Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo

Fils-Aimé, the former president and COO of Nintendo of America, debut with a no-frills account of his life and business successes. His story begins with his parents’ migration from Haiti to the Bronx in 1958; until Fils-Aimé was eight years old, they lived a precarious economic existence in a Bronx tenement. The author’s narrative is one of a self-made man: he secured funding for his education at Cornell, scored his first position in brand management at Proctor & Gamble after graduating, then achieved success at VH1, where he “was responsible for driving consumers to watch the first few minutes of our programming,” before Nintendo called in 2003 looking for a head of sales and marketing. In each chapter, the author distills life lessons into leadership directives (“Life is hard and so you must dig deep”; “We never learn without making mistakes”), presented in boxes labeled “The So What.” Fils-Aimé also champions clear and effective communication, which he describes as having helped him win over skeptical team members, and “the power of personal relationships,” which he posits aids in business dynamics. Crisply written and devoid of bombast, these business lessons are worth checking out for leaders of all stripes. (May)