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The Fastest Tortoise: Winning in Industries I Knew Nothing About-A Life Spent Figuring It Out
Life lessons from an investor who forged his own path to success

​Through their entertaining conversations, Ken Hersh and his interviewer, best-selling author Steve Fiffer, recount Ken’s improbable life journey, both personally and professionally. And what a journey it has been! Knowing nothing about the energy industry, Ken ventured in and ultimately helped pioneer an investment methodology that built one of the country’s most successful private investment firms and has been copied by dozens of firms to become the dominant means by which capital flows into the domestic energy industry. As a fearless young capitalist, he never shied away from raising his hand. He says, “I viewed every opening as a gaping opportunity. The uncertainty kind of excited me.”

The Fastest Tortoise is about not just weathering the unknown but embracing it and thriving. Structuring his story around “Ken-isms” that define his personal and professional philosophies—such as “yellow lights don’t turn green,” “be uncomfortable,” and “feed the ducks while they’re quacking”—Ken demonstrates how to approach a volatile world.

Ken’s path, from planting his flag in an industry where an investment model had to be reinvented, to creating a culture in which colleagues and staff felt like family, to pursuing a second career in the nonprofit sector, gives leaders and entrepreneurs of all stripes ample examples from which to draw valuable lessons, inspiration, motivation, and confidence. With his honest, in-depth tales of the ups and downs of his business and personal dealings, we get an inside look at how this optimist has successfully navigated life and business.
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The Fastest Tortoise: Winning in Industries I Knew Nothing About-A Life Spent Figuring It Out
Life lessons from an investor who forged his own path to success

​Through their entertaining conversations, Ken Hersh and his interviewer, best-selling author Steve Fiffer, recount Ken’s improbable life journey, both personally and professionally. And what a journey it has been! Knowing nothing about the energy industry, Ken ventured in and ultimately helped pioneer an investment methodology that built one of the country’s most successful private investment firms and has been copied by dozens of firms to become the dominant means by which capital flows into the domestic energy industry. As a fearless young capitalist, he never shied away from raising his hand. He says, “I viewed every opening as a gaping opportunity. The uncertainty kind of excited me.”

The Fastest Tortoise is about not just weathering the unknown but embracing it and thriving. Structuring his story around “Ken-isms” that define his personal and professional philosophies—such as “yellow lights don’t turn green,” “be uncomfortable,” and “feed the ducks while they’re quacking”—Ken demonstrates how to approach a volatile world.

Ken’s path, from planting his flag in an industry where an investment model had to be reinvented, to creating a culture in which colleagues and staff felt like family, to pursuing a second career in the nonprofit sector, gives leaders and entrepreneurs of all stripes ample examples from which to draw valuable lessons, inspiration, motivation, and confidence. With his honest, in-depth tales of the ups and downs of his business and personal dealings, we get an inside look at how this optimist has successfully navigated life and business.
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The Fastest Tortoise: Winning in Industries I Knew Nothing About-A Life Spent Figuring It Out

The Fastest Tortoise: Winning in Industries I Knew Nothing About-A Life Spent Figuring It Out

by Ken Hersh
The Fastest Tortoise: Winning in Industries I Knew Nothing About-A Life Spent Figuring It Out

The Fastest Tortoise: Winning in Industries I Knew Nothing About-A Life Spent Figuring It Out

by Ken Hersh

Overview

Life lessons from an investor who forged his own path to success

​Through their entertaining conversations, Ken Hersh and his interviewer, best-selling author Steve Fiffer, recount Ken’s improbable life journey, both personally and professionally. And what a journey it has been! Knowing nothing about the energy industry, Ken ventured in and ultimately helped pioneer an investment methodology that built one of the country’s most successful private investment firms and has been copied by dozens of firms to become the dominant means by which capital flows into the domestic energy industry. As a fearless young capitalist, he never shied away from raising his hand. He says, “I viewed every opening as a gaping opportunity. The uncertainty kind of excited me.”

The Fastest Tortoise is about not just weathering the unknown but embracing it and thriving. Structuring his story around “Ken-isms” that define his personal and professional philosophies—such as “yellow lights don’t turn green,” “be uncomfortable,” and “feed the ducks while they’re quacking”—Ken demonstrates how to approach a volatile world.

Ken’s path, from planting his flag in an industry where an investment model had to be reinvented, to creating a culture in which colleagues and staff felt like family, to pursuing a second career in the nonprofit sector, gives leaders and entrepreneurs of all stripes ample examples from which to draw valuable lessons, inspiration, motivation, and confidence. With his honest, in-depth tales of the ups and downs of his business and personal dealings, we get an inside look at how this optimist has successfully navigated life and business.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9798886450378
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Publication date: 03/28/2023
Pages: 360
Sales rank: 636,018
Product dimensions: 6.50(w) x 9.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ken Hersh
Ken Hersh’s life has been a series of historical accidents. His story is of a Dallas native who, after graduating from Princeton and Stanford, ventured into the energy industry with no specific training and cofounded and ultimately served as CEO of NGP Energy Capital Management. At NGP, he helped pioneer an investment methodology that enabled NGP to become one of the nation's largest and most successful private investment franchises in the natural resources sector.

Along the way, he found time to make a big impact on his broader community, both nationally and locally, through the efforts of the Hersh Foundation. Ken is known for giving both financial resources and his time to the numerous organizations in which he becomes involved.

As a second act, again with no specific training, he raised his hand in 2016 to assume the leadership of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, where he oversees public engagement activities and a significant policy institute to support President and Mrs. Bush’s priorities of freedom, opportunity, accountability, and compassion. His work to help advance the strategic plan and increase the organization’s endowment fivefold has ensured that the Bush Center will thrive far into the future.

Additionally, Ken manages his family investment office, which invests across the industrial, financial, sports, entertainment, technology, and real estate industries. He sits on numerous boards and spends considerable time mentoring operating executives. He is a prolific writer and a sought-after speaker on topics ranging from energy to geopolitics to economics and finance. When not at his ranch fly-fishing, he can usually be found at his desk working.

Steve Fiffer
Steve Fiffer is a highly decorated New York Times best-selling author who has collaborated with former secretary of state James A. Baker III, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan, the late civil rights icon Dr. C. T. Vivian, and others on their memoirs. He has a unique ability to draw out the human side of his collaborators. In addition, he is a prolific author, having written some seventeen books, several screenplays, and a plethora of articles about business, sports, and his personal journey. He graduated from Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“I have long admired Ken Hersh’s business skills and now admire his literary skills as well. A first-rate read about a compelling life story. I cannot recommend it too highly.”
—DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN, cofounder of the Carlyle Group, host of The David Rubenstein Show, and author of How to Lead and How to Invest

“We always look at successful people and wonder what special qualities they had to bring them success. In The Fastest Tortoise, Ken Hersh lays out a charming, funny, and human story of how he rose to the pinnacle of success in America. In addition to the many totally readable life lessons, the most important one is that nice guys can finish first.”
—BILL BROWDER, author of Red Notice and Freezing Order

“Ken Hersh has a knack for storytelling. His career spans building a $20 billion private equity firm to heading a presidential center on an academic campus. But he is much more than a latter-day Forrest Gump—he is a teacher. The Fastest Tortoise should be required reading in every graduate business school, but the stories are so entertaining—and enlightening—that the everyday reader will not be able to put it down. A true delight to read!”
— ROBERT W. JORDAN, diplomat in residence at Southern Methodist University and former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia

“By any measure, Ken Hersh has led a rich, purposeful life—from Dallas middle-class youth to Ivy League aspirant, to builder of a private equity firm with billions in capital, and then to CEO of a presidential think tank. Along the way, Ken has become a foremost expert on leadership. Thankfully, the ‘fastest tortoise’ has come out of his shell to share the considerable wisdom he has gathered on his journey. As he says, he has ‘a story to tell.’ This absorbing, highly readable book more than proves it.”
—MARK K. UPDEGROVE, president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation and author of Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency

“For neither the first nor, surely, the last time, Ken Hersh has given others a valuable gift: a stunningly candid account of the challenges he’s confronted—happily and successfully in the main but painfully and failingly at times—as his remarkable life has unfolded. Few in his or any generation have struck a better balance than Ken in doing both well and good. This brutally honest memoir teaches us not only how but why.”
—DAVID SALEM, senior advisor to the Investment Fund for Foundations

“Ken Hersh sees and then seizes opportunities. His book could accurately be called The Art of Possibility or The Art of the Deal. To use Faulkner’s words, Ken has weathered professional and personal storms and not just endured but prevailed.”
—TALMAGE BOSTON, lawyer and historian

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