·Work, Careers & Personal Mastery
The Art of Public Speaking
Insights from the book ‘Say It Well’ by Terry Szuplat, Barack Obama’s speechwriter
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
The Gist
D Shivakumar distills the essence of books you want to read
Contributors: D Shivakumar
53 articles
Latest in The Gist
·Business & Strategy
The Power of Like
Insights from Martin Reeves and Bob Goodson’s new book, ‘Like’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Leadership & Organisation
Character is about who we choose to be
Insights from General Stanley McChrystal’s new book ‘On Character: Choices That Define a Life’. The book is in Shivakumar’s list of best books of summer 2025
DS
D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Economy, Policy & Society
The global trends to watch in 2025
Insights from The Economist’s report ‘The World Ahead 2025’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Economy, Policy & Society
The new business theme: Love the product, hate the producer
Insights from economist John Kay’s new book ‘The Corporation in the 21st Century’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Technology & the Future
The Age of Information
Insights from Yuval Noah Harari’s book ‘Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Work, Careers & Personal Mastery
How to reinvent your career
Insights from Herminia Ibarra’s book, ‘working Identity’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Work, Careers & Personal Mastery
The principles of excellence
Insights from sportswriter Sally Jenkins’ book ‘The Right Call: What Sports Teach Us About Work and Life’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Work, Careers & Personal Mastery
Why being process-driven trumps being results-oriented
Insights on high-performance, distilled from Dr Dana Sinclair’s latest book
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Entrepreneurship, Startups & Innovation
The risk taker
What makes Elon Musk tick? Insights from the biography by Walter Isaacson
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Leadership & Organisation
‘A leader’s role is to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present’
Insights from Indra Nooyi’s memoir ‘My Life in Full’, on leadership in a world “where authority and brilliance, to many people, still look like an older gentleman”
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Leadership & Organisation
‘Trust is not a matter of morality, but of predictability’
Predicting behaviour isn’t rocket science, say Robin Dreeke and Cameron Stauth in their book, ‘Sizing People Up’. It is a social science, and requires you to apply the right equation of logic, strategy, scepticism, observational skills, and the ability to accept unwelcome truths
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Work, Careers & Personal Mastery
How to live better into old age
In their book ‘The New Long Life’, Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton say, as individuals and as a society, we need to reimagine work, career, learning and relationships, among other things. And both the young and the old will need to share the burden and opportunities of longer lives
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Business & Strategy
Anticipating inflection points
Insights from Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath’s book ‘Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Economy, Policy & Society
The global trends to watch in 2020
Insights from The Economist’s report ‘The World in 2020’
DS
D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Work, Careers & Personal Mastery
Becoming indistractable
Nir Eyal wrote the definitive book on how to design tech products that will get people hooked. His latest book ‘Indistractable’ has advice on how to avoid digital distractions and hold our own in this war for our attention. Some insights from the book
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Leadership & Organisation
Bosses need to be coaches in the new workplace
Insights from Jim Clifton and Jim Harter’s book ‘It’s the Manager’. The book is based on the largest global study by Gallup on the future of work
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Leadership & Organisation
‘The power of coaching is to offer a different perspective’
Google’s Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle share what they learnt from their mentor, legendary coach Bill Campbell, in their book ‘Trillion Dollar Coach’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Leadership & Organisation
Forging strong, compassionate leaders
In their book, ‘Character Carved in Stone’, Pat Williams and Jim Denney talk about the values the United States Military Academy at West Point cultivates to make strong leaders
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International
·Leadership & Organisation
Talent drives strategy in the digital era. Is HR ready?
Today business strategy means sensing new opportunities, and people are the key to creating value. So how do you approach human capital in this new era? Corporate guru Ram Charan, McKinsey’s Dominic Barton and Korn Ferry’s Dennis Carey explore in their book ‘Talent Wins’
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D Shivakumar
Operating Partner | Advent International