Book ~ "The Codfathers: Lessons from the Atlantic Business Elite" - Gordon Pitts (2005)

From Amazon.com ~ Around the globe, Canadian business leaders are known for their effective management style: patient, polite, often undemonstrative, they are great networkers and deeply committed to operations. What are the roots of this management style and how did it become the gold standard for Canadian business leaders? Business writer Gordon Pitts argues that the source lies "Down East", in the business traditions of the Atlantic provinces. The defining traits of fierce company loyalty, excellent operations and casual-yet-aggressive negotiating style grew out of the entrepreneurial and family businesses for which the region is famous. The exodus of many talented members of the Maritime business class into Central and Western Canada, New England and New York has taken this brand of management into the global power centres of international commerce. Based on in-depth interviews with Maritime business leaders, The Codfathers provides a window on the notoriously secretive world of the Irvings, the McCains, the Sobeys, and other business tycoons. It examines the power networks built around former New Brunswick premier, Frank McKenna, who had brought the Maritime Mafia into the corridors of power in Washington, D.C.

Interesting book, especially for me since I grew up in Nova Scotia and the names Sobeys, Irvings and McCains were commonplace. There's even a chapter about the university I went to, St. F.X.