Up Close and All In: Life Lessons from a Wall Street Warrior

by John Mack Narrated by Mark Bramhall

Overview

From John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, an intimate personal memoir and riveting business story, recounting how he helped grow the company from 300 to 50,000 employees over four decades, transformed a notoriously competitive culture into a successful and collaborative one, and lead the company through the 2008 financial crisis.

During his thirty-four-year tenure at Morgan Stanley, John Mack's goal was to build the strongest and most productive team on Wall Street. His ability to motivate his employees to do their best work, especially in times of crisis, was fostered by his willingness to slash through bureaucracy and stand up to powerful interests. A forceful personality, one journalist said Mack was “described as `charismatic' so regularly that it could be part of his name.”

In Up Close and All In, Mack traces his personal journey from a one-stoplight North Carolina mill town to a fortieth-floor corner office on Wall Street-and shares the life lessons he learned along the way. He developed a titanium-strength stomach for risk, stress, and competition while landing accounts early in his career, as investment banks fought like wolfpacks to take advantage of new deregulation, fielding business raids, booms, and busts. As he rose through the ranks, he never forgot where he came from, relying on his instincts, doing what was right, and listening to his people on the front lines. This culture of trust and collaboration helped Morgan Stanley anticipate future trends before other firms, adapt quickly, and achieve record profits.

This gripping memoir includes both humbling lows-like when Mack made the difficult decision to leave Morgan Stanley in 2001-and exhilarating highs-such as when he made an eleventh-hour agreement with the Japanese bank Mitsubishi to save the company during the 2008 financial crisis, having refused to give in when top regulators pressured him to sell the firm for $2 per share.

With humor and honesty, Mack shares advice on both business and life: how to create a culture of team players, how to keep perspective during crises, how to make difficult decisions when all eyes are on you, and more. From a singular man who's as unafraid to cry publicly as he is to anger some of the most powerful people in the world, this is an indispensable guide to living and leading well.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"John Mack has written a fascinating, fast-paced autobiography highlighting his visionary leadership throughout a long and distinguished career. In 2008 when global financial markets were rocked by an unprecdented crisis and Morgan Stanley faced a real solvency threat, he brilliantly negotiated an infusion of private capital to secure Morgan Stanley's future and he worked with the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to transform the firm from an investment bank to a bank regulated by the Federal Reserve with access to its financing window. Under his leadership, Morgan Stanley repaid the $10 million loan it was required to take by the government within two years with a 20% return to taxpayers. Having led Morgan Stanley through unprecedented challenges, he worked with his board to name James Gorman as his successor—another in a long line of decisions that have benefitted the firm he loved. This book is a testament to John Mack’s title as a Wall Street legend." -Laura Tyson, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School


“This is authentic John Mack- a strong, decisive leader who has written a book which is a must read for anyone who wants the first hand account of his successful struggle to save Morgan Stanley, the iconic Wall Street bank.” -Hank Paulson, 74th Secretary of the Treasury

“John and I are the best of friends, I have learned so much about leadership from him. His gripping memoir tells the intimate, inspiring details of his rise through the financial industry, offering a close look into the conversations, relationships, and decisions that shaped his legendary career as the CEO of one of the most influential multinational investment management services in the country.” - Mike Krzyzewski, former Duke and USA Men’s Basketball Coach

“John has grit, augmented by unconditional family love. John learned to lead from his immigrant parents, football teammates, and unsuspecting mentors who recognized his x-factor. His truth-telling focus on calling things as he sees them, galvanizing to true north in times of crisis and finding his replacement – to leave a place (Morgan Stanley) better than he found it – will forever define his leadership. ‘Up Close and All In’ is a candid read about the evolution of parts of Wall Street over nearly half of the past century.” - Mary Meeker, General Partner / Co-Founder BOND Capital

“History is what people do. And few things have shaped American history as the high-powered world of Wall Street finances – or its near-fatal crisis of 2008. Huge personalities, like John Mack, were both architects of the system, and ultimately essential actors in preventing its collapse. Up Close and All In is a brutally honest, yet fascinating and enlightening, narrative of one man’s extraordinary journey into and through that crisis.” -General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Army Retired

“John Mack shares his formidable story in this memoir, which is laced with inspiring advice from his parents, those who’ve worked above him, below him, and, most formidably, the lessons he learned from his experience leading effectively, straightforwardly, and honorably. The reader will quickly learn that Mack is not merely a strong, decisive, successful leader, he also is a deep down good, good man.” - Erskine Bowles, Former White House Chief of Staff

Kirkus Reviews

2022-09-08
The former CEO of Morgan Stanley chronicles his life in the financial trenches.

Mack (b. 1944) opens on a fierce note: At a company gathering, a fellow trader made a poor fellow delivering his breakfast wait for half an hour while, presumably, he slept in. As the author writes, he “tore into him. ‘Who do you think you are? This guy is trying to do exactly what you do: make a living. When you keep him waiting, you’re taking money out of his pocket. Do this again and I’ll fire you.’ ” Mack recounts plenty of hiring and firing, the latter almost always for cause but sometimes in the apparent interest of shaking things up to try something different. “Giving anyone a fiefdom is a terrible idea,” he writes, sagely. Though the author admits there is inherent recklessness in the business, that’s no excuse to be inhuman. “This is a real lesson: don’t avoid the hard things or the difficult people,” he writes, both of which will in turn teach future lessons. Hard lessons came with the financial meltdown of 2008, which found Mack resisting calls from the federal government to merge while staring down the possibility of a complete economic collapse. Instead, the author quickly recruited Japanese investors to shore up the company and avoid the chaos that killed other financial institutions, a deal that had the mixed blessing of bringing tighter federal oversight over Morgan Stanley while giving what was now a holding company “permanent access to the Fed lending window.” The ideal reader for much of Mack’s book will be business wonks or those pursuing an MBA, but the author’s common-sensical approach to matters both financial and personal, while familiar, is worth pondering, as when he counsels, “Making the hard calls when you have no idea of the outcome—taking the risk, putting yourself out there—that’s when you prove your mettle.”

A refreshingly straightforward, plainspoken look at what happens on the trading floor and in the boardroom.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175397490
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/11/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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