James Kondo and Mimi Alemayehou will join the panel for the Business Book of the Year Award. © FT Montage

Two new judges have joined the panel that will select this year’s Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.

Mimi Alemayehou, an expert in public and private-sector investment in emerging markets, and James Kondo, an executive in the social, technology and policy arena, will join seven other judges to choose the best business book of 2021. The judging panel is chaired by Roula Khalaf, the FT’s editor.

Alemayehou is currently senior vice-president for public-private partnerships at Mastercard’s humanitarian and development group, and a former executive vice-president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the US government’s development finance agency. Kondo chairs the International House of Japan, an independent foundation promoting global co-operation.

The £30,000 award, launched last month, aims to select the book that has provided the most compelling and enjoyable insight into business issues. Last year’s winner was Sarah Frier’s No Filter, about the rise of Instagram.

The other judges for the 2021 award are: Mitchell Baker, chief executive, Mozilla Corporation; Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens’ College Cambridge and chief economic adviser at Allianz; Herminia Ibarra, professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School; Randall Kroszner, professor of economics and deputy dean for executive programmes at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business; Raju Narisetti, publisher, global publishing, at McKinsey; Shriti Vadera, chair-elect of Prudential and former chair of Santander UK.

The FT and McKinsey have also named new judges for the £15,000 Bracken Bower Prize, which goes to the best business book proposal by an author aged under 35.

Former winner Andrew Leon Hanna and Stephanie Frerich, an executive editor at publisher Simon & Schuster, will sit on the panel alongside returning judges Jorma Ollila, former chair of Nokia and Royal Dutch Shell, and Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, strategy and entrepreneurship professor at London Business School. Hanna’s upcoming book, based on his winning proposal, 25 Million Sparks, explores how entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial ideas emerge from refugee camps and communities.

Both the book award and Bracken Bower Prize are now open for entries.

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