventions through decades of change, Invested also offers unique insights and lifelong principles for readers—the values that Schwab has lived and worked by that have made him one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. Today, his eponymous company is one of the leading financial services firms in the world. Advance praise for Invested“I’ve admired Chuck Schwab for a long time. When you read this book, you’ll understand why.”—Warren E. Buffett“This is a fascinating story that teaches you about the never-ending evolution of an entrepreneurial company, but even more about personal learning from that experience. So read, learn how to learn from experience, and enjoy.”—George P. Shultz, former secretary of Labor, Treasury, and State
InteGRITy: My Slow and Painful Journey to Success
By Glenn Stearns. 2023
From underdog in life to starring in Discovery Channel&’s Undercover Billionaire, Glenn Stearns is a rags-to-riches story that shows what…
can be accomplished with unbridled grit and fierce determination.Growing up in a low-income suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, Glenn Stearns attributes optimism, hope, hard work, and unforgettable mentors as the indelible influences that helped him break free from hardship, overcome numerous challenges, and dare to live his wildest dreams. Stearns believes that it does not matter where you grew up, how little money you have, or even how many mistakes you have made—everyone has the potential to turn their life around and make their dreams come true. That's the core belief and incredible life of Glenn Stearns and what InteGRITy is all about. Filled with memorable anecdotes from his roller coaster life and career, InteGRITy is a story about adversity, pain, attitude, and action. Glenn shares the lessons learned in his life, both personally and professionally, that helped him become the wildly successful business leader he is today. Through this story, he hopes to inspire others and leave a legacy built on kindness.
InteGRITy: My Slow and Painful Journey to Success
By Glenn Stearns. 2023
From underdog in life to starring in Discovery Channel&’s Undercover Billionaire, Glenn Stearns is a rags-to-riches story that shows what…
can be accomplished with unbridled grit and fierce determination.Growing up in a low-income suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, Glenn Stearns attributes optimism, hope, hard work, and unforgettable mentors as the indelible influences that helped him break free from hardship, overcome numerous challenges, and dare to live his wildest dreams. Stearns believes that it does not matter where you grew up, how little money you have, or even how many mistakes you have made—everyone has the potential to turn their life around and make their dreams come true. That's the core belief and incredible life of Glenn Stearns and what InteGRITy is all about. Filled with memorable anecdotes from his roller coaster life and career, InteGRITy is a story about adversity, pain, attitude, and action. Glenn shares the lessons learned in his life, both personally and professionally, that helped him become the wildly successful business leader he is today. Through this story, he hopes to inspire others and leave a legacy built on kindness.
Recounting his three years in Korea, the highest-ranking non-Korean executive at Hyundai sheds light on a business culture very few…
Western journalists ever experience, in this revealing, moving, and hilarious memoir.When Frank Ahrens, a middle-aged bachelor and eighteen-year veteran at the Washington Post, fell in love with a diplomat, his life changed dramatically. Following his new bride to her first appointment in Seoul, South Korea, Frank traded the newsroom for a corporate suite, becoming director of global communications at Hyundai Motors. In a land whose population is 97 percent Korean, he was one of fewer than ten non-Koreans at a company headquarters of thousands of employees.For the next three years, Frank traveled to auto shows and press conferences around the world, pitching Hyundai to former colleagues while trying to navigate cultural differences at home and at work. While his appreciation for absurdity enabled him to laugh his way through many awkward encounters, his job began to take a toll on his marriage and family. Eventually he became a vice president--the highest-ranking non-Korean at Hyundai headquarters.Filled with unique insights and told in his engaging, humorous voice, Seoul Man sheds light on a culture few Westerners know, and is a delightfully funny and heartwarming adventure for anyone who has ever felt like a fish out of water--all of us.
Roy D. Chapin: The Man Behind the Hudson Motor Car Company
By Charles K. Hyde, J. C. Long. 2004
"John Cuthbert Long's Roy D. Chapin is a thorough and detailed biography of a remarkable, but little-known Detroit automobile industry…
pioneer. Historians should include Roy Dikeman Chapin (February 23, 1880-February 16, 1936) in any listing of significant American auto industry pioneers, along with the Duryea brothers, Ransom E. Olds, Henry Leland, Henry Ford, William C. Durant, and the Dodge brothers. Outside the cloister of automotive historians, Roy Chapin is an unknown. This is in part because no company or car bore his name. Unlike many contemporary auto pioneers, Roy Chapin was a modest man who did not promote himself. Even Long's superb biography of Chapin is not well-known because it was privately printed in 1945 with a small press run. In reprinting this volume, Wayne State University Press is making an important contribution to automotive history."--From the introduction by Charles K. Hyde, Department of History, Wayne State University
John Jacob Astor: Business and Finance in the Early Republic (Great Lakes Books Series)
By John Denis Haeger. 1991
John Jacob Astor was the best-known and most important American businessman for more than a half-century. His career encompassed the…
country's formative economic years from the precarious days following the American Revolution to the emergence of an urban-centered manufacturing economy in the late 1840s. Change was the dominant motif of the period, and Astor either exemplified the varied economic, social, and political changes in his business career or he directly affected the course of events. In this biography of John Jacob Astor, John Denis Haeger uses Astor's life and his career as a merchant, fur trader, and land speculator as vehicles for examining several important themes and issues in American economic and urban development between 1790 and 1860. Haeger addresses, in fascinating detail, the complexity of Astor's business endeavors, his extensive connections with the country's dominant political figures, and the "modern" business strategies and managerial techniques that he used to build his business empire. Astor was clearly not a business revolutionary who radically altered an existing system. He was, however, an entrepreneur who exerted a profound change on an industry. He fascinated his contemporaries precisely because he so mirrored his age and its changing business and economic patterns. He grasped the greater size and complexity of an emerging commercial economy in post-Revolutionary America and adopted strategies and structures that transformed the fur and China trades. His investment in city real estate, stocks, bonds, and even a western city made him part of America's evolution into an urbanindustrial society. For his era, John Astor's career was remarkable for its modernity, vision, and reflection of American economic and political values. More than just a personal biography, John Jacob Astor combines economic theories with a fascinating narrative that demonstrates, like no other book has, Astor's impact on the early republic.
Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845-1933 (Great Lakes Books Series)
By Michael W. Nagle. 2015
Near the turn of the twentieth century, "Pine King" Justus S. Stearns was Michigan's largest producer of manufactured lumber and…
the owner of a prosperous coal mining operation headquartered in Stearns, Kentucky, a town he founded. Over the course of his career, Stearns would own at least thirty manufacturing businesses--making everything from finished lumber to kitchen utensils, game boards, and motors--as well as hotels, a railroad, and a power company. He was also an active member of the Republican Party who served one term as Michigan's secretary of state and a philanthropist who gave a great deal of his wealth to causes in both Michigan and Kentucky. In Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845-1933, author Michael W. Nagle details Stearns's astounding range of accomplishments and explores the influence of both paternalism and Social Darwinism in his business practices. Nagle begins by addressing key events in the first few decades of Stearns's life and his initial foray into the lumber industry. Subsequent chapters explore Stearns's political career, his timber operations in Wisconsin, and his coal, lumber, and railroad operations in Kentucky and Tennessee. Nagle also details the ancillary businesses that Stearns founded or purchased in the early twentieth century, even as his Stearns Salt & Lumber Company served as the anchor of his Michigan holdings, while Stearns Coal & Lumber did the same for his operations in Kentucky. The final chapter offers an overview and analysis of Stearns's lifetime of accomplishments, including his impact on the town of Ludington, Michigan, where he maintained a residence for over fifty years. Nagle makes extensive use of primary source material from several historical archives as well as contemporary newspaper accounts, court documents, company records, and other primary sources. American history scholars, as well as general readers interested in Michigan's lumbering era and Kentucky's mining history, will enjoy this biography of an exceptionally influential businessman.
Building: A Carpenter's Notes on Life & the Art of Good Work
By Mark Ellison. 2023
A visionary carpenter shares indelible stories on building a life worth living, revealing powerful lessons about work, creativity, and design…
through his experience constructing some of New York&’s most iconic spaces.For forty years, Mark Ellison has worked in the most beautiful homes you&’ve never seen, specializing in rarefied, lavish, and challenging projects for the most demanding of clients. He built a staircase that the architect Santiago Calatrava called a masterpiece. He constructed the sculpted core of Sky House, which Interior Design named &“Apartment of the Decade.&” His projects have included the homes of David Bowie, Robin Williams, and others whose names he cannot reveal. He is regarded by many as the best carpenter in New York.Building: A Carpenter&’s Notes on Life & the Art of Good Work tells the story of an unconventional education and how fulfillment can be found in doing something well for decades. Ellison takes us on a tour of the lofts, penthouses, and townhomes of New York&’s elite, before they&’re camera-ready. In a singular voice, he offers a window into learning to live meaningfully along the way. From staircases that would be deadly if built as designed and algae-eating snails boiled to escargot in a penthouse pond, to the deceptive complexity of minimalist design, Building exposes the tangled wiring, scrapped blueprints, and outlandish demands that characterize life in the high-stakes world of luxury construction.Blending Ellison&’s musings on work and creativity with immersive storytelling and original sketches, photos, and illustrations, Building is a meditation on crafting a life worth living, and a delightful philosophical inquiry beyond the facades that we all live behind.
An exposé of the billionaires who built the US economy on sand, and the virus that saw it crumble.A kaleidoscopic…
account of the financial carnage of the pandemic, revealing the fear, grit, and gambles that drove the economy's winners and losers-from a leading Wall Street Journal reporter.Crash Landing takes readers behind the scenes of an unprecedented period of global economic turmoil, letting readers into the inner lives of the men and women trying to save big business from the brink.The world's most powerful CEOs never saw it coming, especially after a decade of growth that saw them riding high. Then whispers of a new flu-like illness became a crescendo, and by the end of March 2020 ten million people were out of work, iconic firms were begging for bailouts, and countless small businesses were in freefall.How do you sustain a workforce that can no longer work? How do you ride out a crisis that has no end in sight? How do you prepare for a recovery in a new world? Liz Hoffman pulls back the curtain on the most violent few months in the modern global economy, taking readers inside boardrooms, onto factory floors and into trading pits. Featuring original interviews with the people responsible for the economy, and in charge of making sure it survives. A gripping story of big business and even bigger characters, Crash Landing will appeal to fans of Michael Lewis and Andrew Sorkin. This is an audiobook that gives you the inside scoop, and answers the most important question of today: Will this remarkable time give rise to newfound resilience, or become just another costly mistake to be forgotten?(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
What I Wish I Had Told My Children (Biography and memoirs)
By Michel Bastarache, Antoine Trépanier. 2023
In this intimate volume, Michel Bastarache reveals details of his youth in Acadia and his multiple professional roles before becoming…
the first Acadian justice to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada. In a letter addressed to his two children who died from an incurable disease, Me. Bastarache recounts his constant fight for equality between francophone and anglophone communities. He reminisces on his commitment among groups protecting francophones outside Québec, then on his careers as teacher, civil servant, lawyer, and juge.In this story, Bastarache takes the reader backstage to his most important causes and he reveals some of the secrets of the highest court in Canada. Me. Bastarache weighs in on the controversy surrounding the Inquiry Commission on the process for appointing judges of the Court of Québec, as well as his mediator work for reconciliation and compensation of alleged victims of sexual abuse by ex-priests in New Brunswick.Available formats: hardcover, trade paperback, accessible PDF, and accessible ePub
When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach
By Ashlee Vance. 2023
A New York Times Most Anticipated Books of SpringA momentous look at the private companies building a revolutionary new economy…
in space, from the New York Times bestselling author of Elon MuskIn When the Heavens Went on Sale, Ashlee Vance illuminates our future and unveils the next big technology story of our time: welcome to the Wild West of aerospace engineering and its unprecedented impact on our lives.With the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket in 2008, Silicon Valley began to realize that the universe itself was open for business. Now, Vance tells the remarkable, unfolding story of this frenzied intergalactic land grab by following four pioneering companies—Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab—as they build new space systems and attempt to launch rockets and satellites into orbit by the thousands.With the public fixated on the space tourism being driven by the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson, these new, scrappy companies arrived with a different set of goals: to make rocket and satellite launches fast and cheap, thereby opening Earth’s lower orbit for business. Vance has had a front-row seat and singular access to this peculiar and unprecedented moment in history, and he chronicles it all in full color: the top-secret launch locations, communes, gun-toting bodyguards, drugs, espionage investigations, and multimillionaires guzzling booze to dull the pain as their fortunes disappear.Through immersive and intimate reporting, When the Heavens Went on Sale reveals the spectacular chaos of the new business of space, and what happens when the idealistic, ambitious minds of Silicon Valley turn their unbridled vision toward the limitless expanse of the stars. This is the tale of technology’s most pressing and controversial revolution, as told through fascinating characters chasing unimaginable stakes in the race to space.
The Face Pressed Against a Window: The Bookseller Who Built Waterstones
By Tim Waterstone. 2019
Tim Waterstone is one of Britain's most successful businessmen, having built the Waterstone's empire that started with one small bookshop…
in 1982. In this charming and evocative memoir, he recalls the childhood experiences that led him to become an entrepreneur and outlines the business philosophy that allowed Waterstone's to dominate the bookselling business throughout the country. Tim explores his formative years in a small town in rural England at the end of World War II, and the troubled relationship he had with his father, before moving on to the epiphany he had while studying at Cambridge, which set him on the road to Waterstone's and gave birth to the creative strategy that made him a high street name.
Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind
By Andy Dunn. 2022
The co-founder of the menswear startup Bonobos opens up about the struggle with bipolar disorder that nearly cost him everything…
in this gripping, radically honest memoir of mental illness and entrepreneurship.&“Arrestingly candid . . . the most powerful book I&’ve read on manic depression since An Unquiet Mind.&”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of WorkLifeONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—ForbesAt twenty-eight, fresh from Stanford&’s MBA program and steeped in the move-fast-and-break-things ethos of Silicon Valley, Andy Dunn was on top of the world. He was building a new kind of startup—a digitally native, direct-to-consumer brand—out of his Manhattan apartment. Bonobos was a new-school approach to selling an old-school product: men&’s pants. Against all odds, business was booming.Hustling to scale the fledgling venture, Dunn raised tens of millions of dollars while boundaries between work and life evaporated. As he struggled to keep the startup afloat, Dunn was haunted by a ghost: a diagnosis of bipolar disorder he received after a frightening manic episode in college, one that had punctured the idyllic veneer of his midwestern upbringing. He had understood his diagnosis as an unspeakable shame that—according to the taciturn codes of his fraternity, the business world, and even his family—should be locked away.As Dunn&’s business began to take off, however, some of the very traits that powered his success as a founder—relentless drive, confidence bordering on hubris, and ambition verging on delusion—were now threatening to undo him. A collision course was set in motion, and it would culminate in a night of mayhem—one poised to unravel all that he had built.Burn Rate is an unconventional entrepreneurial memoir, a parable for the twenty-first-century economy, and a revelatory look at the prevalence of mental illness in the startup community. With intimate prose, Andy Dunn fearlessly shines a light on the dark side of success and challenges us all to take part in the deepening conversation around creativity, performance, and disorder.
Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies
By Oscar Munoz, Brian DeSplinter. 2023
Go behind the scenes with the CEO who led United Airlines’ remarkable turnaround. Around the world and around the clock,…
the people of United Airlines are locked in a struggle against time to ensure your aircraft lands and takes off for another flight safely and efficiently. This “turnaround time” is the heartbeat of an industry in which the margin for error is nil and success is measured by fractions of a second.Turning around an aircraft and turning around an airline are very different challenges in most respects, except one: it takes a united team to perform it well.In 2015, when Oscar Munoz took the helm of this iconic brand, its culture was anything but united and its reputation was in free fall. A merger with its onetime rival Continental had stalled, operational and financial performance was badly trailing those of its competitors, and the bonds of trust with shareholders, customers, and employees had reached a breaking point.Setting out an ambitious plan to rejuvenate the company, Oscar learned that there was nothing wrong at United that couldn’t be fixed by championing what was right—the employees themselves.Meanwhile, only a month into the job, Oscar suffered a near-fatal heart attack that set in motion a race against the clock to find a heart transplant to save his life, even as he fought to salvage his vision for United’s revival. The health emergency might have been the end of the story—until employees and union leaders rallied around Oscar, inspiring him to pull through, something he did within weeks following a successful procedure.Oscar and the people he led, both with new leases on life, would go on to weather more turbulence, overcoming battles with investors and navigating several PR crises—including a global pandemic—to deliver top-tier operational performance, strong returns to shareholders, and ascending levels of customer satisfaction. By the end of his tenure, the people of United were finally flying together as one team, defying pessimism from industry insiders and rekindling optimism from employees and the customers they served.With candor, humor, and heartfelt wisdom, Oscar reveals how he rose from humble immigrant origins to lead United Airlines through one of modern business’s greatest corporate turnarounds. He offers soulful, much-needed leadership lessons for today’s world: listening with empathy, standing up for employees, building durable cultures that are profitable because they’re principled, and advancing a vision for a genuinely inclusive economy for the future.
Satisfaction Guaranteed: How Zingerman's Built a Corner Deli into a Global Food Community
By Micheline Maynard. 2021
From an accomplished national journalist, a lively look at the inception, growth, future, and unique management style of Zingerman&’s—a beloved,…
$70 million-dollar Michigan-based specialty food store with global reach.Certain businesses are legendary, exerting immense influence in their field. Zingerman&’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is one of those places. Over the years the flagship deli has expanded into a community of more than a dozen businesses, including a wildly successful mail order operation, restaurants, bakery, coffee roastery, creamery, candy maker, and events space—transforming Ann Arbor into a destination for food lovers. Founded in 1982 by Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman&’s philosophy of good food, excellent service, and sound finances has turned it into a company whose reach spans all corners of the gourmet food world. Famous for its generous deli sandwiches, fresh bread, and flavorful coffee—all locally produced—Zingerman&’s is also widely celebrated for its superb customer service and employee equity. The culture is one of respect and innovation, while maintaining very high standards. Every employee has access to the financial records, everyone has a voice, and everyone is heard. It has legions of enthusiastic customers, fans across the food world, and business principles and a work ethic that have been admired, analyzed, and copied. All that is revealed here, in Micheline Maynard&’s Satisfaction Guaranteed. Readers will discover how by 2019, Zingerman&’s employed hundreds of employees and achieved close to $70 million in annual sales. When the pandemic struck, Zingerman&’s growth momentarily screeched to a halt—but it survived by reinventing itself, while still serving its beloved food and selling its wide array of groceries. Now, as Zingerman&’s approaches its 40th anniversary, it is on track for stronger results than ever. A recipe for success in business and in life, Satisfaction Guaranteed provides a roadmap for manifesting joy and purpose in business.
Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley
By Angel Au-Yeung, David Jeans. 2023
In 1998, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh sold his first company to Microsoft for $265 million.In 2009, at…
the age of 35, he sold his e-commerce company, Zappos, to Amazon for $1.2 billion.In 2020, at the age of 46, he died.Tony Hsieh revolutionized both the tech world and corporate culture. He was a business visionary. He was also a man in search of happiness. So why did it all go so wrong?Tony Hsieh’s first successful venture was in middle school, selling personalized buttons. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and selling study guides. From there, he went on to build the billion-dollar online shoe empire of Zappos.The secret to his success? Making his employees happy.At its peak, Zappos’s employee-friendly culture was so famous across the tech industry that it inspired copycats and earned a cult following. Then Hsieh moved the Zappos headquarters to Las Vegas, where he personally funded a nine-figure campaign to revitalize the city’s historic downtown area. But as Hsieh fell deeper into his struggles with mental health and drug addiction, the people making up his inner circle began changing from friends to enablers.Drawing on hundreds of interviews with a wide range of people whose lives Hsieh touched, journalists Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans craft a rich portrait of a man who was plagued by his eternal search for happiness and ultimately succumbed to his own demons.
Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs
By Jamie Fiore Higgins. 2022
A rare, riveting insider&’s account on Wall Street—an updated Liar&’s Poker—where greed coupled with misogyny and discrimination enforces a culture…
of exclusion in the upper echelons of Goldman SachsJamie Fiore Higgins became one of the few women at the highest ranks of Goldman Sachs. Spurred on by the obligation she felt to her working-class immigrant family, she rose through the ranks and saw it all: out-of-control, lavish parties flowing with never-ending drinks; affairs flouted in the office; rampant drug use; and most pervasively, a discriminatory culture that seemed designed to hold back the few women and people of color employed at the company. Despite Goldman Sachs having the right talking points and statistics, Fiore Higgins soon realized that these provided a veneer to cover up what she found to be an abusive culture. Her account is one filled with shocking stories of harassment and jaw-dropping tales of exclusionary behavior: when she was told she only got promoted because she is a woman; when her coworkers mooed at her after she pumped for her fourth child, defying the superior who had advised her not to breastfeed; or when a male boss used a racial epithet in front of her, other colleagues, and clients without any repercussions. Bully Market sounds the alarm on the culture of finance and corporate America, while offering clear, actionable ideas for creating a fairer workplace. Both a revealing, extraordinary look at the industry and a top Wall Streeter&’s explosive personal story, Bully Market is an essential account of one woman&’s experience in a flawed system that speaks to the challenge and urgency for change.
Prisoner #1056: How i survived war and found peace
By Roy Ratnavel. 2023
An incredible immigrant story from a prominent Canadian Tamil who fled torture and imprisonment, arrived in Canada with $50 in…
his pocket, then rose from the mailroom to the executive suite of the country’s largest independent asset management company. Roy Ratnavel’s astonishing journey began at age seventeen, when he was seized by government soldiers and interned in a notorious prison camp for no reason other than being born a Tamil. He saw friends die, and was tortured for a few months—until an unlikely encounter allowed him to send a message beyond the prison walls, which led to his release. Seeing nothing but more danger in his son’s future, Ratnavel’s father sought refuge for his son in Canada, far from the ethnic violence that was consuming Sri Lanka. When the consular immigration officer asked for proof that the boy’s life was at risk in his homeland, Ratnavel simply lifted his shirt to show the man his unhealed scars. It wasn’t long before he was on a plane. His father was shot and killed three days later. To repay the debt he owed to his hero of a father, Ratnavel was determined to find the bright future that had been envisioned for him. He went to night school, worked three jobs at a time, and lived in a tiny space with seven housemates. Ratnavel persevered, and he hustled. He accepted no charity, even from relatives, but he made the most of the opportunities set in his path, the mentorship offered by those Canadians who recognized his potential, and by his new homeland, a country shaped by openness, tolerance, and a commitment to merit. Prisoner #1056 is not only a moving immigrant success story and a searing account of surviving unimaginable injustice and trauma—it is an urgent warning that the dark forces of populism that tore apart the once-prosperous island of Sri Lanka can do their ugly work in Western societies too. Passionate, raw, thoughtful, and far-seeing, Prisoner #1056 makes the case that our destiny is in our own hands
Prisoner #1056: How I Survived War and Found Peace
By Roy Ratnavel. 2023
An incredible immigrant story from a prominent Canadian Tamil who fled torture and imprisonment, arrived in Canada with $50 in…
his pocket, then rose from the mailroom to the executive suite of the country&’s largest independent asset management company.Roy Ratnavel&’s astonishing journey began at age seventeen, when he was seized by government soldiers and interned in a notorious prison camp for no reason other than being born a Tamil. He saw friends die, and was tortured for a few months—until an unlikely encounter allowed him to send a message beyond the prison walls, which led to his release.Seeing nothing but more danger in his son&’s future, Ratnavel&’s father sought refuge for his son in Canada, far from the ethnic violence that was consuming Sri Lanka. When the consular immigration officer asked for proof that the boy&’s life was at risk in his homeland, Ratnavel simply lifted his shirt to show the man his unhealed scars. It wasn&’t long before he was on a plane. His father was shot and killed three days later.To repay the debt he owed to his hero of a father, Ratnavel was determined to find the bright future that had been envisioned for him. He went to night school, worked three jobs at a time, and lived in a tiny space with seven housemates. Ratnavel persevered, and he hustled. He accepted no charity, even from relatives, but he made the most of the opportunities set in his path, the mentorship offered by those Canadians who recognized his potential, and by his new homeland, a country shaped by openness, tolerance, and a commitment to merit.Prisoner #1056 is not only a moving immigrant success story and a searing account of surviving unimaginable injustice and trauma—it is an urgent warning that the dark forces of populism that tore apart the once-prosperous island of Sri Lanka can do their ugly work in Western societies too. Passionate, raw, thoughtful, and far-seeing, Prisoner #1056 makes the case that our destiny is in our own hands.