Nader profiles role-model leaders
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader has built his life’s reputation on his fights with corporate America. But it turns out there are some CEOs he actually likes.
At least that’s the premise of “The Rebellious
CEO: 12 Leaders Who
Did It Right,” Nader’s look at executives who he says “stood against the gray crowd” by putting a premium on social responsibility as much as they did on profits. The dozen leaders he profiles are presented as models for businesses on how to balance both those needs.
The brief biographies of the CEOs give Nader a chance to highlight what he sees as the shortcomings of today’s corporations. But, surprisingly, he commends the CEOs profiled for not forgetting the bottom line and notes that all of them insisted “nothing would be possible if they didn’t pay attention to profits.”
The chapters are sprinkled with Nader’s anecdotes from his interactions with the CEOs profiled and leans on their own writings as well. The CEOs highlighted include Ray Anderson, the carpet-tile manufacturing executive who set sustainability goals for his company, and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, who supported conservation efforts.
Nader also praises
CEOs for their work at the consumer level, including Southwest Airlines — though also noting its cancellation of more than 16,000 flights last year over the holidays that eventually led to a multimillion settlement.
Nader strays into adulation at times, but the book offers an interesting perspective on business leadership from one of the most wellknown antagonists of corporations. — Andrew DeMillo, Associated Press ‘THE REBELLIOUS CEO’
By Ralph Nader; Melville House, 352 pages, $32.50.
Geddy Lee is a rock star, that’s undeniable.
But he’s also a polite Canadian to the core. So it’s fitting that the Rush icon picked a not-too-bawdy title for his memoir.
“My Effin’ Life” is an engrossing tale of a “classic underachiever” who became a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame vocalist, bassist and keyboard player. It’s a great read for anyone interested in the brilliant prog-rock trio or the music scene from the 1970s onward.
Lee’s writing is a lot like his band’s songs — deep, gloriously nerdy, sometimes wandering and wonderfully thoughtful. It’s a 400-page narrative from a perfectionist who calls himself “Mr. Bossypants.”
The book is enlivened by photos of scrawled lyric sheets, studio doodles and private emails as Lee traces the rise of a band who faced a pre-MTV landscape, a lack of coastto-coast progressive radio network or sympathetic critics. Readers will go chronologically as Rush — including guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart — go from sleeping in the back of a rented station wagon to five-star hotels.
Lee throws shade at
musician Billy Preston and producer Steve Lillywhite but also turns his critical eye on himself
— his neuroses and poor husbanding — and his band. But one thing to beware of is Lee’s modesty, like the time he mentions that he became “besotted” by baseball. In actuality, he has a massive collection of baseball memorabilia.
Lee — born Gershon Eliezer Weinrib — was a “shy, long-haired, brooding character” who grew up in Toronto, born to parents who survived the Holocaust, which causes echoes throughout his life. Chapter 3 — Lee says you can skip it, but you mustn’t — is a meticulously examination of the horrific paths his parents took into hell.
He suspects his earliest vocal style may have been rooted in his childhood “listening to the stories of what my parents had endured in the camps, suffering all the bullying and alienation, so that when I did begin to sing it did come rushing out as a screaming banshee.”
This is a memoir where tragedy seems always around the corner, especially later when bandmate Peart is tortured by loss. It may be hard in parts but always worth it. It’s an effin’ good read.