Back in 1986, Diane Francis’s hard-hitting Controlling Interest revealed the startling fact that one-third of Canada’s wealth was in the hands of just 32 families and five conglomerates. At the time, Bernie Ghert, president of Cadillac Fairview, prophesized, “In a number of years, there will be six groups running the country.” Was he right? Media coverage would have us believe that the last two decades have only increased the concentration of power. Diane Francis disagrees, and she’s here to deliver some good news: a positive transformation has taken place in Canada, with both free trade and tough competition legislation creating a new and better nation. This time the country is driven by players who are ready to offer innovative policies and visions for the 21st century. Combining extensive interviews with Canada’s economic leaders—from individuals to families to international conglomerates— with Francis’s hallmark incisive analysis, Who Owns Canada Now? will be the most important and talked-about business book of the year.

• Of the 32 families who were profiled in Controlling Interest, fewer than half remain major players.
• Of the five conglomerates profiled, only one remains intact.
• A powerful new multinational cast—including Calgary’s Clay Riddell and Murray Edwards, Gerry Schwartz, the Burnetts, the Hos, the Shaws, the Peladeaus and the Aspers—are today’s economic drivers.
• Canadians have been successful at building world-class businesses and investing globally.
• A look at 70 of the most successful Canadians, most of whom are billionaires, shows that many are self-made; 11 were still in school or in foreign countries when Francis wrote Controlling Interest in 1986.
• Financial reforms have shifted the balance away from an old boys’ network of risk-averse investors towards daring Canadian innovators.

Diane Francis is an American-Canadian award-winning columnist, bestselling author, journalist, broadcaster and entrepreneur. She is the Editor-at-Large at the National Post, a blogger with Huffington Post and a Distinguished Professor at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management. She is an expert on geopolitics, business and white collar crime. Her direct and forceful writing and speaking style make her a sought-after speaker and columnist who can describe the personalities, trends and geopolitics that affect companies, individuals, governments and societies around the world.

Diane has written nine books on white collar crime, politics, Immigration, economics and finance, including the bestseller, Who Owns Canada Now: Old Money, New Money and the Future of Canadian Business. Her 10th book, also an e-book in all formats, will be published worldwide by Harper Collins Canada and Harper 360 on October 1, 2013. Diane has blogged for The Huffington Post since 2007, is a seasoned television and radio guest/commentator and has been a columnist for Maclean’s Magazine, The Toronto Star, New York Sun, the National/Financial Post and Toronto Sun Newspapers. She was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and has been a Media Fellow and participant at the World Economic Forum in Davos for 20 years. In 2013, she was a media advisor at Silicon Valley’s Singularity University in Mountain View California.

Diane has interviewed, and written about, hundreds of CEOs, billionaires, heads of state, international criminals, Interpol officials, thinkers and academics. These include Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, George Soros, Carlos Salinas, Christine Lagarde, Pervez Musharraf, Angel Gurria, Raghuram Rajan, Larry Summers, Clayton Christensen and dozens more. She has also been able to observe and interview the world’s political and thought leaders for 20 years at the World Economic Forum.

She has traveled and covered major news events: the fall of the Berlin Wall; the dismantling of the Soviet Union; the restructuring of the former Soviet satellite nations; the reunification of Germany; the enfranchisement of blacks and election of Nelson Mandela in South Africa; the independence of Ukraine then its Orange Revolution; the events and elections leading to free trade and NAFTA; the corrupt elections and the 1994 assassination of Presidential candidate Colosio in Mexico; the 1994 Chiapas rebellion in Mexico by Mayans including an interview in the jungle with its guerrilla leader, Subcommandante Marcos; the dangers and dreams of Mexicans and their smugglers crossing “el bordo” illegally from Tijuana to San Diego; the battle in Colombia against cocaine smugglers; the Quebec referendum battle in 1995 on separation from Canada; how the world’s biggest boiler room stock fraud took place out of Amsterdam and how the world’s biggest gold swindle, Bre-X, was pulled off in Calgary, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Diane currently divides her time between Toronto and New York City.

Diane Francis' profile page