Driven to the Brink

Driven to the Brink is a collection of short stories about corporate disasters and how inadequate governance and flawed culture caused a massive destruction of shareholder value.

Look at any major corporate meltdown and two factors emerge: a failure of corporate governance and a culture where short-termism and greed are rewarded and risk is encouraged to flourish unchecked. 

Two years before the latest crash, Alicia Micklethwait co-wrote the best-selling Greed and Corporate Failure which examined some of the high profile corporate disasters of the early years of the 21st century. Sadly those lessons were forgotten.  Companies have continued to be Driven to the Brink of disaster. 

Now, with co-author Patty Dimond, they examine what we must learn this time around. Drawing on in-depth case studies of the Libor scandal, Olympus, Co-op, Kids Company and others, Dimond and Micklethwait ask what have we learned and more importantly, what can we do to prevent these disasters from happening again?

They also examine the large, emerging and less widely understood world of Corporate China with detailed discussion of the Lixel and Glaxo frauds. On a positive note, staying with China, they look at the story of Alibaba and ask is an ethical culture enough to protect shareholder rights?

Alicia Micklethwait is a graduate of the University of Oxford, a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and has an MBA from IMD. She is CFO of a technology start-up company and has held senior accounting and commercial positions in multinational manufacturing companies in London and Brussels. Alicia has taught accounting and finance at several European business schools and in China and co-wrote Greed and Corporate Failure together with Professor Stewart Hamilton.

Patricia Dimond has 25+ years of board level experience in consumer markets in London, Geneva, New York and Toronto and is a McKinsey Alumni.  She is currently involved in early stage Investment and fund management.  She is a CFA, a member of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, and has served on the Board of the Swiss CFA society.  Patty graduated from Canada's Richard Ivy School of Business, with an HBA and has an MBA from IMD, Switzerland.  She qualified as a chartered accountant (CA) working with Deloitte Haskins and Sells.