I recently had the opportunity to meet Wilbur Ross Jr. in New York City one evening, and purchased his memoir, Risks and Returns: Creating Success in Business and Life. Ross is a successful American businessman who served as the 39th secretary of commerce in the first Trump administration from 2017 to 2021. At the age of 79, he was the oldest first-time cabinet appointee in US history.
A member of the Republican Party, Ross was previously chairman and chief executive officer of WL Ross & Co from 2000 to 2017. As a background to his legendary career, Ross ran the bankruptcy restructuring practice at N M Rothschild & Sons in New York beginning in the late 1970s. In the 1990s, Ross served as an adviser to New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on privatization, and was appointed by president Bill Clinton to the board of The U.S. Russia Investment Fund.
In 2000, he left Rothschild to found WL Ross & Co. Ross was a banker known for acquiring and restructuring failed companies in industries such as steel, coal, telecommunications, and textiles, later selling them for a profit after operations improved, a record that had earned him the moniker “the king of bankruptcy.”
Ross has been chairman or lead director of more than 100 companies operating in more than 20 countries over his 55-year career on Wall Street. Often working on high-profile bankruptcies such as Pan Am and Texaco, Ross helped restructure more than $400 billion in assets, and he was named one of Bloomberg’s 50 most influential people in global finance. After moving to Washington, DC, to serve in the Trump administration, Ross faced equally tough challenges, yet survived and succeeded in his post for four years.
How Wilbur Ross Jr. got successful and stayed that way
Risks and Returns: Creating Success in Business and Life explains how Ross got to the top and stayed there. Rising from humble beginnings in North Bergen, New Jersey, Ross applied simple principles with strict discipline – something readers can apply in their own quest for success. Ultimately, Ross’s strategies and deal-making skills led to relationships with world-famous figures such as King Charles, Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn, the Rothschild family, Steve Wynn, Lakshmi Mittal, and Mike Milken.
In the book, Ross documents his experiences with Trump in the Oval Office that included the signing of the Clean Oceans Bill; the signing of a treaty with India; bilateral meetings with the UK; and the signing of $70 billion of concessions from China, as well as speaking at the India Economic summit, and many other historic and defining moments during his time of service.
As I spoke to Wilbur Ross Jr. that evening, I mentioned that as a financial professional, I have friends who work in various sectors, such as hi-tech, in the US and Israel. We discussed living in a very fast-paced environment (with the rolling out of artificial intelligence and other technologies that have radically changed the landscape of the industry) and how one must adapt to these rapid changes. Even though Ross’s career on Wall Street was at a different time period in history, he believed that those same core principles can be applied today.
The advice that Ross gave was that success requires carving out a niche for yourself, and that you must constantly market both yourself and your product in an ever-changing environment (especially on Wall Street). He went on to say that you market yourself no matter what you do in life, and that you are your own product. As the king of bankruptcy, Ross was able to reach the peak in a very specialized business which required him to stay focused, adapt to the constant changes, and maintain the core principles that allowed him to build his successful career and revive companies that faced near collapse. He concluded by stating that one should always remain focused in one’s career, stay the course on a daily basis, and try to learn something new every day.
Risks and Returns is a fascinating book that provides a wonderful window into the life of Wilbur Ross Jr. Whether you’re interested in Ross’s experiences as a neighbor of John Lennon in the legendary Dakota apartment building, celebrating with Sir Richard Branson on his private island, or his tumultuous time in Washington, you will find his book to be a candid reflection of a life lived at the pinnacle of Wall Street, New York, Palm Beach, and Washington. Above all, anyone driven to find career success might learn from Ross’s strategies.
I thanked him for providing sound advice for generations of aspiring young career professionals inspired by his life story and the valuable lessons he teaches.■
The writer is a financial adviser who resides in New York City and is involved in Israel-based and Jewish advocacy organizations.
