Not My Problem?

After two decades in corporate life, Dennis Akkerman had the expat bungalow and the business class seat, and still felt unfinished. Not My Problem? comes out of that restlessness. Leaving sustainability for someone else does not take it off the books. A leader can own it now or pass the bill to a later set of accounts. He argues that owning it pays.

The Naked Leader stays with the person. Business as UNusual stays with the firm in uncertain times. This book makes sustainability that firm's problem. Akkerman has heard leaders cite tight cash and political suspicion. He sets risk ahead of strategy and turns ESG around to GSE, so governance holds. The Triple Frontier widens the duty from I to We to Us. The Purpose Full Circle map turns a broad purpose into the firm's own choices. KLK shows those choices inside a Malaysian firm. Beyond KLK, Akkerman asks the same of pay, safety, and profit. He trusts a company that says the work is still underway.

Akkerman writes like someone fresh from the workshop. His father, falsely accused over his commute, proved the route and was dismissed. Hamdi Ulukaya, already rich, gave most of his equity to employees once the wealth felt hollow. The father scene turns on dignity at work. Ulukaya's gift turns on what that wealth is for. Questions recur, and chapters end with a checklist. Return on Mother Earth, a planetary ratio, is written out with an example, though the units are illustrative.

The book keeps its footing between the cynic and the idealist. One calls the subject a hoax. The other underestimates a single day without oil. It fits any leader who must justify the next round of spending. It belongs on the CFO's desk ahead of the next budget round.