Unprecedented

Canada's Top CEOs on Leadership During COVID-19

By: Steve Mayer - editor, Andrew Willis - editor, Michele Romanow - foreword

Narrated by: Conrad Coates, Marcia Johnson, Athena Karkanis

A remarkable collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from 29 chief executives at iconic Canadian companies.

Unprecedented is an extraordinary business book for extraordinary times: a collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from twenty-nine chief executives at Canada’s most iconic and largest companies. These are unforgettable accounts from senior leaders at companies on the front lines during the pandemic—nursing homes, grocery stores, airlines, hotels, pharmacies, shopping malls—along with valuable lessons on crisis management.

The insights in Unprecedented are remarkable. Listeners get a seat at the table when the CEO of Tim Hortons visits the White House to discuss financial relief initiatives for business. Canada Goose’s CEO tells of retooling the parka maker to turn out surgical gowns. The head of one of Canada’s largest paper producers reveals what happened when the country almost ran out of toilet paper.

COVID-19 is a shared challenge, a crisis that touches everyone. Unprecedented captures that shared experience with personal essays that mix struggle and achievement, fear, humor, and compassion. At their heart, these are stories about overcoming adversity, a theme that resonates with managers, professionals, entrepreneurs, and students of business.

Unprecedented gives us rare insight into how leaders navigated the pandemic and the social unrest and technological changes that marked this era—what was gained, what was lost, and what was learned that can help serve companies, employees, and customers better in an uncertain future.

The authors’ net proceeds from the sales of Unprecedented are being donated to United Way Centraide Canada for COVID recovery across Canada.

©2022 Steve Mayer and Andrew Willis (P)2022 Penguin Random House Canada