Join our book club series, designed for experienced non-executives, to discuss wide-ranging topics with relevance to business and board directors today. Our (usually) non-fiction series covers macro socio-economic issues that relate to the context businesses operate in, what impact they have and the responsibilities of organisations in today’s world.
Led by Shefaly Yogendra, a highly experienced portfolio NED herself, this series of three discussions will be an opportunity to consider the bigger issues facing today’s boards and businesses. In a small group of max. 15 members, you will come together across three sessions to develop your understanding of ideas raised in the books proposed.
The books selected for this book club series are:
First Session: Wednesday 17 September, 6pm to 7pm
Empire of AI, by Karen Hao
Karen Hao started writing about OpenAI in 2019. She is uniquely qualified to tell this story about the long arms of OpenAI and its leader Sam Altman.
Second Session: Wednesday 15 October, 6pm to 7pm
Climate Change as Class War, by Matthew T. Huber
Huber challenges the ideas that somehow our individually eating less meat and driving an electric car is going to solve the structural factors that have created and continue to exacerbate climate change. He then takes it a step forward and frames it as a class struggle. Our challenge in reading this book is to bring the board director’s lens to the question “so what?” to examining levers we can use in our boards and companies to drive urgent climate action.
Third Session: Wednesday 19 November, 6pm to 7pm
Service, by John Tottenham
While framed as the story of an “unrepentant artistic outsider in an unforgiving day and age”, Service examines many other themes in our lives, almost all being exacerbated by the context we live in whether climate change or rapid technological change, some of these themes being debt, friendship, aging gracelessly, professional jealousy, political correctness, and — my favourite — the role of literature in the digital era.
Participants should come to each session having read the book. The price above is for all 3 sessions which take place on the above dates and times (books not included).