A terse Taleb speaks of luck in life

pbest@globeandmail.com

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of bestseller The Black Swan, spent the anniversary of Wall Street's collapse Tuesday evening pontificating for a group of 100 birds of a feather from Toronto business and political life at a Grano Speakers Series dinner. Burgundy Asset Management's Richard Rooney introduced Mr. Taleb to the crowd, joking, "To err is human, to be paid for it, divine." As it happens, Mr. Taleb ended up giving the shortest talk in the series' history and then opened the floor to questions - which he sometimes answered and more often did not. Perhaps picking up on the evening's theme of randomness (both the book's subject and the style of the author), Bill Downe, CEO of Bank of Montreal, asked a refreshingly un-CEO-like question: "What's the role of luck in life?" Mr. Taleb's answer in a word: huge. "We often mistake it for skill or design."

OLD PROS LAND PR GIG

PR giant National Public Relations landed two big hires this week - Bruce Anderson and Luc Lavoie - which caused a stir in the business and gives the shop some momentum. "We chose them, but they also chose us," National's managing partner John Crean told us. Mr. Anderson was CEO of Decima Research until 2008, and earlier was a founder of Earnscliffe Strategy Group. Mr. Lavoie is a well-known crisis management guru, former chief of staff to prime minister Brian Mulroney and later top communications executive for the Péladeau family's Quebecor. He also worked at National from 1993 to 2000. National is owned by Res Publica Consulting Group, which is controlled by Andrew Molson of Montreal. Mr. Lavoie responded to National's wooing after taking a year off since leaving Quebecor, because he "wanted to try other things, which I did." He wrote and commented on politics for Quebec media organizations. But, he told us, "The media is not what it used to be. There's not that much work left in the media."