The Financial Times and McKinsey & Company today announce that Nicole Perlroth is the winner of the 2021 Business Book of the Year Award for This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race, published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), Bloomsbury (US), an analysis of the threat posed by the arms race between cyber criminals, spies and hackers fighting to infiltrate essential computer systems. 

The Award recognises a work which provides the ‘most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues’. It was awarded today to Nicole Perlroth at a ceremony at the National Gallery in London, co-hosted by Roula Khalaf, Editor of the Financial Times and chair of the panel of judges, and Magnus Tyreman, Managing Partner Europe, McKinsey & Company. The keynote speaker at the event was Tony Danker, Director-General, CBI. 

This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends saw off strong competition from a shortlist of titles with subjects including climate change, racism, cyberweapons, meritocracies and risks to a sustainable and inclusive future. They will receive a prize of £30,000, with £10,000 going to each of the five runners-up.

Roula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times said, “Nicole Perlroth has done something that hasn't been done before: going this deep into the mysterious world of hackers. Cyber security isn't featuring highly enough on CEOs' agenda. I hope this award will prompt them to read this book and pay attention.”

Magnus Tyreman, Managing Partner Europe, McKinsey & Company, said: “Nicole Perlroth has written a book that is more than just a timely wake-up call to the fact that the world has largely ignored the realities and profound implications of the arms race between hackers, cybercriminals and businesses and national governments. It is an alarming book, one in which the author makes a compelling, granular and matter-of-fact case for how vulnerable global computer systems have become, and makes an urgent plea for specific and systematic action.”

The judging panel for the 2021 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award, chaired by Roula Khalaf, comprised:

The Financial Times and McKinsey & Company also announced Ines Lee and Eileen Tipoe as the winners of the 2021 Bracken Bower Prize. The Prize, first awarded in 2014, is designed to encourage young authors to tackle emerging business themes in a proposal for a book that is not yet published. Its aim is to unearth new talent and encourage writers to research ideas that could fill future business books of the year.

Ines Lee and Eileen Tipoe were awarded £15,000 for their book proposal, Failing the Class, an examination of how and why the priorities of higher education in the UK and US have shifted in the last three decades from focusing on the development of character to the development of a career, and its subsequent effects on the nature of learning and social cohesion.

The judging panel for the Bracken Bower Prize comprised:

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To learn more about these awards, visit ft.com/bookaward and follow the conversation at #BBYA21 and #BrackenBower. 

For more information please contact:

UK:

Katrina Power | +44 (0) 79639 62538 | katrinapowerpr@gmail.com

Mark Staniland, Financial Times | 44 (0) 78754 69179 | mark.staniland@ft.com

US

Mark Fortier, Fortier Public Relations | +1 212-675-6460, +646-246-3036 | mark@fortierpr.com

Graham Ackerman / Steffi Langner, Media Relations, McKinsey & Company | +1 (212) 415-1971 | media_relations_inbox@mckinsey.com

The Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

Entry forms and details of the terms and conditions are available from www.ft.com/bookaward. The annual award aims to identify the book that provides the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, finance and economics. The shortlist of six titles was chosen from a longlist of 15. The winner was announced at a digital event on 1 December 2021. Submissions are invited from publishers or bona fide imprints based in any country.

Books must be published for the first time in the English language, or in English translation, between 16 November 2020 and 15 November 2021. There is no limit to the number of submissions from each publisher/imprint, provided they fit the criteria, and books from all genres except anthologies are eligible. There are no restrictions of gender, age or nationality of authors. Authors who are current employees of the Financial Times or McKinsey & Company, or the close relatives of such employees, are not eligible.

Previous Business Book of the Year winners include: Sarah Frier for No Filter: The Inside Story of How Instagram Transformed Business, Celebrity and Our Culture (2020); Caroline Criado Perez for Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019); John Carreyrou for Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (2018); Amy Goldstein for Janesville: An American Story (2017); Sebastian Mallaby for The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan (2016); Martin Ford for Rise of the Robots (2015); Thomas Piketty for Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014); Brad Stone for The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (2013); Steve Coll for Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (2012); Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo for Poor Economics (2011); Raghuram Rajan for Fault Lines (2010); Liaquat Ahamed for The Lords of Finance (2009); Mohamed El-Erian for When Markets Collide (2008); William D. Cohan for The Last Tycoons (2007); James Kynge for China Shakes the World (2006); and Thomas Friedman, as the inaugural award winner in 2005, for The World is Flat.

About the Financial Times

The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading business news organisations, recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. The FT has a record paying readership of more than one million, three-quarters of which are digital subscriptions. It is part of Nikkei Inc., which provides a broad range of information, news and services for the global business community.

About McKinsey & Company

McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm committed to helping organisations realise sustainable, inclusive growth. We work with clients across the private, public, and social sectors to solve complex problems and create positive change for all their stakeholders. We combine bold strategies and transformative technologies to help organisations innovate more sustainably, achieve lasting gains in performance, and build workforces that will thrive for this generation and the next. mckinsey.com 

The Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2021:

WINNER 2021

This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race, by Nicole Perlroth, Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), Bloomsbury (US)

Zero-day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. One of the most coveted tools in a spy's arsenal, a zero-day has the power to silently spy on your iPhone, dismantle the safety controls at a chemical plant, alter an election, and shut down the electric grid (just ask Ukraine).

For decades, under cover of classification levels and nondisclosure agreements, the United States government became the world's dominant hoarder of zero-days. U.S. government agents paid top dollar-first thousands, and later millions of dollars-to hackers willing to sell their lock-picking code and their silence. Then the United States lost control of its hoard and the market. Now those zero-days are in the hands of hostile nations and mercenaries who do not care if your vote goes missing, your clean water is contaminated, or our nuclear plants melt down.

Filled with spies, hackers, arms dealers, and a few unsung heroes, written like a thriller and a reference, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is an astonishing feat of journalism. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth lifts the curtain on a market in shadow, revealing the urgent threat faced by us all if we cannot bring the global cyberarms race to heel.

SHORTLIST 2021

The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources, by Javier Blas & Jack Farchy, Random House Business, Cornerstone (UK), Oxford University Press (US)

In The World for Sale, two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources.

It is the story of how a handful of swashbuckling businessmen became indispensable cogs in global markets; enabling an enormous expansion in international trade, and connecting resource-rich countries – no matter how corrupt or war-torn - with the world's financial centres.

And it is the story of how some traders acquired untold political power, right under the noses of Western regulators and politicians – helping Saddam Hussein to sell his oil, fuelling the Libyan rebel army during the Arab Spring, and funnelling cash to Vladimir Putin's Kremlin in spite of strict sanctions.

The result is an eye-opening tour through the wildest frontiers of the global economy, as well as a revelatory guide to how capitalism really works.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Radden Keefe, Picador/Pan Macmillan (UK), Doubleday (US)

The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions – Harvard; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Oxford; the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations in the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing Oxycontin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis – an international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people.

In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality. Empire of Pain is the story of a dynasty: a parable of 21st century greed.

The Conversation: How Talking Honestly About Racism Can Transform Individuals and Organizations by Robert Livingston, Penguin Business (UK), Currency/Crown (US)

How can I become part of the solution? In the wake of the social unrest of 2020 and growing calls for racial justice, many business leaders and ordinary citizens are asking that very question. This book provides a compass for all those seeking to begin the work of anti-racism. In The Conversation, Robert Livingston addresses three simple but profound questions: What is racism? Why should everyone be more concerned about it? What can we do to eradicate it? 

For some, the existence of systemic racism against Black people is hard to accept because it violates the notion that the world is fair and just. But the rigid racial hierarchy created by slavery did not collapse after it was abolished, nor did it end with the civil rights era. Whether it’s the composition of a company’s leadership team or the composition of one’s neighborhood, these racial divides and disparities continue to show up in every facet of society. For Livingston, the difference between a solvable problem and a solved problem is knowledge, investment, and determination. And the goal of making organizations more diverse, equitable, and inclusive is within our capability.

Livingston’s lifework is showing people how to turn difficult conversations about race into productive instances of real change. For decades he has translated science into practice for numerous organizations, including Airbnb, Deloitte, Microsoft, Under Armour, L’Oreal, and JPMorgan Chase. In The Conversation, Livingston distills this knowledge and experience into an eye-opening immersion in the science of racism and bias. Drawing on examples from pop culture and his own life experience, Livingston, with clarity and wit, explores the root causes of racism, the factors that explain why some people care about it and others do not, and the most promising paths toward profound and sustainable progress, all while inviting readers to challenge their assumptions.

Social change requires social exchange. Founded on principles of psychology, sociology, management, and behavioral economics, The Conversation is a road map for uprooting entrenched biases and sharing candid, fact-based perspectives on race that will lead to increased awareness, empathy, and action.

The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, by Michael E. Mann, Scribe (UK), PublicAffairs (US)

A renowned climate scientist shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change, and offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet.

Recycle. Fly less. Eat less meat. These are some of the ways that we've been told can slow climate change. But the inordinate emphasis on individual behavior is the result of a marketing campaign that has succeeded in placing the responsibility for fixing climate change squarely on the shoulders of individuals.

Fossil fuel companies have followed the example of other industries deflecting blame (think "guns don't kill people, people kill people") or greenwashing (think of the beverage industry's "Crying Indian" commercials of the 1970s). Meanwhile, they've blocked efforts to regulate or price carbon emissions, run PR campaigns aimed at discrediting viable alternatives, and have abdicated their responsibility in fixing the problem they've created. The result has been disastrous for our planet.

In The New Climate War, Mann argues that all is not lost. He draws the battle lines between the people and the polluters-fossil fuel companies, right-wing plutocrats, and petrostates. And he outlines a plan for forcing our governments and corporations to wake up and make real change, including:

The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, by Adrian Wooldridge, Allen Lane (UK), Skyhorse (US)

Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their status at birth. For much of history this was a revolutionary thought, but by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left?

Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocractic system.

Wooldridge also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted and argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of failure to complete the meritocratic revolution. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal. 

The  Bracken Bower Prize 2021

WINNER 2021

Ines Lee, Junior Research Fellow in Economics and Homerton College, University of Cambridge 

Eileen Tipoe, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Queen Mary University of London for Failing the Class.

FINALISTS 2021

Manuel Hepfer, Research Analyst at ISTARI Global and Research Affiliate at Oxford University’s Saïd Business Schools, for The Cybersecurity Wake-Up Call.

Melissa Zhang, MBA/MPA student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Harvard Kennedy School for Trailblazers.

Notes to editors on The Bracken Bower Prize

The Bracken Bower Prize is named after Brendan Bracken, who was chairman of the FT from 1945 to 1958, and Marvin Bower, managing director of McKinsey from 1950 to 1967, who were instrumental in laying the foundations for the present-day success of the two institutions. This Prize honours their legacy but also opens a new chapter by encouraging young writers and researchers to identify and analyse the business trends of the future. The Prize will be awarded to the best proposal tackling emerging business themes. The main theme of the proposed work should be forward-looking. In the spirit of the Business Book of the Year, the proposal should aim to provide a compelling and enjoyable insight into future trends in business, economics, finance or management. 

The best proposals will be published on FT.com and a prize of £15,000 is given for the best book proposal. Once the finalists’ entries appear on FT.com, authors are free to solicit or accept offers from publishers. The closing date for entries was 5pm (BST) on 30 September 2021. Entry forms and details of the terms and conditions are available from www.ft.com/bookaward.

Previous winners of the Bracken Bower Prize include Stephen Boyle for New Money (2020), Jonathan Hillman for The Sinolarity (2019), Andrew Leon Hanna for 25 Million Sparks (2018), Mehran Gul for The New Geography of Innovation (2017), Nora Rosendahl for Mental Meltdown (2016), Christopher Clearfield and András Tilcsik for Rethinking the Unthinkable (2015), the winner of the inaugural prize, and Saadia Zahidi as the inaugural award winner for Womenomics (2014). 

Eligibility

Only writers who are under 35 on 30 November 2021 are eligible. They can be a published author, but the proposal itself must be original and must not have been previously submitted to a publisher. Authors who are current employees of the Financial Times or McKinsey & Company, or the close relatives of such employees, are not eligible.