Academic and former trader win $30K National Business Book Award for ‘Meltdown’

TORONTO – Chris Clearfield and Andras Tilcsik have won the $30,000 National Business Book Award for “Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It.”

The book, published by Allen Lane, argues that increasingly complex systems are leading to breakdowns across a variety of sectors, and offers suggestions about how to stem the damage.

Clearfield, a former derivatives trader, and Tilcsik, a researcher at University of Toronto’s management school, were named the winners at a ceremony in Toronto on Wednesday.

The award, co-sponsored BMO Financial Group and law firm Bennett Jones, is handed out annually to the best Canadian business-related book of the previous year.

Former CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge chaired this year’s jury, which also included Deirdre McMurdy, David Denison, Pamela Wallin and Leonard Waverman.

The other finalists were: “Hockey Fight In Canada: The Big Media Faceoff over the NHL” by David Shoalts (Douglas & McIntyre); “Right Hand Man: How Phil Lind Guided the Genius of Ted Rogers, Canada’s Foremost Entrepreneur” by Phil Lind and Robert Brehl (Barlow Books); and “Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius and Controversy of Four-time CEO Hunter Harrison” by Howard Green (Page Two).

Last year’s winner was Chris Turner for “The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands.”