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Sebastian Ritscher
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EVEN THE ODDS

Karen Firestone

Sensible Risk-Taking in Business, Investing, and Life

In Even the Odds, Karen Firestone explains how risk assessment plays a prominent role in all aspects of life. We may all define risk, and our tolerance for it, somewhat differently, but we might all agree it plays a pivotal role in guiding us toward an optimal outcome.
As a long-time investment advisor, Firestone has grown accustomed to interpreting risk on a daily basis. She has developed four core tenets of risk-taking we can all apply to anticipating, evaluating, and responding to the risks we face in our business, investing, and personal lives. These tenets are right-sizing; right-timing; relying on skill, knowledge, and experience; and staying skeptical about numbers, promises, and forecasts. Firestone’s approach is both practical and accessible to individuals who are making important decisions, such as embarking on new career or life changes, starting or running an enterprise, making a sizable investment, or deciding how to balance across a full portfolio of assets.

The book is rich with anecdotes and examples of how many prominent leaders in their fields encountered and dealt with risk along the way. Firestone also shares her own successes and failures, in particular when she decided to risk it all—a fabulous career managing billions of dollars at a premium investment company, her reputation, and the security at home that comes with a strong and stable job—to go out on her own.

Even the Odds helps us understand the broader implications of risk—and how it guides our decision-making—so that we can improve outcomes across multiple facets of our lives, from our businesses and investments, to the personal choices we make.

Karen Firestone is president, CEO, and co-founder of Aureus Asset Management, an investment firm dedicated to providing contemporary asset management to families and individuals. She is a contributor to the Harvard Business Review and the Huffington Post. Karen also appears on CNBC’s popular Squawk Box.

Previously, she spent 22 years at Fidelity Investments, most recently as a diversified fund manager in the Growth Group with oversight of the Large Cap Fund, Advisor Large Cap Fund, Destiny 1 Fund, and several institutional nonprofit and pension funds.

Karen received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 1977 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1983. She is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Commonwealth School and has served on various committees and Task Forces for Harvard University. Karen is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston.

She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with her husband, David. They have four grown children, two grandchildren, and two Springer Spaniels. Karen is an avid runner and tennis, golf, and bridge player.
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Book

Published 2016-04-26 by Bibliomotion

Book

Published 2016-04-26 by Bibliomotion

Comments

Even The Odds: Sensible Risk-Taking in Business, Investing, and Life is Karen Firestone’s experience utilizing her personal courage and critical analytical sense to navigate through the riptides of the waters of billion dollar investments, take on the risks inherent in becoming CEO of an investment firm at the height of one of the nation’s most historic financial collapses, and now help guide others through the uncertainties of their own risks.

Karen Firestone has produced a very thoughtful, articulate, and eminently readable book on how to think creatively about risk and deal with our uncertain world. I particularly enjoyed her anecdotes and vignettes on specific case studies of both personal and financial risk-taking, which include her blunt assessment of both successes and mistakes. She is persuasive in providing examples of how a more systematic assessment of risk might lead to better decisions and outcomes.

Risk is everywhere, and we all need to manage it wisely. This book teaches you to manage risk as a highly proficient and articulate investment professional does. Karen Firestone shares her copious experience in a series of useful and engaging examples.

Even the Odds is an eloquently written exploration of multiple facets of risk. By mixing risk management theory, business anecdotes, and personal life story, Karen Firestone has created a highly readable book on a subject relevant to everyone.

Karen Firestone has brilliantly navigated market risk for many years. In Even the Odds, she offers us the gift of her clarity and pragmatism in assessing that risk. By showing us how to ask the right questions and unearth potential pitfalls, this book offers wisdom about how to pursue our dreams without losing our shirts—or our minds—in the process. . . . A smart, gutsy book, written by a smart, gutsy businesswoman.

There is no other book like Even the Odds. It is a must-read for every MBA student launching a career and every midcareer professional contemplating what is next. This book spans risk/reward tradeoffs with uncommon candor, clarity, and cleverness. It blends Warren Buffet’s wisdom with the engaging personal appeal of Oprah Winfrey. Written by one of the world’s most successful, witty money managers, this book adroitly navigates the opportunities in the turmoil of markets and money as well as in the complexities of love, family, and community life. Unlike the biographical reflections of most CEOs and public officials, Firestone reveals missteps showing the lessons of resilience and how to detect dangerous mischief of others.