Champions:
We think that these leaders, though belonging to different generations, may be seen as role models for young people, who want to learn how to succeed themselves and to lead others in the fast growing global entrepreneurial competitive knowledge-based business environment also known as new economy.
Sergey Brin, co-founder and president of technology, Google
Howard Schultz, chief global strategist and chairman, Starbucks
Arthur D. Levinson, CEO, Genentech
Mary F. Sammons, president and CEO, Rite Aid
Kip Tindell, co-founder and CEO, The Container Store
Bill L. Gore, founder, W.L. Gore & Associates
Steven Spielberg, film director and producer; co-founder, Dream Works
Jack Welch, former CEO, General Electric
Dee Hock, founder and former CEO, Visa International
Richard Branson, founder, Virgin Group
Andrew S. Grove, senior advisor, former chairman and CEO, Intel
Michael S. Dell, founder, CEO and chairman, Dell Computer
Danny Wegman, CEO, Wegmans Food Markets
Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder and chairman, Easy Jet
Ingvar Kamprad, founder, IKEA
Maxine Clark, founder and CEO, Build-A-Bear Workshop
Jim Penman, founder, Jim’s Group
Niklas Zennström, co-founder, Skype; co-founder, Joost
Vince Lombardi, former head coach and general manager, Washington Redskins
Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO, YouTube
Steve Chen, co-founder, YouTube
Anne M. Mulcahy, CEO and chairman, Xerox
Steven P. Jobs, CEO, Apple Computer
Alexandr Izosimov, CEO, Vimpelkom
Ruben Vardanyan, chairman, Troika Dialog Group
Philip H. Knight, founder, CEO, chairman, Nike
Larry Page, co-founder and president of products, Google
Janus Friis, co-founder, Skype; co-founder, Joost
William C. Procter, former president, Procter & Gamble
James O. McKinsey, founder, McKinsey & Co.
Frederick W. Smith, founder, president and CEO, Federal Express
Gordon E. Moore, co-founder, former CEO, Intel
William H. Gates, founder and chairman, Microsoft
John Mackey, founder and CEO, Whole Foods Market
Dan Warmenhoven, CEO, Network Appliance
Carl W. Stern, president and CEO, Boston Consulting Group
Brenda C. Barnes, CEO and chairman, Sara Lee
George Lucas, film producer and director
Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos
Jim Mastrian, COO, Rite Aid
Fumiko Hayashi, chairman, Daiei
Lou Gerstner, former CEO and chairman, IBM
Mike Lazaridis, founder, Blackberry; co-CEO, Research In Motion
Lawrence Ellison, co-founder and CEO, Oracle
Mark Zuckerberg, founder, Facebook.com
_________________________________________________________________
Inspirers:
Ideas and concepts of these distinguished authors made it possible for us to understand the implications of the shift from mass-production corporate economy to knowledge-based new economy for business leadership. To help well-educated hard-working young ambitious persons with principles to choose right people to work with and become new economy leaders through learning from them, we initiated the Good2Work project.
Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Tom Peters, Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age
Tom Peters’ provocative ideas about new order of the world of business, death of bureaucracy and the power of talent stimulate to re-comprehend life, values, career and our place in the future. He gives us the new vital philosophy of success driven by passion, fun and talent both for companies and persons.
Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline
With publishing this book (1990) Senge gave a birth to the concept of “learning organization”, which is defined as a group of people who are continually enhancing their capabilities to create what they want to create. We’ve been most inspired by such feature of leaning organization as that inside of it people are actually learning how to learn together and sharing their knowledge.
Helen Handfield-Jones, The War for Talent
The book’s title has already become a definition for the mainstream in global competitive business environment, where developing and retaining talents must be a core of each company's strategy. The human factor’s priority for achieving success in knowledge-based economy is that fundamental idea we have started our project with.
James M. Sitrin, The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, the concept of benevolent leadership
The authors formulated a concept of benevolent leadership. In a company with a benevolent leader information flow freely, people feel free to apply to authority without retribution, creativity reigns and each member of the team feels just as accountable to one another as to the leader. That’s a key to transforming a good career into an extraordinary one.
Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, The Leadership Mystique
This is a manual for those who are looking for the right path to improve leadership skills, to get most of themselves, to motivate their people, and to perform their businesses. It is meant for deeper understanding of ourselves and changing the real world for better through growing as a leader that is able to raise new leaders.
Nitin Nohria, What Really Works: The 4+2 Formula for Sustained Business Success
Klaus Kobjoll, Motivaction III
You can be sure that all the daring ideas from this book are already tested by practice and proved its justifiability. Klaus Kobjoll shares his successful experience in building a highly profitable business and a community of loyal customers through empowering employees with freedom and responsibility.
Alvin Toffler, Revolutionary Wealth, Future Shock
______________________________________________________________________
We have been also inspired by works of following writers:
Justin Menkes, author of Executive Intelligence: What all great leaders have
Ed Michaels, co-author of The War for Talent
Beth Axelrod, co-author of The War for Talent
Guy Kawasaki, venture capitalist, former Apple evangelist, author of The Art of the Start
Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last, Good to Great
Derrick Barton, Chief Talent Officer, Center for Talent Retention
Esther Dyson, Editor-at-Large, CNET Networks, Inc., author of Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age
Gerry Crispin, head of CareerXroads, famous HR-blogger
Steve Farber, author of The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership
Susan M. Drake, co-author of Light Their Fire: Using Internal Marketing to Ignite Employee Performance and Wow Your Customers
Seth Godin, founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, author of Unleashing the Ideavirus, Purple Cow
Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, Free Agent Nation
Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, Cities and the Creative Class, Flight of the Creative Class; The Future of the American Workforce in the Global Creative Economy (essay)
William C. Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company, author of Mavericks at Work, The Big Boys: Power and Position in American Business
Polly LaBarre, co-author of Mavericks at Work
John Moore, former marketing director at Starbucks Coffee, author of
John Moore, former marketing director at Starbucks Coffee, author of Tribal Knowledge: Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks Corporate Culture
Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First
Catherine Kaputa, author of U R A BRAND! How Smart People Brand Themselves for Business Success
Anthony Mayo, author of In Their Time; The Greatest Business Leaders of the 20th Century; Paths to Power: How Insiders and Outsiders Shaped American Business Leadership
Hank Stringer, author of Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business
Aubrey Daniels, author of Bringing Out the Best in People; Measure of a Leader: An Actionable Formula for Legendary Leadership (coauthored with James Daniels)
