WEST MILFORD — Known as “the producer with the trillion-dollar Rolodex,” Lori Ann LaRocco of West Milford knows how to get business leaders and entrepreneurs to talk, consistently getting the scoop on big deals before anyone else. Over the course of her 20-year career, she’s interviewed hundreds of business people, ranging from small-business owners to CEOs of multinational conglomerates.
In her new book, "Opportunity Knocking: Lessons from Business Leaders," LaRocco, a CNBC senior talent producer, has coaxed some of the most successful leaders in their fields to share how they have achieved their goals and built their careers by acting when the right opportunities came along.
While LaRocco has worked with leaders from many different industries, she came to recognize that all leaders shared similar methods for both identifying opportunities and executing on the strategies for success.
In Opportunity Knocking, LaRocco guides readers through these methods for exploiting opportunity through her “Opportunity Pyramid.” LaRocco illustrates each level of the pyramid through an in-depth interview with one business leader whose story is especially relevant to that level. By giving readers real-world examples and bringing them into the mindset of these successful executives, Opportunity Knocking provides a blueprint for achieving success by recognizing the right opportunities—and seizing them.
As the senior talent producer for CNBC, LaRocco has cultivated relationships with the world’s top executives. The featured leaders in Opportunity Knocking are:
Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Company
Harold Hamm, Continental Resources
Steve Case, AOL Time Warner, Case Foundation
Ralph Schosstein, Evercore Partners
Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins, BlogHer
David Rubenstein, The Carlyle Group
Ron Kruszewski, Stifel Financial Corporation
While the leaders featured in the book are drawn from different industries and the motivations behind their decisions may vary, their underlying strategies to build success are the same. LaRocco has organized these strategies into the “Opportunity Pyramid,” which readers can apply to their own lives and careers. Opportunity Knocking thus shows readers how to identify and act on the opportunities present at every stage of their careers.
With a foreword by Dick Armey, former House Majority leader and former chairman of FreedomWords, and an afterword by Wilbur L. Ross, chairman and CEP of WL Ross and Co. LLC, Opportunity Knocking is stuffed full of advice and insight from leaders who have achieved high levels of success in their own careers.