Recommended Reading from Today’s CEOs and CFOs

Looking for a good Christmas present? Or perhaps something new to read over the holiday break? Inspiration may come from the guests who appeared this year on the Leading Corporate Transformation Podcast, a joint production from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management and PwC. During their interviews with WHU’s Professor Martin Glaum and Professor Serden Ozcan and PwC’s Gori von Hirschhausen, today’s CFOs and CEOs gave their personal reading recommendations. These executive managers are quite varied, both in how they think and what they read. Their recommendations go beyond leadership, with a quick tour through German history before jumping into the evolution of mankind over the centuries.

Recommended reading:

- Kai Andrejewski (CFO Sixt SE): Pale Blue Ink in a Lady’s Hand by Franz Werfel

- Dr. Julian Deutz (CFO Axel Springer): Berlin 1936: Fascism, Fear, and Triumph Set Against Hitler’s Olympic Games by Oliver Hilmes

- Gillian Drakeford (Group Head of Global Retail Experience IKEA): Start with the Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

- Dr. Lars Grünert (CFO Trumpf GmbH): 7 Versuche zu lieben by Maxim Biller

- Matthias Hartmann (CEO Techem Energy): Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari 

- Lars Kaestle (CFO Breitling): Blackout: A Techno-Thriller by Marc Elsberg

- Eva Kienle (CFO KWS Saat): Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

- Dr. Hanns-Peter Knaebel (CEO Röchling): Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin

- Christian Ladurner (CFO Hensoldt AG): Atomic Habits by James Clear

- Dr. Michael Müller, CFO (RWE AG): The Shortest History of Germany: From Roman Frontier to the Heart of Europe―A Retelling for Our Times by James Hawes

- Wolfgang Nickl (CFO Bayer AG): Fish by Stephen Lundin

- Dr. Sven Oleownik (Partner EMERAM Capital Partners): The written works of Herbert Henzler and Michael Porter

- Dr. Joachim Peerlings (CMD Keysight Technologies): Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari 

- Helene von Roeder (CFO Merck): Gesunde Hufe – kein Zufall by Uwe Lukas

- Gisbert Rühl (CEO Klöckner & Co): The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen

- Jan Philipp Schmitz (Executive VP Ardian): Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

- Sebastian Säuberlich (CFO Westwing): The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike Jr.

- Dr. Yorck Schmidt (CFO AVL List): Better, Simpler Strategy: A Value-Based Guide to Exceptional Performance by Felix Oberholzer-Gee

- Harald Wilhelm (CFO Mercedes Benz): The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey

- Dr. Peter Zattler (CFO Giesecke+Devrient): Grit by Angela Duckworth

All episodes of the Leading Corporate Transformation Podcast can be found on platforms such as Spotify.