Losing the Signal recognized as this year’s most outstanding Canadian business-related book
TORONTO, APRIL 21, 2016 – Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff have been named the winners of the National Business Book Award for their book, Losing the Signal: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Blackberry, published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. The announcement was made at a luncheon today in Toronto, hosted by co-sponsors PwC and BMO Financial Group.
Celebrating its 31st anniversary, the National Business Book Award has come to be recognized as one of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards. The National Business Book Award prize is $30,000.
Losing the Signal is the riveting story of how BlackBerry engineered a spectacular technological upset of the twenty-first century. The company lost its way leading to the breakdown of one of the most successful partnerships in the history of Canadian business. The book sheds light on relationship between RIM’s founders, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, as the company evolved.
McNish and Silcoff offer an inside account of a notorious crash of RIM’s network system at a critical juncture in its then-troubled performance. Losing the Signalengagingly and thoroughly covers the rise of Research in Motion, and a transformative technology that changed the way people everywhere communicate with one another.
“There are many insights for Canadian business in this year’s winning book, Losing the Signal,” says Tahir Ayub, Managing Partner, Markets and Industries at PwC Canada. “Many of the challenges that make up the narrative of the book including early-stage financing, the stress of rapid growth, the imperative for high standards of corporate governance and the discipline of professional management are common in companies looking to set themselves on a path for growth.”
“BMO has a long history of supporting the arts and culture and is proud to celebrate some of Canada’s best business writing,” said Mona Malone, Chief Talent & Learning Officer. “Each of these finalists provide key insights into Canada’s business environment, in-depth examinations of issues and trends and the personalities that are shaping our country.”
Jacquie McNish is Senior Correspondent with The Wall Street Journal and was a senior writer with The Globe and Mail. She has won seven National Newspaper Awards for her ground-breaking investigations into some of the biggest business stories of the past three decades. This is McNish’s third National Business Book Award. Previously she co-authored Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black with Sinclair Stewart and The Third Rail: Confronting Our Pension Failures with Jim Leech.
Sean Silcoff is a business writer with The Globe and Mail. He led the Globe’s coverage of the rise and fall of BlackBerry and has written extensively on many major Canadian business stories of the past two decades. Sean is a two-time winner of the National Newspaper Award, the Montreal Economic Institute Economic Education Prize and the Hon. Edward Goff Penny Memorial Prize for Young Canadian Journalists.
The short list for this year’s National Business Book Award included:
- John Stackhouse, Mass Disruption: Thirty Years on the Front Lines of a Media Revolution, published by Random House Canada.
- William Watson, The Inequality Trap: Fighting Capitalism Instead of Poverty, published by The University of Toronto Press.
Event Photos
About PwC Canada
At PwC Canada, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. More than 6,500 partners and staff in offices across the country are committed to delivering quality in assurance, tax, consulting and deals services. PwC Canada is a member of the PwC network of firms with more than 208,000 people in 157 countries. Find out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at www.pwc.com/ca.
About BMO Financial Group
Established in 1817, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified financial services provider based in North America. With total assets of $699 billion as of January 31, 2016, and close to 47,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets.
For more information visit www.nbbaward.com and follow us on Twitter @NBBAward.
To arrange an interview please contact:
Mary Ann Freedman
Freedman & Associates Inc. for the National Business Book Award
Tel: 416-868-1500
Email: mafreedman@freedmanandassociates.com
