PMISV Monthly Book Club | Leading Matters by John L Hennessy

PMISV Monthly Book Club | Leading Matters by John L Hennessy

 

The Monthly Book Club is a forum for talking about books that touch on the widely varied challenges of project and program management.

 

 

 

About the Book

Leading Matters by John L Hennessy

Leading Matters, current Chairman of Alphabet (Google's parent company), former President of Stanford University, and "Godfather of Silicon Valley," John L. Hennessy shares the core elements of leadership that helped him become a successful tech entrepreneur, esteemed academic, and venerated administrator.

Hennessy's approach to leadership is laser-focused on the journey rather than the destination. Each chapter in Leading Matters looks at valuable elements that have shaped Hennessy's career in practice and philosophy. He discusses the pivotal role that humility, authenticity and trust, service, empathy, courage, collaboration, innovation, intellectual curiosity, storytelling, and legacy have all played in his prolific, interdisciplinary career.

Hennessy takes these elements and applies them to instructive stories, such as his encounters with other Silicon Valley leaders including Jim Clark, founder of Netscape; Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State and Stanford provost; John Arrillaga, one of the most successful Silicon Valley commercial real estate developers; and Phil Knight, founder of Nike and philanthropist with whom Hennessy cofounded Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University.

Across government, education, commerce, and non-profits, the need for effective leadership could not be more pressing. This book is essential reading for those tasked with leading any complex enterprise in the academic, not-for-profit, or for-profit sector.

 

About the Author

John L. Hennessy is Chairman of the Board of Alphabet and Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, the largest fully endowed graduate-level scholarship program in the world. He serves on the Board of Directors for Cisco Systems and the Board of Trustees for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The tenth President of Stanford University, he is also a computer scientist who co-founded MIPS Computer Systems and Atheros Communications. Hennessy and David Patterson were awarded the ACM A.M. Turing Prize for 2017.

 

Registration

• Required and limiting attendees. First come first serve.
• Zoom link to be distributed to registrants on the day of the event. Look for a Zoom invitation the day of the event from scotchlas@gmail.com. Feel free to set that not to go to your junk mail.

 

About the SV Monthly Book Club : 

 

List of Books for 2025 and prior years : Click Here for more information

The SV Monthly Book Club is a no-cost forum to discuss books and publications that touch on various topics about project and program management. It recurs on the 3rd Thursday each month, virtually. There is no club membership, and anyone can join the discussion forum of the month. To attend the forum, please pre-register (for free) and be sure you have pre-read the book of the month. Registration is necessary as we are limiting the number of attendees, so that everyone has a chance to express their opinion and listen to others.

This is a professional event. While we are open to opinions from all angles during the book discussions, please be respectful to the host and all attendees.

About the Event Leader

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marc Scotchlas - Event Host (Contact Marc)

Serving at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Marc completed a career in the Navy and after retiring in 2018, joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as Shot Director at the National Ignition Facility. After managing operations at the world’s premier laser facility that has achieved ignition, he has taken on several other challenges including recapitalizing more than twenty thousand square feet of laboratory space, saving more than $330,000. Residing in the Bay area, he is perpetually expanding his horizons.

 

Additional Information

PDU: Up to 5.0 PDU to complete the pre-reading; 1.0 to participate in the monthly meeting. PDU claim code available to attendees at end of event.

♦PDU claiming instruction

 

Recognize that PDU credit may be partial if you've read only the part of the book that you will read, or that full credit can be taken later after the discussion event is complete and you have completed the entire book.  There's no drop-dead requirement by the discussion date for reading, but the discussion is much fuller if you've read the entire book.