About the Authors

Bruno Roche and Jay Jakub have been working side by side at Mars, Incorporated—makers of iconic brands like M&Ms, Snickers, Uncle Ben’s, Pedigree, Wrigley’s gum, and many more—for the last decade. They have worked together in the company’s unique internal corporate “incubator” called Catalyst, established in the 1960s to challenge conventional business thinking by anticipating and identifying the next “big ideas” for business, then developing breakthrough capabilities to solve some of the corporation’s most complex business challenges with advances that have transformational impact. Their deep friendship extends far beyond the workplace and into the realm of transforming business at large into a force for the common good, and in promoting vocational calling among those searching for greater meaning and purpose.

Bruno was born and raised in Paris, France, and has been married for the last twenty-five years to Marianne (Bayle), with whom he has four children. Both Bruno and Marianne trace their family lineages to the southern French village of Le Chambon sur Lignon, made famous by the heroism of the Huguenot villagers who saved the lives of countless Jews by hiding them during the Nazi occupation of France—an act for which the town is memorialized in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Center in Israel and upon which the documentary Weapons of the Spirit is based. Bruno has spent nearly three decades at Mars, mostly based in Brussels, Belgium, but traveling extensively to enact his unit’s global remit. In addition to his Catalyst managing director function, he serves as Mars’ chief economist. His education and academic research followed an applied mathematics path with a specialization in international finance, economics, and management sciences. He is fluent in French, English, and Italian. Bruno is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Network of Global Agenda Councils (on Sustainable Development), and he served as a special advisor to the G20 during the term of the organization’s French presidency (2009–2011).

Jay was born in Rahway, New Jersey—ironically also the hometown of economist Milton Friedman, founding father of financial capitalism—and has been married for the last thirty-one years to Eleni (Xanthakos), with whom he has two teenage children. Prior to joining Bruno at Mars in 2007, Jay had a long, distinguished government career in the US executive and legislative branches spanning nearly seventeen years, during which he held a number of senior positions. At Catalyst, Jay is the senior director of external research and co-manages with Bruno the unit’s Mutuality Laboratory. He oversees the work of its Culture Laboratory and directs the external research partnerships Catalyst has forged with Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and with leading academics around the world. His doctorate is from St. John’s College, Oxford University, and he is the author of Spies and Saboteurs (MacMillan and St. Martin’s Press, 1999).

Bruno and Jay, with their spouses, share a passion for people, especially the impoverished and oppressed, with a special focus on those who are broken in body, mind, and spirit. Completing Capitalism is their first joint book.