FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY & COMPANY INVITE SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2016 BRACKEN BOWER PRIZE

   London, 25th April 2016:

The Financial Times and McKinsey & Company today invited submissions for the 2016 Bracken Bower Prize and announced the judging panel, which this year welcomes Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, Adecco associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship, London Business School; and David Young, former chief executive, Orion Publishing Group.

The Bracken Bower Prize is designed to encourage young authors to tackle emerging business themes, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities of growth. Writers who are under 35 on November 22^nd 2016 are eligible to submit a book proposal of no more than 5,000 words, in which they identify and analyse the business trends of the future.

The Bracken Bower Prize and £15,000 will be awarded for the best eligible proposal, alongside the Business Book of the Year Award, in front of an audience of publishers, agents, authors and business figures. The closing date for entries is 5pm (BST) on September 30th 2016.

The distinguished judging panel for the 2016 Bracken Bower Prize comprises
 Vindi Banga, Partner, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice
 Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, Adecco associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship, London Business School
 Jorma Ollila, Chairman,  Outokumpu, and former chairman Royal Dutch Shell and Nokia
 David Young, former chief executive, Orion Publishing Group

 Christopher Clearfield and András Tilcsik won the 2015 Bracken Bower Prize with their book proposal, Rethinking the Unthinkable: Managing the Risk of Catastrophic Failure in the Twenty-First Century, which examines the forces transforming the contemporary risk landscape and presents practical lessons that help people at all levels ̶ from CEOs to recent graduates ̶ understand and tame the complexity of modern systems. The book will be published as Meltdown by Penguin Press and Penguin Canada, and in China by Post Wave.

 Harvard Business Review Press has confirmed that in 2017 they will be publishing The Next Factory of the World, by 2015 Bracken Bower Prize finalist Irene Yuan Sun. She said: "For an unknown author to have this sort of publicity, profile and networking opportunity is incredibly valuable.”

Saadia Zahidi was named winner of the inaugural Prize in 2014 for her book proposal, Womenomics In the Muslim World, about a new movement in which economics trumps culture, combining data and anecdotal stories to illustrate the power of the new female Muslim economy. Saadia’s book Women At Work, based on her prize-winning proposal, will be published in 2017 by Nation Books.