John A. Byrne

John A. Byrne, 50, is the editor-in-chief of Fast Company magazine and the author of eight books on business, leadership and management. He joined Fast Company in April of 2003, succeeding founding editors Alan Webber and Bill Taylor. He is working to reinvent the eight-year-old business magazine, which has a circulation of 730,000 and a readership of more than 3.5 million.
 
In his first letter to readers in the August issue of Fast Company, Byrne set high expectations for himself and the magazine. “We will draw every reader into an ongoing debate about people, ideas, organizations, society, and rules,” he wrote. “We will engage and provoke, inform and entertain, surprise and delight. We will give our readers the knowledge to help them work smarter and lead better. We will be the magazine for every thinking person in business.” So far, so good. Byrne says he hasn’t had this much fun since the time he was editor of his college weekly in the 1970s.
 
Before his current position, Byrne was a senior writer at Business Week in New York and the author of a record 57 cover stories at the magazine. His articles have explored the fairness of executive pay, the folly of management fads, and the governance of major corporations. Byrne also is the creator of Business Week’s ranking of the best business schools (which was launched in 1988), the best and worst boards of directors in America (which first appeared in 1996), and its listing of the nation’s most generous philanthropists (which first appeared in 2002). He is a frequent commentator on television, having appeared on CNN’s Moneyline and CNBC’s Squawk Box and Business Center shows.
 
Byrne’s last book, published Sept. 11, 2001, by Warner Books, is Jack: Straight from the Gut, the highly anticipated collaboration with former General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jack Welch. The book debuted at the very top of The New York Times bestseller list and remained on the list for 26 consecutive weeks. It has sold more than 1.5 million copies in hardcover around the world. Byrne has written or co-authored seven other books, including Chainsaw (HarperCollins, 1999), the behind-the-scenes story of Al Dunlap’s rise and fall as a business celebrity. The book received widespread acclaim. Publishers Weekly called the book a “blistering saga” and a “sizzling tale.” The Street.com said Chainsaw “should be required reading in all business and accounting schools.”
 
Byrne’s other books include: Informed Consent (McGraw-Hill, 1995); The Headhunters (MacMillan, 1986); Odyssey (Harper & Row, 1987), the business biography of former Apple Computer chairman John Sculley; and The Whiz Kids (Currency/Doubleday, 1993), which explored the life and times of ten Army Air Force officers who helped to remake the Ford Motor Co. in the post-war period. Management guru Tom Peters called the book “an important milestone in American management analysis. Warren Bennis has said the book is “the best history of American business from World War II to the present.” Byrne also wrote Business Week’s Guide to the Best Business Schools (McGraw-Hill, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, and 1997) and co-wrote Business Week’s Guide to the Best Executive Education Programs (McGraw-Hill, 1992).
 
Byrne joined BW in 1985 from Forbes magazine where he served as an associate editor and staff writer for four years. He previously worked as a correspondent for Fairchild Publications in London and in Washington, D.C. Byrne has a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri and an undergraduate degree in English and political science from William Paterson College.
Aug. 7, 2003