Business and Industry: Financiers & Industrialists

Railroad executive and financier, born near Rockwood, Ontario, Canada.

American financier and public official who served as U.S. secretary of the treasury (1921-1932) and endowed the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

From The Reader's Companion to American History
Banker and art collector. Morgan headed J. P. Morgan and Company, the most important force in American finance in the quarter century before World War I, a time when the burgeoning American economy grew to be the largest and most powerful in the world.

1734–1806, American merchant, known as the "financier of the American Revolution," and signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Liverpool, England.

Australian-born US media magnate, founder and head of News Corporation, formed in 1979, with worldwide interests.

Hungarian-born US financier and philanthropist. He is the head of Soros Fund Management, and famously made over $1 billion from the collapse of sterling in September 1992 by speculating against the currency on the international markets.

Steamship and railroad developer and financier, born in Port Richmond, Staten I, New York, USA.

Railroad developer and financier, born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. His father, ‘Commodore’ Cornelius Vanderbilt, regarded him as incapable of playing a role in his business empire, but after William succeeded at running a farm on Staten I and then at turning around the bankrupt Staten Island Railroad (1857–63), his father appointed him vice-president of the New York & Harlem Railroad (1864).

Austrian-born management expert, who emigrated to the USA in 1937 and worked as an economist and political scientist before starting a career as a professor of management in 1950.

US management consultant and academic. After teaching at the London Business School for ten years from 1983, he moved back to California to found Strategos, an international consulting firm specializing in strategy.

US management consultant and founder of the global company McKinsey & Co. He was a university professor and a member of an accountancy practice when he founded McKinsey in 1926 to give financial and management advice to corporations.

Leading authority on competitive strategy. Michael Porter is a university professor at Harvard Business School, and an influential thinker on management strategy and economics. His ideas on strategy have become the basis for the required strategy course at the Harvard Business School, and his work is taught in virtually every business school around the world.

US engineer, management consultant, and the founder of scientific management, which features efficiency over worker fulfillment.

Industrialist and philanthropist, born in Dunfermline, Fife, E Scotland, UK.

1863–1947, American industrialist, pioneer automobile manufacturer.

Industrialist, art collector, and philanthropist, born in New York City, New York, USA. His father, Julius Hammer, was a Russian immigrant who was a doctor, a socialist activist, and a founding member of the American Communist Party.

Publisher, editor, and politician, born in San Francisco, California, USA. The son of George Hearst, publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, he left Harvard without taking a degree, and in 1887 took over the ailing paper.

US millionaire industrialist and philanthropist. He was the founder of Standard Oil in 1870.

US industrialist and philanthropist. President of General Motors (GM) 1923-1937 and chair 1937-1946, he created an organizational structure which became the basis of the modern multi-divisional corporation.

US inventor and founder of the Westinghouse Corporation in 1886. He patented a powerful air brake for trains in 1869, which allowed trains to run more safely with greater loads at higher speeds.

American inventor and manufacturer whose invention of the cotton gin (1793) revolutionized the cotton industry. He also established the first factory to assemble muskets with interchangeable parts, marking the advent of modern mass production.