The most valuable thing an executive can pack this summer is permission to stop. For many, the summer months bring a holiday, a change of scene or simply a few quieter weeks as colleagues, clients and customers take time away. For others, it may be business as usual but with a slightly different rhythm and, perhaps, a little more space to think. Wherever you find yourself this summer, that space is worth protecting.
Senior leadership runs on judgement, and judgement can degrade when the calendar never lets up. Time away from the immediate demands of the role restores the energy, perspective and creative range that boards are paying for. The leaders who protect their recovery return sharper than those who spend every quieter moment answering emails.
We made a similar point in our leadership lessons from the World Cup: organisations that invest in resilience before a crisis are the ones still standing when it arrives. The same discipline applies to individuals. Creating space to step away, recharge and see things differently is part of sustaining good leadership over the long term.
A break, however you take it, can do more than restore energy. It can also feed curiosity. The best holiday material entertains first and instructs almost by accident: a podcast that introduces a new perspective, a book that quietly reframes how you think about talent, or a series about a family empire imploding that somehow leaves you thinking differently about power, culture and succession.
So, whether you are heading abroad, staying close to home, working through the summer or simply finding a little more breathing room in the diary, here is our summer list for the journey, the garden, the commute or the quieter evening. A mix of the entertaining, the substantial and the technical, with details of where to find each one. You don’t need to be on a beach to take a break. You just need to give yourself permission to stop and perhaps something interesting to think about when you do.
Founders, with David Senra. The podcast loved by some of the world’s most powerful CEOs, according to a recent Fortune profile, it counts Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Dell CEO Michael Dell and Spotify’s Daniel Ek among its fans. Senra reads one business biography a week, pen and ruler in hand, and distils what history’s great operators actually did. He recorded for more than five years to almost no audience before it took off, and the show itself is a lesson in his favourite theme: keep control, obsess over quality and the money follows. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or at founderspodcast.com, and look out for his new long-form interview show featuring what he calls “extreme winners”.
The Rest Is Money. Robert Peston and Steph McGovern make sense of the week’s business and economic stories twice a week for Goalhanger, from what fiscal devolution under Andy Burnham means for markets to interviews with authors and traders. It is sharp enough for a professional audience and light enough for a beach walk. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
The Bottom Line. Evan Davis’s long-running Radio 4 conversation show gets bosses to explain how their industries really work, from keeping oil flowing after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to the economics of record-breaking trainers. Perfect 28-minute episodes for airport queues, with the Decisions That Made Me spin-off for career-defining moments. Thursdays on BBC Radio 4 and any time on BBC Sounds.
Open, by Andre Agassi. The memoir David Senra returns to more than almost any other book: the story of a man who hated the thing that made him famous and had to find his own reasons to keep going. For any executive wrestling with motivation, reinvention or the gap between success and satisfaction, it is the most enjoyable leadership book ever written that never mentions leadership. Widely available in paperback and on Audible.
Apple: The First 50 Years, by David Pogue. One of the most talked about business books of 2026, the CBS journalist’s history of Apple zooms out from Steve Jobs to the brilliant, bizarre cast who built the company, and to its impact on how we communicate, pay, listen and design. Packed with nostalgia and genuinely fun, with focus as its central lesson. In hardback, ebook and audio from all the usual retailers.
The Infinity Machine, by Sebastian Mallaby. An instant New York Times bestseller and the standout AI book of the year. The biography of Demis Hassabis, the North London chess prodigy turned Nobel laureate now running Google DeepMind was built on more than thirty hours of interviews. It is the story of a rare figure who is both world-class scientist and world-class competitor, and a window into who is actually shaping the technology reshaping board agendas. Published by Penguin.
Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s Open AI by Karen Hao. The technical pick. Drawing on more than 260 interviews, Hao traces OpenAI’s founding tensions, the 2023 board crisis and the labour, water and compute infrastructure underneath the products, winning the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction. This offers a deep, instructive background in AI governance to take back to your board.
Industry (BBC iPlayer). All four seasons of the BBC and HBO finance drama are streaming, and the latest run shifts into full thriller mode as a splashy fintech collapse rips through the London markets. Beneath the noise it is a study of ambition without guardrails and of what happens to institutions when incentives and ethics part company. Written by two first-timers who formerly worked in finance, it gives an inside view on how the City works and its murkier side showing burnout, addiction and corruption.
House of Guinness (Netflix). Steven Knight’s drama about the heirs to the Guinness brewery, likened to a frothy-topped Succession, begins with a will that forces four reluctant siblings to run the empire together. It is a masterclass in succession planning gone sideways, wrapped in 1860s Dublin and filmed across the North West of England and Wales. A second season has just been confirmed, so now is the moment to catch up.
The Studio (Apple TV+). The Emmy-winning satire of Hollywood leadership follows a newly promoted studio boss trying to please talent, investors and his own ambitions all at once. Every executive who has ever inherited a big job with impossible stakeholders will laugh with a wince of recognition.
Control, succession, reinvention, governance: the themes running through this list are also the themes shaping the executive agenda. Senra’s founders guarded quality obsessively; Hassabis pairs scientific depth with competitive drive; The Guinness siblings show what happens when succession is imposed rather than planned. These are the same capabilities boards are testing for right now, a point we explored in The Rise of the AI Strategist.
Whether you’re taking an extended break or simply finding a little more space in the summer months, protect that time fiercely and let the ideas do their work while you rest, recharge and think.
Why should executives properly switch off over summer?
Because judgement, creativity and stakeholder patience are finite resources. They are harder to sustain when the calendar never lets up and only replenish when you create genuine space to step away. A leader who returns rested and refreshed is better placed to make good decisions after returning from a break than one that continues to work non stop.
What should I read, listen to or watch if I only have a few hours?
Start with three episodes of Founders or consider Open by Andre Agassi. Both entertain first and teach almost by accident, which is exactly what good holiday material should do.
Do I need a technical background to read the recommended AI books?
Not at all. Mallaby and Hao are journalists writing for general readers, and the value for executives is in the people, power dynamics and governance questions rather than the maths. If boards expect AI literacy that is specific, these two get you a long way there.
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