Thomas Kofi Annan

Thomas Kofi Annan writes the Equation Series, which asks one question in industry after industry: why do some companies create lasting value while others, with the same technology, the same markets and often more money, destroy it?

Each volume starts from the record rather than from theory. Before a book is written, a hundred companies in the industry are profiled and their defining moves worked through one at a time, with the financing, the regulation, the outcome and the sources for each. Across the series that comes to 892 profiles and 7,760 moves. The book distils that record into one framework. The companion publishes the record itself, so readers can test the framework for themselves.

The books are written for people who run, build, finance, regulate or study companies: operators moving into management, founders, investors and lenders, analysts, board members and students. No prior training is assumed. Concepts are explained before they are applied.