Dear Chairman
A review of

Dear Chairman

Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism

Jeff GrammHarperBusiness • 2016

The Birth of Shareholder Activism

by David Meyer

Jeff Gramm, a hedge fund manager and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, lays bare a century’s worth of intimate investor-boardroom battles.

Jeff Gramm, a hedge fund manager and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, offers compelling history lessons about landmark events in the evolution of shareholders’ rights. He presents ferocious boardroom battles in the form of letters written that aggrieved investors have written to C-suite executives. Gramm uses this innovative technique to reveal how activists brought about desired changes – and in some cases, grievous unintended consequences.

The Wall Street Journal said, “It’s an illuminating read for those wondering what drives activists…with lucid observations on investors and corporations.” The New Yorker wrote, “An engaging and informative book…[of] investor’s letters that sum up some of the great agency-problem battles in the history of American business.”


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