6 books shortlisted for Business Book of the Year Award

On 17 November 2015, the '2015 FT and McKinsey ‘Business Book of the Year Award’ will be handed out. The winner of the award takes home £30,000, while the five runners up go home with £10,000 each. This year's shortlist is filled with hot button topics, including, among others, the effects of automation on employment, the rise of FinTech virtual currency Bitcoin, and gender equality. 

Since 2005, the Financial Times organises the FT Business Book of the Year Award to reward writers of business books that provide the “most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues.” Since the start of the annual book price, global investment bank Goldman Sachs had served as co-sponsor, but since 2014, McKinsey & Company has taken over the honours and committed itself as principal partner to the award.

This year, a panel of seven judges* has shortlisted six authors to compete for the award, which is valued at £30,000, to be handed out during the award ceremony on November 17 at a dinner in New York’s Wendell Weeks. The runners up each take home £10,000.

Shortlist
The six finalists include The Rise of the Robots, by Martin Ford, a work that explores the future of employment and automation; Losing the Signal, by Jacque McNish and Sean Silcoff, which explores the fate of Blackberry; Digital Gold, Nathaniel Popper’s explores the rise and effects of Bitcoin; How Music Got Free, Stephen Witt’s historical exploration of the phenomenon of digital piracy and peer-to-peer sharing and the consequences for the music industry; Unfinished Business, Anne Marie Slaughter’s book that explores the challenges faced by those seeking gender equality; and Misbehaving, by Richard Thaler, in which the original influence of behavioural economics is explored.

Commenting on the finalists, McKinsey’s Managing Partner Vivian Hunt says: “We are very excited by this year’s shortlist. The six books really capture some of the key challenges that are demanding the attention of executives, policymakers and society in general.” Lionel Barber, FT editor and Chair of judges, praises the books’ “compelling narrative and in-depth analysis” and says they explored “the important themes that business must confront today.”

* This year’s panel includes two new judges: Author and Global Economist Dambisa Moyo and the Co-Founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman.