Bracken Bower Prize 2018: the finalists

Judges have selected three book proposals to go forward to the final of the 2018 Bracken Bower Prize for young business writers.

The finalists’ proposed books would tackle diverse challenges: how to create the pre-conditions for positive coincidences; the emergence of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ideas from refugee camps and communities; and how to integrate people with disabilities or learning and cognitive differences into the modern workplace.

The finalists are:

• Christian Busch for The Serendipity Factor

• Andrew Leon Hanna for Twenty-Five Million Sparks

• Piyumi Kapugeekiyana for One Billion in Reserve

A panel of expert judges selected the three proposals from a shortlist of entries, drawn from the range of titles submitted for this year’s £15,000 prize, which is open to authors aged under 35.

The winner will be announced on November 12 at a dinner in London, where the Financial Times and McKinsey will also name the Business Book of the Year.

The Bracken Bower Prize has helped showcase young writers, including a number of finalists whose books have now been published.

Fifty Million Rising, a book based on 2015’s winning proposal by Saadia Zahidi, made the long list of this year’s Book of the Year Award. Last year’s winner, Mehran Gul, has struck publishing deals worth more than $100,000 for The New Geography of Innovation, a book based on his proposal.

The judges of the Bracken Bower Prize this year are: Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at London Business School; Jorma Ollila, former chairman of Outokumpu, Royal Dutch Shell and Nokia; Joel Rickett of Ebury Publishing; and Nora Rosendahl, winner of the 2016 Bracken Bower Prize.

They were asked to select the best proposals for a book about the challenges and opportunities of growth, favouring authors who write with “knowledge, creativity, originality and style and whose proposed books promise to break new ground, or examine pressing business challenges in original ways”.

You can read excerpts from the 2018 finalists’ proposals here.