- Awards and Recognition at a Glance
- What Executives Who Worked Alongside Todd Say
- What 80/20 and Operations Leaders Say
- Editorial Reviews of the Books
- The Critic Who Became a Foreword Writer
- What Readers Say
- Where Reviewers Push Back
- What This Evidence Does and Does Not Establish
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Sources and Full Reviews
- About the Stagnation Assassin
Last updated October 2, 2026. Compiled by Todd Hagopian; corrections are welcome via the contact page.
This page documents selected published evidence about Todd Hagopian’s books and professional work. It separates four kinds of evidence: testimony from executives who worked with him, endorsements from operations and 80/20 practitioners, editorial reviews of the books, and reader feedback. Positive, mixed, and critical assessments are all included, and each quote is attributed to its original source.
Several editorial reviews quoted here were obtained through paid, author-submitted programs. Kirkus Reviews (through its Kirkus Indie program), Literary Titan, and the Midwest Book Review were paid reviews. Payment covers consideration of the book; it does not determine the review’s conclusion, and each outlet’s pathway is labeled in the tables below.
A note on health content: Two of the books discuss Hagopian’s own experience with bipolar disorder. That material is his personal account and the subject of his writing, not medical advice. Bipolar disorder, hypomania, and mania are serious health conditions that require care from qualified professionals.
The books discussed are The Unfair Advantage: Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox (Koehler Books, January 2026; originally self-published in 2025 as The Hypomanic Toolbox), Stagnation Assassin: The Anti-Consultant Manifesto (Koehler Books, July 2026), and the forthcoming Ten-Minute Transformation (Koehler Books, scheduled for January 2027).
Awards and Recognition at a Glance
Hagopian’s two published books have received four book-award recognitions: a Gold and a Silver Literary Titan Book Award, a Firebird Book Award, and NYC Big Book Distinguished Favorite recognition. Separately, The Stagnation Assassin Show podcast won a Gold Stevie Award. Association endorsements appear with the practitioner endorsements below.
| Work | Recognition | What it recognizes |
|---|---|---|
| Stagnation Assassin | Gold Literary Titan Book Award | Book |
| The Unfair Advantage | Silver Literary Titan Book Award | Book |
| The Unfair Advantage | Firebird Book Award winner | Book |
| The Unfair Advantage | NYC Big Book Award, Distinguished Favorite | Book |
| The Stagnation Assassin Show | Gold Stevie Award, Best Indie Podcast | Podcast based on Stagnation Assassin |
Awards document recognition from the awarding organizations, each with its own entry process. They are listed separately from editorial reviews and endorsements because they are a different kind of evidence.
What Executives Who Worked Alongside Todd Say
The most direct evidence about Todd Hagopian comes from executives who watched his turnarounds firsthand. Dan Valenti, former SVP/GM of KitchenAid and former EVP of JELD-WEN, wrote the foreword to Stagnation Assassin after a front-row seat to the turnaround the book describes, and former Whirlpool colleagues have endorsed his leadership publicly on LinkedIn.
Dan Valenti, former SVP/GM of KitchenAid and former EVP of JELD-WEN
Valenti led businesses at Black & Decker, Whirlpool, KitchenAid, and JELD-WEN. He wrote the foreword to Stagnation Assassin as someone who worked alongside Hagopian during the turnaround the book describes.
“I had a front-row seat to the turnaround that Todd describes throughout this book. What Todd brought to that fight was something you don’t come across often: a willingness to challenge assumptions that everyone else had accepted as permanent.”
Dan Valenti, former SVP/GM of KitchenAid, foreword to Stagnation Assassin
Valenti also describes how Hagopian worked: questioning “sacred cows that had been defended for decades,” backing each challenge with data, and acting when the evidence supported a different path. He calls the frameworks “battle-tested in the most literal sense,” built “with real money and real careers on the line.”
Valenti also notes that he did not know about Hagopian’s bipolar disorder while they worked together and learned of it later, as Hagopian came to talk openly about it. That is part of Hagopian’s own account, told in The Unfair Advantage. Valenti’s point is that the frameworks are written so readers can use them without any particular wiring: “You don’t need bipolar disorder or hypomanic intensity or any particular neurological configuration to use the HOT System.
Why this matters: Valenti describes behavior he observed firsthand rather than a book he read. That makes his foreword evidence of Hagopian’s operating experience, though it remains one executive’s testimony, not an audit of the financial results described in the books.
Former Whirlpool colleagues
Several people who worked with Hagopian at Whirlpool Corporation have said so publicly on LinkedIn:
- Lauren Bigger (Category Merchandising, Whirlpool) described him as a creative thought leader and someone she would want on a team any day.
- Allan Deguzman (Whirlpool) pointed to his industry knowledge and market instincts.
- Adam Dubuque, who interned under Hagopian at Whirlpool in 2014, called him a great manager and recommended the book to his network.
What 80/20 and Operations Leaders Say
Leaders across the 80/20, lean, and turnaround world have endorsed Hagopian’s work. Bill Canady, founder of the 80/20 Institute, wrote both the foreword to The Unfair Advantage and the afterword to Stagnation Assassin. Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way, and former Starbucks president Howard Behar also endorsed the first book.
Bill Canady: a foreword and an afterword
Canady is CEO of Arrowhead Engineered Products, founder of the 80/20 Institute, and author of The 80/20 CEO, From Panic to Profit, and The Rule of Three. He opens the Stagnation Assassin afterword by explaining why he came back: “I wrote the foreword to Todd’s first book because I believed in the story. I agreed to write this afterword because I believe in the system.”
In the foreword, he connects the author’s HOT System to his own Profitable Growth Operating System, saying both share the same core of focusing on the few things that matter. He then names the difference: Hagopian ties the operating system to the psychology of the leader running it. He calls the tools “operational levers you can pull on Monday morning.”
In the afterword, he reframes the aggressive tone as discipline: the 80/20 Matrix as data-driven prioritization, the Karelin Method as focused capacity allocation, and the 70% Rule as structured decision velocity. He also adds a warning the book only implies: the system will not work for most readers, because most leaders will not execute it with the required discipline.
Other practitioner endorsements
- Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way, endorsed The Unfair Advantage, engaging with its account of how Hagopian’s experience shaped his approach: “We are inspired over and over as we learn the value of bipolar disorder in transforming a business from chaos and disorder to a finely tuned machine.”
- Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks, on The Unfair Advantage, called mental resilience “your most disruptive competitive weapon.”
- Glen Parkes, 80/20 practitioner, on Stagnation Assassin: “A direct challenge to the consulting orthodoxy that has taught leaders to analyze longer, align broader, and act slower until the opportunity is gone.
- Randy Pennington, author of Results Rule! and Make Change Work, on Stagnation Assassin: “Nothing ever changes until we tell ourselves the truth.”
- Brandon Kuykendall, 80/20 continuous improvement manager at Illinois Tool Works, on Stagnation Assassin: “A real-world playbook leaders can put into action today.
- Mark Blayney, business transformation expert and author of Turn Your Business Around, on The Unfair Advantage: “The best business novelization since The Goal.
- Ben Gay III, executive director of the National Association of Professional Salespeople, on The Unfair Advantage: “Actionable wisdom wrapped in an engaging story.”
Association endorsement
The National Association of Professional Salespeople endorsed The Unfair Advantage, as noted on the book’s front matter. Its executive director, Ben Gay III, is quoted above.
These endorsements appear in the front matter of each book. Why this matters: they show that recognized figures in lean, 80/20, and operations have engaged with the work. Endorsements are solicited by authors and publishers, so they establish engagement and approval, not independent verification.
Editorial Reviews of the Books
Seven outlets have published editorial reviews of Hagopian’s books: Kirkus Reviews, Literary Titan, the Midwest Book Review, BlueInk Review, Clarion Reviews, IndieReader, and the Prairies Book Review. Most operate fee-based programs for author-submitted books. Reviewers were warmest on Stagnation Assassin and more divided on the fictional format of The Unfair Advantage.
Each table lists how the review was obtained. “Paid review” means the author or publisher paid for the review and Hagopian has confirmed it. “Fee-based review service” means the outlet reviews books through paid submission programs.
Stagnation Assassin
| Outlet | Pathway | Praise | Reservations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirkus Reviews | Paid review (Kirkus Indie) | A brusque and powerfully worded call to combat corporate stagnation.” Called the tactics sharply conceived and the vision surgically precise. | The sheer number of directives, methods, and models can slow the reader down. Some readers will be put off by the all-or-nothing approach, including methods that call for cutting significant percentages of staff. |
| Literary Titan (5 stars, Gold Book Award) | Paid review | “Hagopian writes like someone who has stood inside a burning building and has very little patience for committees debating the temperature.” | None noted in the quoted review. |
| Midwest Book Review (Diane Donovan) | Paid review | “Stagnation Assassin is a ‘must’ for business libraries.” | None noted in the quoted review. |
| BlueInk Review | Fee-based review service | “Hagopian declares war on stagnation and provides the weapons to wage it.” | None noted in the quoted review. |
| IndieReader (Kent Lane) | Fee-based review service | IR rating 3.6. “A no-holds-barred manual on how to cut the slack from a business and get it to thrive.” | Some readers may find the aggressive attitude grating. |
| The Prairies Book Review | Fee-based review service | “A forceful, unapologetic take on business transformation that doubles as a broader argument against playing it safe.” | None noted in the quoted review. |
The Unfair Advantage
| Outlet | Pathway | Praise | Reservations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirkus Reviews | Paid review (Kirkus Indie) | “A thought-provoking, if occasionally labored, business-world story about leveraging manic behavior.” Found compelling ideas about pushing boundaries in healthy ways. | Called the fictional structure a misstep; Hagopian is more engaging writing about his own life than about his fictional executive. |
| Literary Titan (Silver Book Award) | Paid review | “Weaponizing mental health quirks into a business edge? That’s bold and kind of brilliant.” | None noted in the quoted review. |
| Midwest Book Review (Diane Donovan) | Paid review | Called the book thoroughly engrossing and recommended it for any library. | None noted. |
| Clarion Reviews | Fee-based review service | “An ambitious organizational transformation guide.” | None noted in the quoted review. |
| IndieReader (Kent Lane) | Fee-based review service | IR rating 3.0. Valued the perspective on neurodivergence in the workplace. | Felt the fictional format kept the frameworks too conceptual. |
| The Prairies Book Review | Fee-based review service | “Bold, unconventional, and raw. Hagopian mined chaos to build a system for sustainable success.” | None noted in the quoted review. |
For a side-by-side reading of how the same critics responded to each book, see Stagnation Assassin vs The Unfair Advantage: what six reviews say, and the full Literary Titan review breakdown for The Unfair Advantage.
The Critic Who Became a Foreword Writer
Demetris Papadimitropoulos, a former New York book publishing professional who writes The Comms Current, first reviewed Stagnation Assassin on Goodreads, unsolicited according to both men. After later correspondence and reading all three books, he agreed to write the unpaid foreword to Ten-Minute Transformation, which names the method’s limits alongside its strengths.
Papadimitropoulos spent more than a decade in major book publishing in New York. According to his foreword and Hagopian’s account, he reviewed Stagnation Assassin on Goodreads and shared that review on social media before the two had corresponded. He then read The Unfair Advantage and the Ten-Minute Transformation manuscript, and wrote the foreword without payment. The quotes below come from the unpublished manuscript; the text may change before publication in January 2027. He describes the sequence this way:
“By the time a foreword entered the conversation, I had already spent considerable time pressing on the arguments, looking at where they held and where they became less certain, and watching the same operating philosophy change shape from one book to the next. The scrutiny came first.”
Demetris Papadimitropoulos, foreword to Ten-Minute Transformation
His foreword is not uncritical. He notes that numbers can show that something moved but not why, that a diagnostic cannot create the authority to act on it, and that a threshold that works in one industrial business may need qualification elsewhere. What earns his respect is that the book admits this: “Sometimes the framework’s first answer may simply be wrong.”
He also traces the arc across all three books. The Unfair Advantage carried the operating philosophy through fiction, Stagnation Assassin brought the machinery into view, and Ten-Minute Transformation tries to make that machinery work without its author in the room.
Why this matters: by the account in his foreword, this sequence began with an unsolicited public review and moved to a foreword only after extended scrutiny of the work, which differs from a conventional advance endorsement.
What Readers Say
Early readers on NetGalley and Goodreads responded most strongly to Hagopian’s honesty about bipolar disorder and to named tools like the 80/20 Matrix and the Karelin Method. Several said the frameworks apply at the organizational, team, and individual level. The most common complaint was heavy use of acronyms that some found hard to remember.
On NetGalley, reviewers of the original Hypomanic Toolbox edition said the book reframes mental health traits as strategic assets, praised how it balances hypomanic intensity with guardrails, and highlighted named tools like the 80/20 Matrix and the Karelin Method. One reviewer who had experienced burnout said those guardrails were what made the book useful.
On Goodreads, readers said the concepts were well illustrated through storytelling and could be applied at the organizational, team, or individual level. One reader noted that Hagopian draws a clear line between the productivity of hypomania and the destruction of mania. Not every reader was won over: one found the acronyms hard to remember and some of the story contrived.
Where Reviewers Push Back
Four criticisms recur across the record. Reviewers split on the fictional format of The Unfair Advantage. Kirkus found Stagnation Assassin dense with directives and warned that its all-or-nothing approach, including significant staff cuts, will put some readers off. IndieReader found the tone grating at times, and two endorsers stress the system’s limits.
- The fictional format of The Unfair Advantage. Kirkus found Hagopian more engaging writing about his own life than about his fictional executive, Jack Whelan. IndieReader’s Kent Lane felt the fiction kept the frameworks too conceptual. Diane Donovan at the Midwest Book Review disagreed, preferring the parable to the later manifesto.
- Density and severity in Stagnation Assassin. Kirkus said the profusion of directives, methods, and models can be hard to keep straight, and that many readers will resist the all-or-nothing approach, particularly methods that call for cutting significant percentages of personnel.
- The combative tone. Lane warned some readers may find the aggressive attitude grating, while recommending the book to those who appreciate it. Valenti put it more bluntly: the book “is not comfortable reading.”
- The limits of any system. Canady warns that most readers will not execute the system with enough discipline. Papadimitropoulos notes that the frameworks narrow the question but still require judgment and organizational authority to act on.
What This Evidence Does and Does Not Establish
The evidence on this page shows different things. Colleague testimony speaks to Hagopian’s operating experience. Practitioner endorsements show engagement from recognized operators. Editorial reviews assess the books, and awards reflect each program’s judgment. None of it independently audits the financial results described in the books, which should be evaluated separately.
- Executive testimony (Valenti, former Whirlpool colleagues) is firsthand evidence of how Hagopian worked, from people who saw it.
- Practitioner endorsements (Canady, Liker, Behar, and others) show that recognized operators read the work and approved of it. They were solicited for the books.
- Editorial reviews assess the books as books. Most were obtained through paid programs, labeled above.
- Awards reflect recognition from each awarding organization under its own entry process.
- Reader feedback shows how early readers responded. It is not editorial review.
Quantitative claims about shareholder value, turnaround results, and audience size rest on Hagopian’s own account of his career. They are not verified by the reviews and endorsements collected here.
Frequently Asked Questions
The most common questions about Todd Hagopian’s books concern who wrote the forewords, which awards the books have won, what Kirkus Reviews concluded, whether reviews were paid, and how the two books differ. Each answer below is drawn from the books, the published reviews, and the disclosures on this page.
Who wrote the forewords and afterwords for Todd Hagopian’s books?
Bill Canady wrote the foreword to The Unfair Advantage. Dan Valenti wrote the foreword to Stagnation Assassin, and Bill Canady wrote its afterword. Demetris Papadimitropoulos wrote the foreword to the forthcoming Ten-Minute Transformation.
What awards have Todd Hagopian’s books received?
Stagnation Assassin received a Gold Literary Titan Book Award. The Unfair Advantage received a Silver Literary Titan Book Award, a Firebird Book Award, and NYC Big Book Distinguished Favorite recognition. Separately, The Stagnation Assassin Show podcast received a Gold Stevie Award.
What did Kirkus Reviews say about Todd Hagopian’s books?
Kirkus called Stagnation Assassin a brusque and powerfully worded call to combat corporate stagnation, while noting its density and all-or-nothing approach. Its review of The Unfair Advantage was mixed, calling the book thought-provoking but occasionally labored.
Were any of the reviews paid?
Yes. The Kirkus, Literary Titan, and Midwest Book Review reviews were paid, author-submitted reviews, Payment covers consideration of the book, not a positive verdict. Each review’s pathway is labeled on this page.
How do Todd Hagopian’s two books differ?
The Unfair Advantage presents the ideas through a business story and the author’s personal history, while Stagnation Assassin presents them directly as an operating framework. Readers can choose based on which format they prefer.
Are The Hypomanic Toolbox and The Unfair Advantage the same book?
Yes. The Hypomanic Toolbox was the 2025 self-published edition, and Koehler Books re-released it as The Unfair Advantage in January 2026.
Sources and Full Reviews
Every foreword, afterword, and endorsement quote on this page comes from the published editions of The Unfair Advantage and Stagnation Assassin or from the Ten-Minute Transformation manuscript. Every review quote links to the full review on the outlet’s own site where one is available, so readers can check each quote in context.
- Kirkus Reviews: Stagnation Assassin
- Kirkus Reviews: The Unfair Advantage
- IndieReader: Stagnation Assassin
- IndieReader: The Hypomanic Toolbox
- Midwest Book Review, May 2026 issue
- The Prairies Book Review: Stagnation Assassin
- The Prairies Book Review: The Hypomanic Toolbox
- NetGalley: The Hypomanic Toolbox
- NetGalley: The Unfair Advantage
- Goodreads: The Unfair Advantage
- Todd Hagopian on LinkedIn
If you spot an error in an attribution, title, quote, or link, please report it through the contact page and it will be corrected.
About the Stagnation Assassin
Todd Hagopian is a Fortune 500 transformation executive who has generated $3B in shareholder value across Berkshire Hathaway, Illinois Tool Works, Whirlpool, and JBT Marel, where he serves as Global VP of Product Strategy and Marketing. Known as The Stagnation Assassin, he is the author of two published books: The Unfair Advantage: Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox and Stagnation Assassin: The Anti-Consultant Manifesto. His blog is published in 15+ languages and read by operators worldwide. Bring him to your stage via his speaking page or connect with him on LinkedIn.
Read the source material, then test the ideas against your own operating data. The reviews differ on tone, format, and severity. Several reviewers and endorsers singled out the 80/20 Matrix and related tools as the practical core of the work. If you want to examine your own product and customer portfolio through that lens, request a free 15-minute 80/20 Portfolio Performance Audit.