Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School - Hardcover

Broughton, Philip Delves

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594201757 ISBN 13: 9781594201752

Publisher: Penguin Pr, 2008

Synopsis

As One L did for Harvard Law School, Ahead of the Curve does for Harvard Business SchoolÂ-providing an incisive studentÂ's-eye view that pulls the veil away from this vaunted institution and probes the methods it uses to make its students into the elite of the business worldIn the century since its founding, Harvard Business School has become the single most influential institution in global business. Twenty percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are HBS graduates, as are many of our savviest entrepreneurs (e.g., Michael Bloomberg) and canniest felons (e.g., Jeffrey Skilling). The top investment banks and brokerage houses routinely send their brightest young stars to HBS to groom them for future power. To these people and many others, a Harvard MBA is a golden ticket to the Olympian heights of American business. In 2004, Philip Delves Broughton abandoned a post as Paris bureau chief of the London Daily Telegraph to join nine hundred other would-be tycoons on HBSÂ's plush campus. Over the next two years, he and his classmates would be inundated with the bestÂ-and the restÂ-of American business culture that HBS epitomizes. The core of the schoolÂ's curriculum is the Â"caseÂ"Â-an analysis of a real business situation from which the students must, with a professorÂ's guidance, tease lessons. Delves Broughton studied more than five hundred cases and recounts the most revelatory ones here. He also learns the surprising pleasures of accounting, the allure of Â"beta,Â" the ingenious chicanery of leveraging, and innumerable other hidden workings of the business world, all of which he limns with a wry clarity reminiscent of LiarÂ's Poker. He also exposes the less savory trappings of b-school culture, from the Â"booze lugeÂ" to the pandemic obsession with PowerPoint to the specter of depression that stalks too many overburdened students. With acute and often uproarious candor, he assesses the schoolÂ's success at teaching the traits it extols as most important in busines

About this title

Review:

a Destined to become required reading for prospective B-school entrants. . . . As an insideras account of an influential institution, [it] hits every mark.a
a"San Francisco Chronicle"
aAn insightful and entertaining, behind-the-scenes glimpse at a powerful institution.a
a"BusinessWeek"
a What makes this a particularly absorbing and entertaining read is the combination of journalistic detachment and the sense of personal alienation that Delves Broughton, a Brit in an American system, feels as he struggles to come to terms with what it means to be a Harvard MBA.a
a"Financial Times"

" Destined to become required reading for prospective B-school entrants. . . . As an insider's account of an influential institution, [it] hits every mark."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"An insightful and entertaining, behind-the-scenes glimpse at a powerful institution."
-BusinessWeek
" What makes this a particularly absorbing and entertaining read is the combination of journalistic detachment and the sense of personal alienation that Delves Broughton, a Brit in an American system, feels as he struggles to come to terms with what it means to be a Harvard MBA."
-Financial Times

About the Author:

Philip Delves Broughton was born in Bangladesh and grew up in England. From 1998 to 2004, he served successively as the New York and Paris bureau chief for the Daily Telegraph of London and reported widely from North and South America, Europe, and Africa. He led the Telegraph’s coverage of the 9/11 attacks on New York and his reporting has twice been nominated for the British Press Award. His work has also appeared in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, and Spectator. In 2006, he received an MBA from Harvard Business School.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Pr
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1594201757
• ISBN 13: 9781594201752
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 283