List of University of Michigan business alumni
This is a list of business alumni from the University of Michigan.
Advertising and marketing
- Leo Burnett, journalism, advertising pioneer; founded the Leo Burnett Company in 1935 with $50,000 of borrowed money
- Utpal Dholakia,, researcher and professor
- Patrick LaForge, President and CEO of the Edmonton Oilers
Billionaires
- J. Robert Beyster, chairman, president, and CEO of Science Applications International Corporation
- Kenneth B. Dart, businessman and Caymanian billionaire
- William Davidson, finance and entertainment; founder of the William Davidson Institute at the Ross School of Business; his son Ethan, a Michigan graduate, inherits control of his foundation
- Bharat Desai, co-founder, president, and CEO of Syntel; Indian billionaire
- Stanley Druckenmiller, formerly worked with George Soros; co-founded Duquesne Capital
- Henry Engelhardt, founder and Chief Executive of Admiral Group, a British motor insurance company; English billionaire
- Brad Keywell, co-founder and principal of Groupon
- Bobby Kotick, businessman; president and CEO of Activision Blizzard, a member of the S&P 500
- Eric Paul Lefkofsky, serial entrepreneur; angel investor in Groupon; on Forbes 2011 list of billionaires
- Doug Meijer, net worth of $4.2 billion; son of Frederik G. H. Meijer
- Hank Meijer, net worth of $4.2 billion; oldest son of Frederik G. H. Meijer
- Tom S. Monaghan, founder and former owner of Domino's Pizza
- Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway; donated in excess of $25 million for library and Lawyers Club renovations and $110 million for graduate housing and graduate fellowships
- Larry Page, co-founder of Google
- Jorge M. Perez, real estate developer
- Stephen M. Ross, real estate developer; donated $100 million to the Ross School of Business, named in his honor in 2004; donated $200 million in 2013, split evenly between the Ross School of Business and Athletics Department, making him the largest donor in Michigan's history
- Dr. Homer Stryker, founder of medical device company Stryker Corporation
- A. Alfred Taubman, founder of the Taubman Company; his cumulative lifetime donations total roughly $141 million, making him the second largest donor in Michigan's history
- Preston Robert Tisch, chairman of the Loews Corporation; United States Postmaster General ; former owner of 50% of the New York Giants; his wife, Joan Tisch has replaced him on the Forbes 400 list
- Bruce Wasserstein, mergers and acquisitions specialist
- Ralph Wilson was as an American businessman and sports executive. He was best known as the founder and owner of the Buffalo Bills, a team in the National Football League.
- Sam Wyly, serial entrepreneur; owner of the Bonanza Restaurants chain
- Samuel Zell, real estate developer; founder of EQ Office; former chairman of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts
- Niklas Zennström, sold his share of internet telephony company Skype to eBay
Entrepreneurs
- Dave Barger, President and Chief Operating Officer of JetBlue; CEO as of 2007
- Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur, founder and/or part of eight Silicon Valley startups
- Henry W. Bloch, co-founder and former president of H&R Block Inc.
- Louis Borders, co-founded Borders with brother Tom
- Edward Conard, founding partner at Bain Capital
- Donald N. Frey, chairman and CEO of Bell & Howell for 17 years; received the National Medal of Technology in 1990
- Jacques Habra
- James John Hagerman " Haworth, founding chairman of Haworth, Inc., a manufacturer of office environments that grew from a garage-shop venture in 1948 to a $1.4 billion global corporation
- Andrew Heiberger, founder, owner, and CEO of Buttonwood Development and Town Residential
- Elle Kaplan, founder and CEO of LexION Capital Management
- Gregg Kaplan, president and chief operating officer of change-sorting company Coinstar, which now owns Redbox
- Brad Keywell, serial entrepreneur
- John Koza, venture capitalist; consulting professor in the department of electrical engineering at Stanford University; co-founder of Scientific Games Corporation, where he co-invented the scratch-off instant lottery ticket
- Mark Pieloch, pet pharmaceuticals
- Bhargav Sri Prakash, serial entrepreneur, hedge fund manager
- Benjamin D. Pritchard, American Civil War general who captured Jefferson Davis; State Treasurer of Michigan ; organizer and first president of the First National Bank of Allegan; founded the First State Bank, which was the first bank in the county to be designated as a state depository, the first savings bank, and the first bank to install safety deposit boxes
- Charles Rudolph Walgreen Jr., son of the founder of Walgreens drugstores; took over the company presidency in 1939 at age 33; steered the company through World War II and the post-war boom; in 2005, in acknowledgment of his $10 million donation, the university named its new facility the Charles R. Walgreen Jr. Drama Center
- Gary Wiren, founder of Golf Around the World and inventor of the Impact Bag
Hospitality and travel industries
- Ralph Bahna, CEO of Cunard Line ; Chairman of Priceline.com ; founder of Club Quarters
Industrials
- Robert Beverley Evans, automobile industry executive, founder of Evans Industries; chairman of American Motors Corporation
- Edgar N. Gott, co-founder and first president of The Boeing Company; executive at Consolidated Aircraft
- Mark N. Greene, CEO and member of the board of FICO since 2007
- James P. Hoffa, attorney; son of Jimmy Hoffa; president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters since 1999
- C. Robert Kidder, CEO of Borden Chemical 1995-2002; Principal, Stonehenge Partners, Inc., since 2004; appointed chairman of the restructured Chrysler Group LLC in 2009; former lead director of Morgan Stanley; ran 3Stone Advisors, a Columbus, Ohio, investment firm focusing on clean-technology start-ups
- Temel Kotil, CEO of Turkish Airlines
- Jerry W. Levin, businessman
- Timothy M. Manganello, CEO of BorgWarner; member of the Board of BorgWarner
- William J. Olcott, president of the Oliver Iron Mining Company 1909-1928; president of the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway 1901-1909
- Thomas F. Olin, chairman and co-CEO of Archway Cookies; worked in clandestine service for the CIA
- Mervin Pregulman, played for the Wolverines and in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, and New York Bulldogs ; went on to a successful business career as president and CEO of Siskin Steel & Supply Co. in Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Frederic L. Smith ; co-founder of the Olds Motor Works in 1899; co-founder of General Motors Corporation in 1908
- Louis Carlyle Walker, industrialist, philanthropist, political figure; co-founded the Shaw-Walker Company in 1899 and became sole owner in 1902; important figure in history of Muskegon, Michigan benefactor and namesake of the L. C. Walker Arena
- Thomas J. Wilson, Chairman and CEO of Allstate Insurance, Incorporated
Internet, software, and hardware
- Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist
- Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter
- Dean Drako, serial entrepreneur; has started more than five companies; founder, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks
- Kevin O'Connor, co-founder and CEO of DoubleClick Inc.
Mergers, acquisitions, and turn-arounds
- David A. Brandon, Chairman and CEO of Domino's Pizza
- Ronald L. Olson, name partner at Munger Tolles & Olson; RAND Corporation Chairman, Board of Trustees ; member of the board of Munger, Tolles & Olson Chairman; member of the board of Berkshire Hathaway ; Council on Foreign Relations board of directors
- Bruce Wasserstein, CEO of Lazard Freres, founder of Wasserstein Perella & Co.
Finance
- Jason DeYonker, founder and Managing Partner of Forté Capital Advisors, a private equity firm; board member of Academi, formerly known as Blackwater
- David S. Evans, Chairman and Chief Investment Office of Glencoe Capital
- Paul Kangas, figure on Nightly Business Report on PBS
- Charles Edward Merrill, co-founder of Merrill Lynch
- Scott Seligman, real estate developer, the founder of the Sterling Bank and Trust, and minority owner of the San Francisco Giants major league baseball team
- Boaz Weinstein, derivatives trader and hedge fund manager; formed Saba Capital Management
Not-for-profit
- Dale Carlson, first chief communications officer for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
- Simeon Djankov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Bulgaria
- Raynard S. Kington, President of Grinnell College; former Principal Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Health, briefly served as acting director of NIH ; elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2006
- William Andrew Paton, first editor of The Accounting Review
Real estate
- Amy Rose Silverman, real estate developer and Co-President of Rose Associates