Michele is a former think tank and media executive and the author of four books, including YOU ARE WHAT YOU RISK: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World (Pegasus Books, April 2021; Chinese simplified characters edition via CITIC, September 2021; Taiwan, Commonwealth Books January 2022; Romania, Editura Creator March 2022; South Korea, Miraebooks, July 2022). Her third book was the international bestseller, THE GRAY RHINO: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore.
Michele introduced the gray rhino concept at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos in 2013. She developed it in her eponymous 2016 book, which was released to widespread praise from global business, policy, and thought leaders. Translations of THE GRAY RHINO have been released in China (simplified Chinese characters), Hungary, South Korea, Taiwan (traditional Chinese characters), Norway, Brazil, and Italy.
Global Impact
The gray rhino metaphor and framework have moved markets, shaped financial policies, and made headlines around the world in more than 75 countries and 35 languages. It has shaped high-level debates from the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos to NATO to the Munich Security Conference to the Drucker Forum. The concept became emblematic of the ignored warnings that allowed the Covid-19 pandemic to escalate to catastrophic levels. The global K-pop phenomenon BTS referred to the gray rhino in a rap line in the hit song “Blue & Grey” in the context of depression and anxiety brought on by the pandemic.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, displays the book in his office and referred to gray rhinos in much referenced speeches in January 2021 and January 2019. Published in China in February 2017, it became a runaway best-seller. In a front-page editorial in People’s Daily in July 2017, senior government officials embraced the term “gray rhino” as a way to signal policy changes to reduce financial risk in the economy, sparking global media coverage from the front page of The New York Times to stories in Turkey, Malaysia, Qatar, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and many other other countries around the world. The Governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines referred to the need to address gray rhinos in the title of a speech on financial crisis.
Nine US senators referenced the gray rhino in a 2020 letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. They warned: “If our financial institutions and their regulators, particularly the Fed, fail to price climate risks, we will knowingly walk into another ‘gray rhino’ event.” The book and concept also are widely used in national security, financial planning, business continuity, and ESG communities, as well as in university and business school coursework.
The gray rhino also has inspired a dance choreography in Australia, a reference in the science fiction novel Red Moon, the name of a crime syndicate in the Japanese anime video game and television series MR LOVE, and a jazz single in Japan.
Learn more about Michele Wucker here.
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