From John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, an intimate personal
memoir and riveting business story, recounting how he helped grow the
company from 300 to 50,000 employees over four decades, transformed a
notoriously competitive culture into a successful and collaborative one,
and lead the company through the 2008 financial crisis.
During his thirty-four-year tenure at Morgan Stanley, John Mack's goal
was to build the strongest and most productive team on Wall Street. His
ability to motivate his employees to do their best work, especially in
times of crisis, was fostered by his willingness to slash through
bureaucracy and stand up to powerful interests. A forceful personality,
one journalist said Mack was "described as 'charismatic' so regularly
that it could be part of his name."
In Up Close and All In, Mack traces his personal journey from a
one-stoplight North Carolina mill town to a fortieth-floor corner office
on Wall Street--and shares the life lessons he learned along the way. He
developed a titanium-strength stomach for risk, stress, and competition
while landing accounts early in his career, as investment banks fought
like wolfpacks to take advantage of new deregulation, fielding business
raids, booms, and busts. As he rose through the ranks, he never forgot
where he came from, relying on his instincts, doing what was right, and
listening to his people on the front lines. This culture of trust and
collaboration helped Morgan Stanley anticipate future trends before
other firms, adapt quickly, and achieve record profits.
This gripping memoir includes both humbling lows--like when Mack made
the difficult decision to leave Morgan Stanley in 2001--and exhilarating
highs--such as when he made an eleventh-hour agreement with the Japanese
bank Mitsubishi to save the company during the 2008 financial crisis,
having refused to give in when top regulators pressured him to sell the
firm for $2 per share.
With humor and honesty, Mack shares advice on both business and life:
how to create a culture of team players, how to keep perspective during
crises, how to make difficult decisions when all eyes are on you, and
more. From a singular man who's as unafraid to cry publicly as he is to
anger some of the most powerful people in the world, this is an
indispensable guide to living and leading well.
