Author, The Snowball
Alice Schroeder: Biography at a Glance
- Bestselling author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder has had a business career of unusual breadth as a corporate director, all-star securities analyst, tech CEO, regulator, and CPA, with senior experience in nearly every part of the financial world and other industries.
- She has played a management or oversight role in the transformation of business in today’s turbulent economy, including the rise of the cloud, AI and big data, the challenges of Brexit, the changing model for delivery of health care in the U.S., and the challenges of running a global, highly regulated company.
Media
Biography
Bestselling author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Alice Schroeder has had a business career of unusual breadth as a corporate director, all-star securities analyst, tech CEO, regulator, and CPA, with senior experience in nearly every part of the financial world and other industries. She has played a management or oversight role in the transformation of business in today’s turbulent economy, including the rise of the cloud, AI and big data, the challenges of Brexit, the changing model for delivery of health care in the U.S., and the challenges of running a global, highly regulated company.
Schroeder takes audiences deep inside the life, wisdom, and investment and leadership style of Warren Buffett and how they inform today’s complex, rapidly-changing business world. On topics ranging from risk management and value creation to corporate governance, she explains the big picture and transformative lessons through the lens of Buffett and from her own perspective as an inside player on the international scene.
Schroeder’s bestseller, The Snowball, is a revealing and complete look at the life of Buffett and the business secrets he never before shared publicly. The book debuted at #1 on The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists. The Snowball has been called the “bible of capitalism” and “almost impossible to stop reading.” Named one of the best books of the year by TIME and The Financial Times, it was Amazon.com’s #1 Business and Investing Book of the year. The New York Times’ reviewer Janet Maslin hailed it as one of her five favorite books of the year, calling it a “definitive portrait.”
Schroeder began her career as an auditor for Ernst & Young before becoming a regulator with the Financial Accounting Standards Board where she drafted some of the most significant accounting rules affecting the insurance industry. As a Wall Street analyst, Schroeder was ranked at the top of her profession in the Institutional Investor All-America Research poll. Risk and Insurance magazine called her “one of the most respected – and unafraid – thinkers on Wall Street.”
A former managing director at Morgan Stanley, she participated in key episodes of the financial crisis, then went on to join a struggling technology company as its CEO, turn it around and sell it. She currently serves on the boards of directors of the global insurance giant Prudential plc, health care facilities company Quorum Health, and medical devices manufacturer Natus Medical.
Topics
How Buffett Invests — and Beyond
Warren Buffett explains his investing style in simple-sounding concepts: buy stocks in companies with a “durable competitive advantage,” pay a price that includes a “margin of safety,” and “be greedy when others are fearful.” How do these concepts hold up in today’s market of algorithmic trading, decades of quantitative easing and geopolitical uncertainty? Alice Schroeder will explain.
Lessons from the Life of Warren Buffett
Alice Schroeder gives a series of lessons directly applicable to our professional and personal lives using the thousands of hours she spent with Warren Buffett and her 30 years of business experience.
- How did Buffett use simple mathematics to navigate his way through life, even when it came to getting along with people?
- How did Buffett, a “learning machine,” squeeze the most out of his time and get the highest impact out of time spent learning?
- How did he make billions through a brilliant networking technique?
Alice Schroeder will answer these and many other questions about how the legendary investor has run his life and the strategies people can apply on their own.
Behind Boardroom Doors: What’s Broken? Can It Be Fixed?
Public companies are navigating higher expectations of corporate “social purpose,” environmental, social and governance performance, scrutiny of executive pay, empowered activists, and, not least, activist workforces capable of influencing corporate policy. What’s behind these trends? Is the corporate governance model broken? How can companies adapt to the rising expectations and conflicting demands of so many stakeholders? Alice Schroeder (something about all the business experience and boardroom experience).
Risk Management and Value Creation in Times of Uncertainty
A long-shot racehorse, a parallel universe, and the worst correct stock call Warren Buffett ever made: key principles of balancing risk and opportunity in volatile times.Why do some organizations thrive during periods of extraordinary risk and volatility? Why do others miss the meteor headed their way? Every company disgraced in the headlines, from Wells Fargo to Theranos, had a board of directors and often a risk management department, yet failed anyway. It is all too easy to pursue an ill-advised risk disguised as an opportunity to create shareholder value. From her work as a corporate director, auditor, regulator, financial analyst and close observer of Warren Buffett, Schroeder draws from first-hand study of decisions made by corporations, the value they have created, and their success or failure after natural disasters, mass tort claims, 9/11, and economic bubbles.
