Recently, I attended a breakfast of the Greenwich Leadership Forum, an organization of professionals and business leaders who are striving to be ethical leaders, combining business excellence with wisdom and faith-based and ethical principles. The speaker was Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci, who gained recent fame as part of the bidding group for the New York Mets and for the famous Jon Stewart segment last September, which went over 5,000,000 views on YouTube, answering the question Anthony asked President Obama in a town hall meeting: "When will you [President Obama] stop treating Wall Street as a ‘piñata?'" Stewart answered the question: "...until the candy comes out."

Anthony was at the GFL breakfast for a more serious purpose — to discuss his book Goodbye Gordon Gekko: How to Find Your Fortune Without Losing Your Soul. With a mixture of humor, chutzpah and heart, the book reveals the ups and downs of Anthony's life and his "learnings" to date, ending with a hopeful message of how hard work and ethical approaches to business can payoff.

In the book, Anthony traces his Catholic roots on Long Island and growing up the son of an Italian laborer to his matriculation to Tufts and Harvard Law and then to Goldman Sachs (where he was fired and re-hired on the same day). Anthony's success continues with his starting his own hedge fund and selling it to Lehman Brothers in 2005, exiting before the downfall. He further explains how he continues to strive to give back to the community and his support of the families of friends and others lost in 9/11.

Anthony really strikes a chord with a segment on "Davos Envy," an insecurity many of us may feel despite our successes, when faced or surrounded with others who have achieved even greater success. The temptation to bend "the rules" or "strive for more" at the expense of others often can overwhelm our ethical judgments.

An easy but important read, this book touches on many lessons Anthony learned. Personally, I hope he becomes a part owner of the Mets. The Mets as opposed to the Yankees [author's sports bias alert!] have always been about family, and Anthony will bring a new kind of leadership to a team that needs a continuing sense of family and needs to go back to basics — as we all often have to do in business.

Mark Anderson
Mark Anderson is ExecuNet's president and chief economist. An Arjay Miller Scholar, Mark received his MBA from Stanford University and a BA in economics from Yale University. He joined ExecuNet in 1993, with extensive marketing and new product and business development experience, having served as president and founder of A&M Associates, an investment management firm. Mark's corporate leadership experience includes several senior marketing and financial positions with RCA Global Communications (a GE subsidiary) and American Can Company.

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