Thanks to #MattHoltBooks and #Netgalley for providing me access to an early copy of The Unexpected CEO by @Shirin Behzadi for a review.

Frankly I had not heard about Shirin till this book showed up on Netgalley. But the moment I read the brief about the book and a sample of her ardous journey, I was sold and I wanted to read and review the book. I was pleased that the publisher approved my request within a day and I just rolled into the book taken in by Shirin’s lovely storytelling to eventually complete the book in probably 3 days including breaks.

The book is titled with the word CEO but the book starts with a lot of detailed backgound of her early days in Iran and how those days imprinted her with courage, resilience, problem solving and the drive to be kind. Her way with words creates the imagery in the reader’s mind of her reality of Iran from the era of the Shah to the islamic regime. The vivid details of the revolutionary guards and her arrests including her sister’s actions makes one aware of how much impact it would have had on a young girl’s mind. The tragic situation where parents have to forego being with their child and taking the drastic step of leaving her alone in another country while trying to get her to safe and secure future is heartbreaking. These episodes are needed before actually understanding how Shirin could overcome hurdles in her corporate journey and reach executive levels at a very young age and that too while being in a male dominated level.

Thereafter the book dives multithreaded into her corporate journey to becoming a CFO, and then CEO, and being successful while taking care of her children and also dealing with a severe health crisis along the way. She clearly shows how being kind and empathetic and the belief that there is always a different way to solve a problem that seems unsolvable, helped her towards this success. In the later part she highlights how she worked in building a unique franchise template in the housing industry that was unique and also provided for flexibility to keep adding brands and scale the franchise.

I think the book is a great blending of understanding personal and organizational growth and achieving success on both fronts -the trials and tribulations that come with it. I would highly recommend this to wannabe leaders and also anyone wanting to learn how one can do well by doing good…