Available anywhere book are sold
First in his family to go to college, he earned degrees from Wharton and the Law School at the University of Pennsylvania. Early exposure to the world of dealmaking at the Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz law firm set him on a path toward Wall Street.
Bok spent over a decade at Morgan Stanley, advising on major mergers and acquisitions, before joining Greenhill & Co. in its early days. There, he played a pivotal role in shaping the firm’s trajectory, from its startup phase to a groundbreaking IPO, global expansion, and eventual sale to a major international bank. Over 27 years at Greenhill, including 16 as CEO, he witnessed firsthand the cycles of boom and bust that define Wall Street, steering the firm through financial crises, industry upheavals, and high-stakes corporate battles.
Alongside his Wall Street career, Bok has served in leadership roles at major institutions, including as chair of the board of trustees at New York’s iconic American Museum of Natural History and at the University of Pennsylvania. In the Penn role he found himself at the center of a crisis that played out like a corporate takeover and attracted national attention. His book, Surviving Wall Street, is both a memoir and an insider’s account of an industry that continues to shape our nation and our world, offering a rare perspective on money, power, risk, and the art of survival in the financial arena.
“I observed–and participated in–a period of extraordinary growth and much tumult on Wall Street. Along the way, I also took interesting detours into inn-keeping, farming, theater, education, even–unintentionally–politics. In each arena I tried to do what was right.”