The Investment Committee Guide to Prudence: Increasing the Odds of Success When Fulfilling Your Fiduciary Responsibilities in the Administration of Pension/Investment Assets
Jonathan J. Woolverton, CFA, 
Tellwell Talent
December 2021, $39.95

JJ Woolverton’s investment career spans more than five decades. He has been the chief investment strategist for a pension plan sponsor, a managing director and senior consultant within a global investment planning consultant firm, and a managing director and chief operating officer of an investment management organization. Over his career, JJ has attended well over a thousand investment committee meetings as a plan sponsor, a consultant, and a money manager. In the majority of these meetings, he has found that committee members lack three things: in-depth investment expertise to effectively carry out their fiduciary responsibilities, the necessary time allocation to administer and manage the investment program in the best interests of the beneficiaries, and the ability to develop an efficient monitoring system to hold all service providers accountable for the products and services they provide.

This book outlines the steps to be taken in establishing investment policy; formulating asset mix strategy; creating an appropriate investment management structure; undertaking investment manager searches; and highlighting the conflicts of interest, biases, and self-interests of the various service providers.

This book is designed to assist members of investment committees in their role as fiduciaries, trustees, and/or administrators.

Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier
Alex Tapscott, CFA
Harper Business
September 2023, $43.50

An essential introduction and guide to navigating the next Internet revolution—everything from the metaverse and NFTs to DAOs, decentralized finance, and self-sovereign identity—from the co-author of the international bestseller Blockchain Revolution.

The Web, and with it the Internet, is entering a new age. We’ve moved from the “Read-only Web,” which had little functionality for interacting with content, to the “Read-Write Web,” which offers seemingly endless collaborative opportunities, from sharing with our favourite people to shopping at our favourite brands. But the profusion of cyberattacks, data hacks, and online profiling have left many of us to view digital life as a Faustian bargain in need of a major rethink.

That rethink is Web3, the “Read-Write-Own Web”: a decentralized Internet where individuals own their own identities and can securely trade assets like money, securities, intellectual property, and art, peer-to-peer. Made possible by blockchains, the foundational technology of Bitcoin, Web3 promises the biggest shake up of business since the invention of double-entry bookkeeping in the Middle Ages. It is the Internet’s new frontier.

In Web3, award-winning author and technology investor Alex Tapscott provides a cutting-edge guide to the Internet’s next era. Covering everything from the metaverse and non-fungible tokens to decentralized autonomous organizations, decentralized finance, and self-sovereign identity, this indispensable, forward-thinking book describes the building blocks and often hidden technologies that will be foundational to our cultural and economic progress.

Capitalism Created the Climate Crisis and Capitalism Will Solve It: The Market Forces Catalyzing a Climate Technology Renaissance
Kentaro Kawamori
Wiley
October 2023, $40.99

Kentaro Kawamori delivers a timely exploration of the interplay between capitalism and climate change. He explains how the capitalist system helped to contribute to the current crisis of global warming and how that same system will help to end it.

In the book, the author discusses the enormous impact of the climate crisis and how the government, the modern finance industry, the fossil fuel industry, and others combined to accelerate the warming of the world. He then considers the roles those same players will play to reverse this effect in the coming years.

You’ll also find discussions of:

– How climate tech innovations will transform the economy and how technology disruptors will become involved in the process

– The ways the energy industry will change to incorporate the realities and consequences of a warming climate

– The incentives created by free market structures and how to include climate stakeholders in the discussion

This book offers a new resource for anyone interested in the intersection of economics, business, and the environment.

The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze
Laura Shin
PublicAffairs
October 2023, $28.99

This is the story of the idealists, technologists, and opportunists fighting to bring cryptocurrency to the masses.

In their short history, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have gone through booms, busts, and internecine wars, recently reaching a market valuation of more than US$2 trillion. The central promise of crypto endures: vast fortunes made from decentralized networks not controlled by any single entity and not yet regulated by many governments.

The recent growth of crypto would have been all but impossible if not for a brilliant young man named Vitalik Buterin and his creation, Ethereum. In this book, Laura Shin takes readers inside the founding of this novel cryptocurrency network, which enabled users to launch their own new coins, thus creating a new crypto fever. She introduces readers to larger-than-life characters like Buterin, the Web3 wunderkind; his short-lived CEO, Charles Hoskinson; and Joe Lubin, a former Goldman Sachs vice president who became one of crypto’s most well-known billionaires. Sparks fly as these outsized personalities fight for their piece of a seemingly limitless new business opportunity.

This fascinating book shows the crypto market for what it really is: a deeply personal struggle to influence the coming revolution in money, culture, and power.

Fintech Explained: How Technology Is Transforming Financial Services
Michael R. King
Rotman-UTP Publishing
October 2023, $49.50

Financial technology (fintech) is the digital delivery of financial products and services via the Internet or a mobile phone. Entrepreneurial startups, mature businesses, digital-only banks, and global technology companies are leveraging technology to solve customer pain points and provide financial solutions that are cheaper, easier to use, faster, and more convenient than traditional methods.

Fintech Explained provides a rigorous, accessible introduction to the landscape of fintech. Michael R. King explains the customer focus, innovation strategies, business models, and valuations of leading fintechs in crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi), crowdfunding and online lending, robo-advice and digital wealth management, payments and insurtech, digital banking, and bigtech. The book profiles the successes and failures of over 30 high-profile fintechs from North and South America, Europe, and Asia, including Wealthsimple’s pitch to angel investors, Wise Financial’s market opportunity in online money transfers, Nubank’s value proposition as a digital-only bank, and Ant Group’s multi-sided platform in financial services, among others.

The book combines insights from founders, early-stage investors, financial incumbents, and other stakeholders in this dynamic ecosystem. Combining clear descriptions and cases studies with the latest findings from academic research, Fintech Explained provides a complete course for educating undergraduate and graduate students, executives, and interested professionals.

The ROI of LOL: How Laughter Breaks Down Walls, Drives Compelling Storytelling, and Creates a Healthy Workplace
Steve Cody and Clayton Fletcher
HarperCollins Leadership
October 2023, $28.50

Laughter is a powerful remedy to what ails today’s teams and organizations.

There are a host of neuroscientific explanations for why laughter makes us feel so great. Laughter triggers “feel good” chemicals in the brain which activate opiate receptors throughout your body and mind. Creating a workplace culture in which laughter is not only allowed but expected is an important step in building the trust, openness, authenticity, storytelling, and teamwork (TOAST) that are essential to any healthy collaborative environment.

What all this means for your business is that by harnessing the prodigious power of your own unique sense of humor (and empowering your employees to do the same), you can increase morale, collaboration, communication, and productivity. You can find new and unexpected ways to connect with your external stakeholders. And you can have fun doing it.

Conversations on Ethical Leadership: Lessons Learned from University Governance
Edited by Ingrid Leman Stefanovic
University of Toronto Press
September 2023, $32.95

Highlighting ethical leadership strategies, Conversations on Ethical Leadership explores what makes for strong, well-informed, morally sound decision-making at all levels of an organization. In addressing a range of challenges faced by universities and applying those lessons to the broader community of the public and private sectors, Ingrid Leman Stefanovic and her contributors tackle a host of issues related to advancing ethics, diversity, inclusiveness, and the art of moral leadership.

Each chapter is written by an author with roots in the academy and includes a subsequent commentary by a community leader who highlights the broader takeaways that emerge for society from the university experience. In this way, the book becomes a conversation between the academic and non-academic worlds about issues that affect any prominent organization. It offers a unique range of novel and timely topics, from responsibility-centred budgeting to post-pandemic planning, responsiveness to climate change, Indigenous leadership, free speech, academic integrity, and much more. In doing so, Conversations on Ethical Leadership ultimately reveals how we can build and preserve an ethically responsible sense of purpose at our post-secondary learning institutions and beyond.

The Little Book that Still Beats the Market, 3^rd edition
Joel Greenblatt
Wiley
October 2023, $33.95

In this book, Greenblatt updates and expands on the research findings from the original books, including data and analysis covering recent financial crises and model performances. In a straightforward and accessible style, the book explores the basic principles of successful stock market investing and then reveals the author’s time-tested Magic Formula strategy: long-term investment designed to help investors buy a group of above-average companies but only when they are available at below-average prices.