Dear Chairman

A sharp and illuminating history of one of capitalism’s longest running tensions—the conflicts of interest among public company directors, managers, and shareholders—told through entertaining case studies and original letters from some of our most legendary and controversial investors and activists. Recent disputes between shareholders and major corporations, including Apple and DuPont, have made headlines. But the struggle between management and those who own stock has been going on for nearly a century. Mixing never-before-published and rare, original letters from Wall Street icons—including Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, Ross Perot, Carl Icahn, and Daniel Loeb—with masterful scholarship and professional insight, Dear Chairman traces the rise in shareholder activism from the 1920s to today, and provides an invaluable and unprecedented perspective on what it means to be a public company, including how they work and who is really in control. Jeff Gramm analyzes different eras and pivotal boardroom battles from the last century to understand the factors that have caused shareholders and management to collide. Throughout, he uses the letters to show how investors interact with directors and managers, how they think about their target companies, and how they plan to profit. Each is a fascinating example of capitalism at work told through the voices of its most colorful, influential participants. A hedge fund manager and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, Gramm has spent as much time evaluating CEOs and directors as he has trying to understand and value businesses. He has seen public companies that are poorly run, and some that willfully disenfranchise their shareholders. While he pays tribute to the ingenuity of public company investors, Gramm also exposes examples of shareholder activism at its very worst, when hedge funds engineer stealthy land-grabs at the expense of a company’s long term prospects. Ultimately, he provides a thorough, much-needed understanding of the public company/shareholder relationship for investors, managers, and everyone concerned with the future of capitalism.

I have a crush on Mr. Lee, the chairman of the board at O'Connell, Thompson, and Taylor Enterprises, the company where I clean. One night, I get a little tipsy and blurt out to him, "You're so freaking hot. I want to have your baby." FML. To my surprise, he ends up taking my words seriously... ***A standalone story in the OTT Enterprises series featuring alpha male businessmen and the women they want to make theirs. Warning: this story is full of over-the-top instalove! Enjoy!*** WORD COUNT: 4,500 Excerpt: "I'm sorry for inconveniencing you," I say. And I'm sorry for saying I want to have your baby. I'm too embarrassed to say the second apology out loud. "You're not an inconvenience." He touches my hair, causing electricity to go through my body. Should he be touching my hair like that? But I can't deny that a part of me likes him touching me. He nods at the food. "You should eat before your breakfast gets cold." For some reason, he stares at me as I eat. I'm tempted to ask him, What are you looking at? But I don't want to jeopardize my job any further, so I eat in silence. Fortunately, the food is delicious enough that I'm (mostly) able to ignore him. After I finish my orange juice, I let out a breath and tell him, "Um, I'm sorry about what I said last night. It was unprofessional, and I hope it won't affect my employment — " "I don't want you working anymore." I blink. "What?" "I don't want you cleaning the office anymore." Tears sting my eyes. I want to shout curses at him, but he is justified in firing me. I drank stolen champagne on company property. I'm considering going on my knees and begging him to reconsider his decision when he says: "I can't have the mother of my children be on her feet all day." Additional keywords: Asian heroine romance, Asian hero, diverse romance, steamy romance short stories

Censorship and book burning are still present in our lives. Lawrence Hill shares his experiences of how ignorance and the fear of ideas led a group in the Netherlands to burn the cover of his widely successful novel, The Book of Negroes, in 2011. Why do books continue to ignite such strong reactions in people in the age of the Internet? Is banning, censoring, or controlling book distribution ever justified? Hill illustrates his ideas with anecdotes and lists names of Canadian writers who faced censorship challenges in the twenty-first century, inviting conversation between those on opposite sides of these contentious issues. All who are interested in literature, freedom of expression, and human rights will enjoy reading Hill's provocative essay.

“Like Richard Russo’s Straight Man this book has a lot to say about the humanities in American colleges and universities…. Very funny and also moving.” —Tom Perrotta, New York Post A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR and Boston Globe Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary." Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can't catch a break with his brilliant (he thinks) work Accountant in a Bordello, based on Melville's Bartleby. In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive novel uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies. We recommend Dear Committee Members to you in the strongest possible terms. Don’t miss Julie Schumacher's new novel, The English Experience, coming soon.

This book "renders the singular arc of a woman's life through letters Mary-Louise Parker composes to the men, real and hypothetical, who have informed the person she is today. Beginning with the grandfather she never knew, the letters range from a missive to the beloved priest from her childhood to remembrances of former lovers to an homage to a firefighter she encountered to a heartfelt communication with the uncle of the infant daughter she adopted"--

"In this rare insider's view into contemporary North Korea, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom. "The General will now enter the room." Everyone turns to stone. Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il's face will soon appear... As North Korea's State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life. Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing expose; told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung's escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is a rare and unprecedented insight into the world's most secretive and repressive regime"--

DEDICATED TO THE NEXT GENERATION OF WOMEN BOARD LEADERSIn 2018, California passed a senate bill (SB 826) to require publicly held companies headquartered in CA to have at least one woman on their board by 2020. In 2020, Nasdaq proposed a mandate that would require listed companies to have at least two diverse board members with one member who identifies as female. Initiatives like these are helping advance gender parity on boards in many regions, not just the U.S. In late 2020, women held 22.6% of the board seats on the Russell 3000 for the first time, a 6.5 point jump over the past 4 years.Zooming out to the global scale, the picture is similarly improving. In 2020, about 23% of board seats globally were held by women, compared to 20% in 2018. Yet...at the time of this writing, 10% of large global companies do not have a single woman on their board. And the percent of women who chair boards is dramatically smaller. Among the largest 500 public U.S. companies by revenue the share of women who chaired boards remained stagnant at 7.4%. Notably, of those women who chair boards, few of them use the term Chairwoman in their bios or LinkedIn profiles-opting for monikers Chairman, or Board Chair, or occasionally Chairperson. This book features the extraordinary voices and stories of women leaders from around the world who have trailblazed to the board room, as letters to the next generation of women in business and government. With the salutation "Dear Chairwoman," these letters are infused with the energy to inspire young women to both pursue board governance early, and to claim the 'Chairwoman' title in taking the senior-most seat in the Board Room.

The shareholder letters of corporate leaders are a rich source of business and investing wisdom. There is no more authoritative resource on subjects ranging from leadership and management to capital allocation and company culture. But with thousands of shareholder letters written every year, how can investors and students of the corporate world sift this vast swathe to unearth the best insights? Dear Shareholder is the solution! In this masterly new collection, Lawrence A. Cunningham, business expert and acclaimed editor of The Essays of Warren Buffett, presents the finest writers in the genre of the shareholder letter, and the most significant excerpts from their total output. Skillfully curated, edited and arranged, these letters showcase the ultimate in business and investment knowledge from an all-star team. Dear Shareholder holds letters by more than 20 different leaders from 16 companies. These leaders include Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), Tom Gayner (Markel), Kay Graham and Don Graham (The Washington Post and Graham Holdings), Roberto Goizueta (Coca-Cola), Ginni Rometty (IBM), and Prem Watsa (Fairfax). Topics covered in these letters include the long-term focus, corporate culture and commitment to values, capital allocation, buybacks, dividends, acquisitions, management, business strategy, and executive compensation. As we survey the corporate landscape in search of outstanding companies run by first-rate managers, shareholder letters are a valuable resource. The letters also contain a wealth of knowledge on the core topics of effective business management. Let Dear Shareholder be your guide.