6. Tim Cook, Apple – Steve Jobs is a hard act to
follow, but thus far, Tim Cook is doing a tremendous job. Rather than attempt
to match the consumer-facing innovations Steve Jobs had been known for, Tim
Cook is forging into the future with his own new advances, such as Apple’s
newest innovative
inventory management techniques.
Tim Cook Biography
Business Leader (1960–)
Born
in Alabama on November 1, 1960, Tim Cook graduated from Auburn University with
a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering in 1982, and went on to earn an
M.B.A. from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in the late '80s.
Following a 12-year career at IBM, in 1994, Cook became a chief operating
officer (Reseller Division) at Intelligent Electronics. He then worked for
Compaq as vice president of corporate materials, procuring and managing product
inventory. After six months at Compaq, Cook left his position and took a job at
Apple. In August 2011, Cook was named Apple's new CEO, taking over the position
for former CEO and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011 after
a years-long battle with cancer.
Tim
Cook was born Timothy D. Cook in the small town of Robertsdale, Alabama, on
November 1, 1960. The middle of three sons born to father Donald, a shipyard
worker, and mother Geraldine, a homemaker, Cook attended Robertsdale High
School, and graduated second in his class in 1978. He then enrolled at Auburn
University in Alabama, where he graduated in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in
industrial engineering, and went on to earn a Master of Business Administration
degree from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in 1988. There, Cook
earned the title of Fuqua Scholar—an honor given only to students at the the
business school who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class.
Fresh
out of graduate school, Cook embarked on a career in the field of compter
technology: He was hired by IBM, where he moved up the ranks to become the
computer corporation's North American Fulfillment director, managing
manufacturing and distribution functions for IBM's Personal Computer Company in
both North and Latin America.
Following
a 12-year career at IBM, in 1994, Cook became a chief operating officer
(Reseller Division) at Intelligent Electronics. Afte three years there, he was
ready for another move: The Compaq Computer Corporation hired Cook as vice
president of corporate materials, entrusting him with procuring and managing
the company's product inventory. His time there was short-lived, however: After
a six-month stint at Compaq, Cook left for a position at Apple.
"My
most significant discovery so far in my life was the result of one single
decision: My decision to join Apple," Cook stated nearly 15 years after
joining the corporation, while speaking at Auburn University's commencement
ceremony in 2010.
But
Cook's decision to join Apple wasn't an easy one: He began working for Apple in
early 1998, before the company had developed the likes of the iMac, iPod,
iPhone or iPad, and when it was seeing declining profits instead of profit
growth. According to Cook, prior to accepting his job at Apple, he was actually
dissuaded from taking the job, and was told that the company's future looked
very bleak: "While Apple did make Macs, the company had been losing sales
for years and was commonly considered to be on the verge of extinction. Only a
few months before I'd accepted the job at Apple, Michael Dell, the founder and
CEO of Dell Computer, was publicly asked what he would do to fix Apple, and he
responded, 'I'd shut it down and give the money back to the
shareholders,'" Cook explained to Auburn graduates in 2010.
Soon
after Cook came on board, however, things began to look a little brighter at
Apple. As the corporation's chief operating officer, Cook was responsible for
managing all sales and operations worldwide, including sales activities, and
service and support. He was also a leader of the company's Macintosh division
and in developing reseller/supplier relationship strategies. Less than a year
after Cook his Apple debut, the corporation was reporting profits (fiscal year
1998)—an extraordinary shift from it's fiscal 1997 report showed a net loss of
$1 billion from the prior fiscal year.
In
August 2011, Cook was named Apple's new CEO, taking over the position for
former CEO and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011 after a
years-long battle with cancer. In addition to serving as CEO, Cook sits on the
corporation's board of directors.
In
May 2014, Apple announced its biggest acquisition to date when it bought Beats
Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion. As part of the deal, Beats
co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine would join Apple in executive roles. In a
letter to Apple employees, Cook said, “This afternoon we announced that Apple
is acquiring Beats Music and Beats Electronics, two fast-growing businesses
which complement our product line and will help extend the Apple ecosystem in
the future. Bringing our companies together paves the way for amazing
developments which our customers will love.”
Following
this in June 2014, at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Cook announced the
latest version of the Apple operating system for desktop and mobile, OSX
Yosemite.
World Impact and
Salary
In November 2011,
Cook was named one of Forbes magazine's "World's Most Powerful
People." According to an April 2012 article in The New York Times,
Cook was the highest-paid CEO among large publicly traded companies in 2012.
While his salary at Apple amounts to around $900,000, Cook reportedly brings in
several millions of dollars annually due to other forms of compensation,
including stock awards and bonuses. In 2011, Cook reportedly made $378 million
in total compensation.
7. Indra
Nooyi, PepsiCo
– Indra Nooyi, another of Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women, has not only
led her company to record financial results but is making strides to move
PepsiCo in a healthier direction, leading the courageous charge to shed
traditional fast food properties and to replace them with initiatives to supply
healthier foods. She is deeply caring and committed as a senior executive. She
is a fun-loving executive as well—she played lead guitar for an all-woman rock
band in college, loved to play cricket, and is known to sing karaoke and
perform at corporate gatherings to this day. Yes, I have been known to relate
to her fun-loving spirit as a senior executive as well.
Indra K. Nooyi is
the president and chief financial officer of PepsiCo. Best known for its Pepsi
soft drinks, the international powerhouse that Nooyi oversees is actually one
of the world's largest snack-food companies. It makes and sells dozens of other
products, including Doritos-brand chips, the Tropicana juice line, and Quaker Oats cereals.
Nooyi is one of the top female executives in the United States, and is also
believed to be the highest-ranking woman of Indian heritage in corporate
America.
Nooyi
was born in Madras, India, in 1955, and was a bit of a rule breaker in her
conservative, middle-class world as she grew up. In an era in India where it
was considered unseemly for young women to exert themselves, she joined an
all-girls' cricket team. She even played guitar in an all-female rock band
while studying at Madras Christian College. After earning her undergraduate
degree in chemistry, physics, and math, she went on to enroll in the Indian
Institute of Management in Calcutta. At the time, it was one of just two
schools in the country that offered a master's in business administration
degree, or M.B.A.
Nooyi's
first job after earning her degree was with Tootal, a British textile company. It had
had been founded in Manchester, England, in 1799, but had extensive holdings in
India. After that, Nooyi was hired as a brand manager at the Bombay offices of
Johnson & Johnson, the personal-care products maker. She was given the
Stayfree account, which might have proved a major challenge for even an
experienced marketing executive. The line had just been introduced on the
market in India, and struggled to create an identity with its target customers.
"It was a fascinating experience because you couldn't advertise personal
protection in India," she recalled in an interview with the Financial
Times 's Sarah Murray.
Nooyi
began to feel that perhaps she was underprepared for the business world.
Determined to study in the United States, she applied to and was accepted by
Yale University's Graduate School of Management in New Haven, Connecticut. Much
to her surprise, her parents agreed to let her move to America. The year was
1978. "It was unheard of for a good, conservative, south Indian Brahmin
girl to do this," she explained to Murray in the Financial Times. "It
would make her an absolutely unmarriageable commodity after that."
"Behind
my cool logic lies a very emotional person."
Could Not Afford Suit
Nooyi
quickly settled into her new life, but struggled to make ends meet over the
next two years. Though she received financial aid from Yale, she also had to
work as an overnight receptionist to make ends meet. "My whole summer job
was done in a sari because I had no money
to buy clothes," she told Murray. Even when she went for an interview at
the prestigious business-consulting firms that hired business-school students,
she wore her sari, since she could not afford a business suit. Recalling that
the Graduate School of Management required all first-year students to take—and
pass—a course in effective communications, she said in the Financial Times interview
that what she learned in it "was invaluable for someone who came from a
culture where communication wasn't perhaps the most important aspect of
business at least in my time."
Pepsi v. Coke
The
rivalry between Pepsi, the flagship product of Indra Nooyi's company, and its
Atlanta, Georgia-based competitor, Coca-Cola, is one of corporate America's
longest-running marketing battles. In the United States alone, the soft-drink
industry is a $60 billion one, with the average American consuming a staggering
fifty-three gallons of carbonated soft drinks every year.
The
battle between Coke and Pepsi dates back almost as long as each company's
history. Both emerged as key players in early decades of the twentieth century,
when soft drinks first came on the market in the United States. In the 1920s,
Coca-Cola began moving aggressively into overseas markets, and even opened
bottling plants near to places where U.S. service personnel were stationed
during World War II. Pepsi only moved into international territory in the
1950s, but scored a major coup in 1972 when it inked a deal with the Soviet Union. With this
deal, Pepsi became the first Western product ever sold to Soviet consumers.
The
battle for market share heated up after 1975, when both companies stepped up
their already lavishly financed marketing campaigns to win new customers.
Pepsi's standard cola products had a slightly sweeter taste, which prompted one
of the biggest corporate-strategy blunders in U.S. business history: in 1985,
Coca-Cola launched "New Coke," which had a slightly sweeter
formulation. Coke consumers were outraged. The old formula was still available
under the name "Coca-Cola Classic," but the New Coke idea was quickly
shelved. This incident is often studied by business-school curriculums in the
United States and elsewhere, along with many other aspects of what is known as
"the cola wars."
Coke
is the leader in market share for carbonated colas, but soft drinks remain its
core business. Pepsi, on the other hand, began acquiring other businesses in
1965 when it bought the Texas-based Frito-Lay company, and has a larger stake
in the food industry.
Nooyi
did not earn a second M.B.A. from Yale. Instead, her degree was a master of
public and private management, which she finished in 1980. After commencement,
she went to work at the Boston Consulting Group, a prestigious consulting firm.
For the next six years she worked on a variety of international
corporate-strategy projects, and went over to Motorola in 1986 as a
senior executive. She remained there for four years, leaving in 1990 to join
Asea Brown Boveri Inc. as its head of strategy. ABB, as the company was known,
was a $6 billion Swiss-Swedish conglomerate that made industrial equipment and
constructed power plants around the world.
Nooyi's
skill in helping ABB find its direction in North America came to the attention
of Jack Welch, the head of General Electric. He offered her a job in 1994, but
so did PepsiCo chief executive officer Wayne Calloway. As she told a writer for
Business Week, the two men knew one another, but Calloway made an
appealing pitch for Nooyi's talent. He told her, she recalled, that
"'Welch is the best CEO I know.... But I have a need for someone like you,
and I would make PepsiCo a special place for you.'"
Nooyi
chose the soft-drink maker, and became its chief strategist. Soon, she was
urging PepsiCo to reshape its brand identity and assets, and became influential
in a number of important decisions. She was also a lead negotiator on the
high-level deals that followed. The company decided to spin off its restaurant
division in 1997, for example, which made its KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell
holdings into a separate company. She also looked at the successful plan by
Pepsi rival Coca-Cola, which had sold of its bottling operations a decade
earlier, and had been rewarded with impressive profit margins on its stock
performance. Pepsi followed suit, and the 1999 initial public offering of the
Pepsi bottling operations was valued at $2.3 billion. The company kept a large
share of stock in it, however.
Pointed Pepsi in the Right Direction
At
PepsiCo, Nooyi has been the chief dealmaker for two of its most important
acquisitions: she put together the $3.3 billion-dollar-deal for the purchase of
the Tropicana orange-juice brand in 1998, and two years later was part of the
team that secured Quaker Oats for $14 billion. That became one of the biggest
food deals in corporate history, and added a huge range of cereals and
snack-food products to the PepsiCo empire. She also helped acquire the edgy
beverage maker SoBe for $337 million, and her deal beat the one submitted by
Coca-Cola.
Indra
Nooyi (left) and other Pepsi-Co and Quaker Oats executives pose with products
from both companies. PepsiCo purchased Quaker Oaks in 2001.
AP/Wide World Photo. Reproduced by
permission.
For
her impressive dealmaking talents, Nooyi was promoted to the job of chief
financial officer at PepsiCo in February of 2000. It made her the
highest-ranking Indian-born woman among the ranks of corporate America. A year
later, she was given the title of president as well, when her longtime
colleague, Steven S. Reinemund, advanced to the position of board chair and
chief executive officer. Reinemund had said he would only take the job only if
Nooyi came onboard as his second in command. "'I can't do it unless I have
you with me,'" she recalled him telling her, according to Business
Week.
Upon
taking over as president and chief financial officer in May of 2001, Nooyi
worked to keep the company on track with her vision: "For any part of the
day we will have a little snack for you," she told Business Week in
2001. The company sold a dazzling range of snack foods and beverages, from
Mountain Dew to Rice-a-Roni, from Captain Crunch cereal to Gatorade-brand
sports drinks. It also owned the makers of Doritos-brand snacks and Aquafina
bottled water.
One of Corporate America's Top Visionaries
Nooyi's
success in the business world landed her on Time magazine's list of
"Contenders" for its Global Business Influentials rankings in 2003.
Many watchers predict that she will someday head one of the company's
divisions, such as Frito-Lay, or its core brand, PepsiCo Beverages North
America. In early 2004, there were mentions in the press that Nooyi, who still
wears the occasional sari to work, was being considered for the top job at the
Gucci Group, but she denied rumors that she had been talking with the Italian
luxury-goods giant.
Nooyi
serves on the board of trustees at the Yale Corporation, the governing board of
Yale University. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, not far from PepsiCo's
headquarters across the state line in Purchase, New York. At home, she
maintains a puja, or traditional Hindu shrine, and once she flew to
Pittsburgh after a tough session with Quaker Oats executives to pray at a
shrine there to her family's deity. Her predictions that her American graduate
education would hamper her marriage prospects proved untrue, for she married an
Indian man, Raj, who works as a management consultant. They have two daughters
who are nearly a decade apart in ages, and Nooyi occasionally brings her
younger child to work. The former rock guitarist is still known to take the
stage at company functions to sing. Her job, however, remains a top priority.
She watches championship-game replays of the Chicago Bulls to
study teamwork concepts, for example, and admitted to Forbes journalist Melanie Wells that
she strategizes 24-7 sometimes. "I wake up in the middle of the
night," she told the magazine, "and write different versions of
PepsiCo on a sheet of paper."
8. Warren Buffett,
Berkshire Hathaway
– He is a deeply conservative trader during the times that everyone around him
is moving from one extreme to the other to the tune of huge losses and gains.
Warren Buffett is a perfect example of patience, proving that slow and steady
generally wins the business race. (Although I continue to press my own desire
to spur Fishbowl’s inventory software business to race!)
Warren Buffett Biography
(1930–)
Synopsis
Businessman
and investor Warren Buffett was born on August 30,1930, in Omaha, Nebraska.
Investing by age 11, Buffett was running a small business at 13. Buffett later
started the firm Buffett Partnership in Omaha, with huge success. In 2006,
Buffett announced that he would give his entire fortune away to charity (est.
$62 bil.), the largest act of charitable giving in United States history.
Businessman
and investor. Born Warren Edward Buffett on August 30,1930, in Omaha, Nebraska.
Buffett's father Howard worked as stockbroker and served as U.S. Congressman.
His mother, Leila Stahl Buffett, was a homemaker. Buffett was the second of
three children and the only boy.
Buffett
demonstrated a knack for financial and business matters early on in his
childhood. Friends and acquaintances have said the young boy was a mathematical
prodigy, and was able to add large columns of numbers in his head-a talent he
still occasionally shows off to friends and business associates.
Warren
often visited his father's stockbrokerage shop as a child, and chalked in the
stock prices on the blackboard in the office. At 11 years old he made his first
investment; he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 per
share. The stock quickly dropped to only $27, but Buffett held on tenaciously
until they reached $40. He sold his shares at a small profit, but regretted the
decision when Cities Service shot up to nearly $200 a share. He later cited
this experience as an early lesson in patience in investing.
First
Entrepreneurial Venture
By
the age of 13, Buffett was running his own businesses as a paperboy and selling
his own horseracing tip sheet. That same year, he filed his first tax return,
claiming his bike as a $35 tax deduction.
In
1942, Buffett's father was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and
his family moved to Fredricksburg, Virginia, to be closer to the congressman's
new post. Buffett attended Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C., where
he continued plotting new ways to make money. During his high school tenure, he
and a friend purchased a used pinball machine for $25. They installed it in a
Washington, D.C. barbershop and, within a few months, the profits of the
machine allowed Buffett and his friend to buy other machines. Buffett owned
three machines in three different locations before he sold the business to a
War Veteran for $1,200.
Buffett
enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 16 to study business.
He stayed two years, moved to the University of Nebraska to finish up his
degree, and emerged from college at age 20 with nearly $10,000 from his
childhood businesses.
Buffett attended
Columbia University for his advanced degree and in 1956, shortly after
graduation, he formed the firm Buffett Partnership in his hometown of Omaha.
His investment successes, particularly in buying undervalued companies whose
stocks shortly began to rise, made him extremely rich and gained him the
sobriquet, "Oracle of Omaha." Other notable career succeses include
helping rescue Salomon Brothers from raiders (1987) and taking charge of the
New York City house (1992) in the wake of an insider trading scandal.
In June 2006,
Buffett made an announcement that he would be giving his entire fortune away to
charity, committing 85 percent of it to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
This donation became the largest act of charitable giving in United States
history.
The majority of
Buffett's considerable fortune was amassed through Berkshire Hathaway, a
company for which he is the largest shareholder and CEO. Once ranked as Forbes'
wealthiest man in 2008, his net worth was estimated at roughly $44 billion in
2012.
Now in his
eighties, Buffett recently announced that he is battling prostate cancer. He
will begin treatment in July 2012 and expects to be able to fulfill his usual
responsibilities at Berkshire Hathaway. "I feel great ... and my energy
level is 100 percent," Buffett said in a statement.
In February 2013,
Buffett purchased HJ Heinz with private equity group 3G Capital for $28
billion. 3G, a U.S.-Brazilian company, also owns Burger King and a portion of
Anheuser-Busch InBev. According to TIME magazine, Buffett has praised
Heinz for making "great-tasting products" and for good management
over the past several years.
9. Sir
Richard Branson, Virgin
Group – Anyone who owns more than 400 companies and is worth
billions of dollars is clearly doing many things right. I admire Richard
Branson’s tenacity, and I admire his personal brand—so much so, that when my
paired leadership partner, Mary
Michelle Scott, and I recently traveled to Australia with several of our
team in our launch of Fishbowl Australia, we made the effort and kept the
commitment to fly with Virgin Airlines every step of the way.
Richard Branson Biography
(1950–)
Synopsis
Born
on July 18, 1950, in Surrey, England, Richard Branson struggled in school and
dropped out at age 16—a decision that ultimately lead to the creation of Virgin
Records. His entrepreneurial projects started in the music industry and
expanded into other sectors making Branson a billionaire. His Virgin Group
holds more than 200 companies, including the recent Virgin Galactic, a
space-tourism company. Branson is also known for his adventurous spirit and
sporting achievements, including crossing oceans in a hot air balloon.
Early Life
Richard
Charles Nicholas Branson was born on July 18, 1950, in Surrey, England. His
father, Edward James Branson, worked as a barrister. His mother, Eve Branson,
was employed as a flight attendant. Richard, who struggled with dyslexia, had a
hard time with educational institutions. He nearly failed out of the all-boys
Scaitcliffe School, which he attended until the age of 13. He then transferred
to Stowe School, a boarding school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England.
Still
struggling, Branson dropped out at the age of 16 to start a youth-culture
magazine called Student. The publication, run by students, for students,
sold $8,000 worth of advertising in its first edition, which was launched in
1966. The first run of 50,000 copies was disseminated for free, after Branson
covered the costs with advertising.
By
1969, Branson was living in a London commune, surrounded by the British music
and drug scene. It was during this time that Branson had the idea to begin a
mail-order record company called Virgin to help fund his magazine efforts. The
company performed modestly, but made Branson enough that he was able to expand
his business venture, adding a record shop in Oxford Street, London. With the
success of the record shop, the high school drop-out was able to build a
recording studio in 1972 in Oxfordshire, England.
His
first artist on the Virgin Records label, Mike Oldfield, recorded his single
"Tubular Bells" in 1973 with the help of Branson's team. The song was
an instant smash, staying on the UK charts for 247 weeks. Using the momentum of
Oldfield's success, Branson then signed other aspiring musical groups to label,
including the Sex Pistols. Artists such as the Culture Club, the Rolling
Stones, and Genesis would follow, helping to make Virgin Music one of the top
six record companies in the world.
Branson
expanded his entrepreneurial efforts yet again, this time to include the travel
company the Voyager Group in 1980, the airline Virgin Atlantic in 1984, and a
series of Virgin Megastores. But Branson's success was not always predictable.
By 1992, Virgin was suddenly struggling to stay financially afloat. The company
was sold later that year to THORN EMI for $1 billion.
Branson
was crushed by the loss, reportedly crying after the contract was signed, but
remained determined to stay in the music business. In 1993, he founded the
station Virgin Radio, and several years later he started a second record company,
V2. Founded in 1996, V2 now includes artists such as Powder Finger and Tom
Jones.
Branson's
Virgin Group now holds more than 200 companies in more than 30 countries,
including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Asia,
Europe and South Africa. He has expanded his businesses to include a train
company, a luxury game preserve, a mobile phone company and a space-tourism
company, Virgin Galactic.
Branson is also
known for his sporting achievements, notably the record-breaking Atlantic crossing
in Virgin Atlantic Challenger II in 1986, and the crossing by hot-air balloon
of the Atlantic (1987) and Pacific (1991). He was knighted in 1999 for his
contribution to entrepreneurship, and in 2009, he landed at No. 261 on Forbes'
"World Billionaires" list with his $2.5 billion in self-made fortune,
which includes two private islands.
In recent years,
the ever-adventurous Branson has focused much of his attention on his space
tourism venture. He partnered with Scaled Composites to form The Spaceship
Company, which is currently developing a suborbital spaceplane, and, in April
2013, the project made an impressive leap forward with the test launch of SpaceShipTwo.
Branson was
delighted by the success of his spaceship's first test, telling NBC News that
"We're absolutely delighted that it broke the sound barrier on its very
first flight, and that everything went so smoothly." He expects to be
finishing testing the craft by the end of 2013. By April 2013, more than 500
people had bought their tickets for Virgin Galactic's voyages.
Branson is married
to his second wife, Joan Templeman, with whom he has two children: Holly and
Sam. He currently lives in London, England.
10. Rupert Murdoch,
News Corporation –
Rupert Murdoch is a self-made and hard driven Australia-born head of an
American publishing dynasty, as the founder, chairman and CEO of News
Corporation. He continues to work unbelievably hard at an age when most would
have retired long ago. In the midst of accusation and scandal he’s needed to
find new strength to face the accusation of bribery, corruption and hacking by
subsidiary firms. This news is still breaking, as Rupert resigns from the
boards of several of the subsidiary companies involved. Regardless of the
outcome, the work ethic and sheer tenacity Rupert Murdoch has shown in the face
of adversity continues to serve as an example to all.
Rupert Murdoch Biography
Publisher (1931–)
Synopsis
Rupert
Murdoch was born on March 11, 1931, in Melbourne, Australia. His father was a famous
war correspondent and newspaper publisher. Murdoch inherited his father's
papers, the Sunday Mail and the News, and continued to purchase
other media outlets over the years. In the 1970s, he started buying American
newspapers. Murdoch branched out into entertainment with the purchase of 20th
Century FOX Film Corp. in 1985. He later launched his own cable news channel,
FOX News.
Keith
Rupert Murdoch was born on March 11, 1931, on a small farm about 30 miles south
of Melbourne, Australia. Since birth, Murdoch has gone by his middle name,
Rupert, the name of his maternal grandfather. His father, Keith Murdoch, was a
well-known Australian journalist who owned a number of local and regional
newspapers: the Herald in Melbourne, the Courier-Mail in
Brisbane, and the News and Sunday Mail.
The
family farm was named Cruden Farm, after the Scottish village from which both
of Murdoch's parents had emigrated. The house at Cruden Farm was a stone
building with colonial pillars, adorned with original paintings, a grand piano
and a library of books, situated amongst green expanses of farmland and
bordered by Ghost Gum trees. Murdoch's favorite childhood pastime was horseback
riding. His mother later described her son's childhood: "I think it was a
very normal childhood, not in any way elaborate or an overindulged one. I
suppose he was lucky to be brought up in attractive—you could say
aesthetic—surroundings."
The
son of a well-respected journalist, Murdoch was groomed to enter the world of
publishing from a very young age. He remembers, "I was brought up in a
publishing home, a newspaper man's home, and was excited by that, I suppose. I
saw that life at close range, and after the age of ten or twelve never really
considered any other." Murdoch graduated from Geelong Grammar, a
prestigious Australian boarding school, in 1949 before crossing the ocean to
attend Worcester College at Oxford University in England. According to one of
his early biographers, Murdoch was a "a normal, red-blooded college student
who had many friends, chased girls, went on the usual drinking binges, engaged
in slapdash horseplay, tried at sports and never had enough money, no doubt due
to his gambling." Murdoch's fun-loving youthful ways came to an abrupt end
when his father suddenly passed away in 1952, leaving his son the owner of his
Adelaide newspapers, the News and the Sunday Mail. After
preparing himself with a brief apprenticeship under Lord Beaverbrook at the Daily
Express in London, in 1953, a 22-year-old Murdoch returned to Australia to
take up the reins of his father's papers.
Immediately
upon assuming control of the Sunday Mail and the News, Murdoch
immersed himself in all aspects of the papers' daily operations. He wrote
headlines, redesigned page layouts and labored in the typesetting and printing
rooms. He quickly converted the News into a chronicle of crime, sex and
scandal, and while these changes were controversial, the paper's circulation
soared. Only three years later, in 1956, Murdoch expanded his operations by
purchasing the Perth-based Sunday Times, and revamped it in the
sensationalist style of the News. Then, in 1960, Murdoch broke into the
lucrative Sydney market by purchasing the struggling afternoon daily, the Mirror,
and slowly transforming it into Sydney's best-selling afternoon paper.
Encouraged by his success and harboring ambitions of political influence, in
1965 Murdoch founded Australia's first national daily paper, the Australian,
which helped to rebuild Murdoch's image as a respectable news publisher.
In
the fall of 1968, 37 years old and owner of an Australian news empire valued at
$50 million, Murdoch moved to London and purchased the enormously popular
Sunday tabloid, The News of the World. One year later, he purchased a
struggling daily tabloid, the Sun, once again transformed the paper into
a wild success with his formula of reporting heavily on sex, sports and crime.
The Sun also attracted readers by including pictures of topless women in its
infamous "Page 3" feature.
Murdoch
next expanded his news empire to the United States, with the 1973 acquisition
of a Texas-based tabloid, the San Antonio News. As he had done in
Australia and England, Murdoch quickly set out to expand across the country,
founding a national tabloid, the Star, in 1974 and purchasing the New
York Post in 1976. In 1979, Murdoch founded News Corporation, commonly
referred to as News Corp., as a holding company for his various media
properties.
Throughout
the 1980s and 1990s, Murdoch acquired news outlets around the globe at a
dizzying pace. In the United States, he bought up the Chicago Sun-Times,
the Village Voice and New York magazine. In England, he acquired
the eminently respectable Times and Sunday Times of London.
It
was also during these years that Murdoch began expanding his media empire into
television and entertainment. In 1985, he purchased 20th Century FOX Film
Corporation as well as several independent television stations and consolidated
these companies into FOX, Inc.—which has since become a major American
television network. In 1990, he founded STAR TV, a Hong Kong-based television
broadcasting company that broadcasts to over 320 million viewers across Asia.
Throughout the late 1980s, he purchased several prestigious American and
British academic and literary publishing companies and consolidated them into
HarperCollins in 1990. Murdoch has also invested in sports; he is a part owner
of the Los Angeles Kings NHL franchise, the Los Angeles Lakers NBA franchise
and the Staples Center, as well as FOX Sports Radio and FOXSports.com.
With
the dawn of the new century, Murdoch continued to expand News Corp's holdings
to control more and more of the media people view on a daily basis. In 2005, he
purchased Intermix Media, the owner of the popular social networking site
MySpace.com. Two years later, in 2007, the longtime newspaper mogul made
headlines himself with the purchase of Dow Jones, the owner of the Wall
Street Journal.
Murdoch
has drawn wide criticism for monopolizing control over international media
outlets as well as for his conservative political views, which are often
reflected in the reporting of Murdoch-controlled outlets such as FOX News
Channel. In the 2010 American midterm elections, News Corp donated $1 million
each to the Republican Governors Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
a group supporting Republican candidates. Critics argued that the owner of
major news sources covering the election should not contribute directly to the
political campaigns involved.
His
empire, however, was dealt a significant blow in 2011. His London tabloid, The
News of the World, was caught up in a phone hacking scandal. Several
editors and journalists were brought up on charges for illegally accessing the
voicemails of some of Britain's leading figures. Rupert himself was called to
testify that same year, and he shut down The News of the World. News
Corp later paid damages to some of individuals who were hacked.
Despite
this scandal, News Corp retains a significant share of virtually all forms of
media across the globe. Murdoch owns many of the books and newspapers people
read, the television shows and films they watch, the radio stations they listen
to, the websites they visit, and the blogs and social networks they create. In
2013, he announced a significant restructuring of his empire. Murdoch has
decided to divide his business into two companies—21st Century FOX Inc. and
News Corp. This move separates his entertainment holdings from his publishing
interests. According to the Los Angeles Times, Murdoch explained that
"Both companies will be uniquely positioned to execute on their respective
strategic objectives and to lead their industries forward."
Although
he could never have imagined the power he would one day yield, this kind of
influence was exactly what Murdoch sought as a young publisher building his
empire. "I sensed the excitement and the power," he recalls.
"Not raw power, but the ability to influence at least the agenda of what
was going on." And after six decades working in the media, Murdoch has
said that he could not imagine his life any other way. "If you're in the
media, particularly newspapers, you are in the thick of all the interesting
things that are going on in a community, and I can't imagine any other life
that one would want to dedicate oneself to," he said.
Personal
Life
Rupert
Murdoch married Patricia Booker in 1956. They had a daughter, Prudence, before
divorcing in 1965. He married Anna Torv in 1967, and they had four children
before eventually divorcing in 1999. Only 17 days after his second divorce,
Murdoch married his third wife, Wendi Deng. They have two children.
Murdoch
filed for divorce from Deng in June 2013, citing that the "relationship
between husband and wife had broken down irretrievably" in court papers.
The news of the split came as a surprise to some, but there had some rumors of
trouble in the marriage in recent years. The couple has a prenuptial agreement,
but many have speculated that there may still be a battle for his billions.
