Bracken Bower Prize

The Financial Times and McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize (or simply the Bracken Bower Prize) is an annual award given to the best business book proposal of the year by a young business writer, as determined by the Financial Times and McKinsey & Company. It aims to find the 'best proposal for a book about the challenges and opportunities of growth by an author aged under 35.'^[1]

Established in 2014, the prize is named after Brendan Bracken, chairman of the Financial Times from 1945 to 1958, and Marvin Bower, managing director of McKinsey from 1950 to 1967.^[2] The prize is worth £15,000 and is presented at the same time as the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.^[3]

Several previous winners and finalists of the contest landed book deals with major publishers.^[4] In 2016, Penguin Press agreed to publish Meltdown, a book about the changing nature of risk and catastrophic failure in business and beyond, by Christopher Clearfield and András Tilcsik, the winners of the 2015 prize.^[5][6][7] From the same cohort, Irene Yuan Sun’s short-listed proposal for a book about China’s economic role in Africa was picked up by Harvard Business Review Press.^[8] The prize also led to a publishing deal for Saadia Zahidi, the 2014 Bracken Bower winner; Nation Books acquired a book based on her proposal, Womenomics in the Muslim World, in 2015.^[9]

Winners and shortlist

Blue Ribbon () = winner Finalists (F) Shortlist (S)

2015^{[10][11][12][13]}

• Christopher Clearfield and András Tilcsik, Rethinking the Unthinkable: Managing the Risk of Catastrophic Failure in the Twenty-First Century^[14][15]
• (F) Jonathan Hillman, The Fog of More
• (F) Irene Yuan Sun, Brave Old World: Why China’s Investments in Africa Should Make Us Rethink Economic Development
• (S) Alexander Webb
• (S) Cerys Hearsey
• (S) Chizoba Nnaemeka
• (S) David Skarbek
• (S) Edoardo Campanella
• (S) Ryan Shaw
• (S) Sangu Delle
• (S) Thomas Roulet

2014^[16]

• Saadia Zahidi, Womenomics in the Muslim World
• (F) Alysia Garmulewicz, 3-D Printing, Anything, Anywhere
• (F) Jenny Palmer, One Level Up

References