The Savage Way: Successfully Navigating the Waves of Business and Life
"La Savage defined success for me. For her, success was not only about one's material possessions. It was also about how one succeeded against all odds by believing in self, exhibiting integrity, and working hard and working smart. La Savage gave me the benefits of these lessons as surely as she gave me life back in 1938."—fromThe Savage WayBy the standards of the America into which he was born, Frank Savage was about as unlikely a success story as you could find. Born in 1938, to the hardscrabble world of the North Carolina tobacco fields, raised in segregated Washington, DC, by a single mother—a hairdresser with little formal education—and sent to all-black schools, young Frank's odds of making it in the "white world," especially the world of high finance, were virtually nil. Yet, thanks to his God-given intelligence and the sense of self-worth, drive, and determination—not to mention a pronounced aptitude for business—instilled in him by his extraordinary mother, the self-styled "Madame La Savage International," Frank Savage forged a career that has taken him around the world as a globe-trotting banker, venture capitalist, Fortune 500 asset manager, and world-class competitive yachtsman.A compelling, deeply personal account from one of the first African-Americans to cross the color barrier and find success in the world of high finance,The Savage Waytakes us on a fascinating journey through seventy-four years of a life very well-lived. Exhibiting a novelist's gift for vivid scene-setting and the apt metaphor, Frank Savage moves relentlessly from Jim Crow America to the executive suites at Citibank, from Madame La Savage's hair salon (where he learned his first and most important lessons on business and life) to his experiences as a banker and entrepreneur in New York, the Middle East, and his beloved Africa. And along the way, Savage shares priceless lessons he's learned about the importance of self-confidence and adherence to one's core values, the indispensable need for integrity, and an unwavering sense of ethics in all of one's dealings, both in business and in life.So much more than another dry, self-serving business memoir,The Savage Wayis an inspiring narrative full of warmth, adventure, extraordinary achievement and tragic loss that is sure to resonate in the hearts and minds of all readers long after they've finished reading it.