Author Description

As the head of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics organizing committee the author describes how he assumed the leadership of the troubled organization and turned it around to present one of the most successful Olympic Games ever. Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, built a career turning around troubled companies. As the CEO of Bain Capital and Bain & Company, he and his firm helped propel the success of hundreds of companies, from venture start-ups to the world's largest corporations. In 1999, the Salt Lake Winter Olympic Games Organizing Committee turned to him to take over and run the Salt Lake Olympic Games. Romney was reluctant, with good reason. Sullied by scandal, on the brink of financial disaster, and with federal investigators, bankers, and the press at its door, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee's senior managers admitted the organization was paralyzed. But Romney had too much American patriotism to let it become a catastrophe for his country. So he accepted the biggest turnaround challenge of his life. In this book he reveals how he tackled the seemingly insurmountable obstacles facing the Salt Lake Winter Games, and how he and his management team: eliminated a financial crisis and delivered a profitable Olympic Games; built a culture of excellence that inspired gold medal performances from the employees; skillfully won the support of government officials, corporate sponsors; local residents, athletes and the international Olympic movement. With Romney at the helm, and through the teamwork, tenacity, and creativity of the staff he assembled and supported, the organizing committee succeeded against the odds in producing one of the finest Olympic Games ever, a proud moment for America, a great installment in Olympic history, and a valuable object lesson in what effective management and leadership can do.