Why are history majors successful in business careers?

“I was asked to speak to a college business class. During my lecture, I told the class they should stop studying business and start studying history . . . I was never invited back. In business, one must understand where their market has been and where it is going. Through the exploration of history, a person can analyze these trends.” 

—Ernie Fletcher, former governor of Kentucky, The Unbridled World of Ernie Fletcher

“Studying history teaches us not just about what happened in the past that we perceive in the present, but also better enables us to identify possible futures.” 

—M. Aoki, G. Roland, and Timur Kuran, eds. Institutions and Comparative Economic Development

“I actually studied history . . . Economics is meaningless without its historical context. I may have focused less on theory and more on practice, but I quickly learnt that profit, growth, and achievement are constants of human action, regardless of whether you are concerned with the past or the present.” 

—Andrew Gillespie, Business Economics

“The decision to major in history helped me tremendously because one thing I have always believed—and I believe it now even more—is that history repeats itself. We really cannot know where we are going unless we know where we have been. The study of American history and business history will help students tremendously in the business world.” 

—Andre Farr, Chairman & CEO, Black Sports Agents Association (BSAA), quoted in Matthew J. Robinson, Profiles of Sport Industry

“In his classic book, Investment Policy, Charles Ellis proposed that ‘thoughtful, objective study of the past is the best way to develop an understanding of the basic nature of investments and markets.’” 

—Charles B. Epstein, Managed Futures in the Institutional Portfolio

“History is a unique mentor. It provides a type of hindsight that gives insight for today and foresight for tomorrow. . . . the pursuit of history offers wisdom for doing business and equips leaders to leverage the past to help their organizations thrive. Leaders and managers are tasked with creating solutions to new challenges while anticipating future problems. They are expected to be forward thinking. Yet all decisions come from previous experiences, lessons learned from the past, and earlier organizational models that can be adapted to new circumstances. History provides the contexts and clues to discern the proper trajectories for the future. . . . leaders and managers who think and act like historians will have deeper wells of knowledge and understanding from which to make meaningful comparisons, and subsequently better judgment calls, about people and events. History is instructive in that it reveals patterns in human behavior that transcend time. It also points to shared values that provide organizations a sense of continuity through changing circumstances. . . History trains the mind to identify patterns, understand trends, and make meaningful comparisons that are useful when planning for the future. . . . history can serve a diagnostic role for future planning, establishing patterns that identify a sense of continuity that are essential to organizational strength, but also isolating cycles that can help leaders anticipate future trends. . . . Any effort at planning for the future requires understanding the patterns that shape the present. . . . History cannot predict the future, but it can use the past to explain current trends and point to potential trajectories or outcomes based on previous experiences. It can also use parallel experiences form the past to evaluate current ideas and actions. . . . History can take various roles in building a picture that is both faithful to the past and useful for present purposes.” 

—Mark Blincoe and John R. Shoup, History and Leadership: The Nature and Role of the Past

“ . . . ask the right historical and contextual questions (e.g., What are the past failures and successes of the company and its personnel? How did the company get to its present situation? What is the historical relationship of labor and management? What stages of the business life cycle has the company experienced?), and answers to these questions give you perspective and guide you in your decision-making processes and strategic planning activities. As Harvard business history professor Richard Tedlow has stated, ‘studying history helps give you some idea of the domain over which managers actually do have power and influence. It helps you see where you can have an effect. It helps you understand what happened—and what can happen.’” 

—Damon P.S. Andrew and Paul M. Pedersen, Research Methods and Design in Sport Management

“Believe it or not, most college history majors go into business, management, finance, and sales. Bill is the director of operations at the largest textbook publishing company in the world. He is responsible for inventory management for the company’s elementary and secondary school division. Bill leads a team that manages more than 800,000 different titles. He is always looking to hire history majors because ‘they think differently.’ As we have heard from others, historians are able to take pieces of information or data and present them in a way that empowers business executives in their day-to-day work. . . . Business majors, Bill notes are very good at ‘digging up facts,’ but history majors are able to tell him how the various facts relate to one another.” 

—John Fea, Why Study History?

“Leaders and managers who think historically will make more meaningful comparisons, and subsequently better judgment calls, when developing strategies for the future. . . . An organization’s history is also deeply embedded in the larger social, political, and economic settings that influence its scope and function. Those with a clearer understanding of the way that the present is connected to the past will make better decisions.” 

—Mark Blincoe and John R. Shoup, History and Leadership: The Nature and Role of the Past

“Studying history teaches us not just about what happened in the past that we perceive in the present, but also better enables us to identify possible futures”. 

—M. Aoki, G. Roland, and Timur Kuran, eds. Institutions and Comparative Economic Development

“Research on business executives shows that the further back you look, the further ahead you can see. . . . Success is the summation of many rational and irrational elements. You take only one chance to be successful, but you take a thousand chances to fail. While success is more rare and idiosyncratic, failure is common and more likely to follow a pattern. So if we study leadership in history, we better study failures. They give us a lot of better lessons than studying successes. . . . So to me studying history is a way we learn from other people’s blunders, failures and fumbles, and try to avoid them.”

—Lan Liu, Conversations on Leadership: Wisdom from Global Management Gurus

“. . . studying history is the best approach to understanding the interaction between economics and other social phenomena. . . most of the significant mistakes made by economists are due to their lack of ‘historical experience.’ More generally, all knowledge is essentially built on comparisons over time.” 

—Thierry de Montbrial, Action and Reaction in the World System

“Studying history allows us to learn about mistakes made in the past so that they can be avoided in the future. Furthermore, it allows us to learn of past successes so that they can be repeated in the appropriate future situations.” 

—Pamela S. Lewis, Stephen H. Goodman, and Patricia M. Fandt, Management: Challenges in the 21st Century

“Studying history can make us more aware of path dependence, and awareness is the first step to breaking the shackles and innovating our way toward something new.” 

—Morgen Witzel, A History of Management Thought

“. . . ‘thinking historically’ serves a variety of useful purposes: it provides an effective safeguard against corporate amnesia (and the associated problems of repeating the same mistakes or endlessly re-inventing the wheel) and provides invaluable learning from past experiences. It helps people to become aware of the vicious circles in which their thinking may be trapped. It also leads them to a different awareness of their present, which in turn leads them to ask different questions about their future: ‘Why this, and why now?.’ ‘How did we come to this?’” 

—Paul Bate, Strategies for Cultural Change

“Querying historical movements, often seemingly unrelated, reveals clusters that in some way may reappear and be useful in cultivating an entrepreneurial mind.” 

—Alain-Philippe Durand and Christine Henseler, The Entrepreneurial Humanities

“I was a history major in college and I learned to research, organize, coordinate, and create a battle plan. So whether you are doing a history paper, or you are preparing to respond to an RFP at the Cleveland Convention Center, a lot of it is very similar. You must be connecting the dots, creating the story, and then selling it. Whether you want to get an A in history or a management contract in Cleveland, you should have your resources focused on that objective. So, research, communication, staying updated in the industry, being aware of what your competition is doing, how to improve upon that, and how to offer a better ‘mousetrap’ are all critical skills because you are always competing.” 

—“Leadership Perspective” featuring Frank Russo, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Client Relations for Global Spectrum, in John F. Burton, Sport Leadership in the 21st Century

“Rob Dyer, head of recruitment at Deloitte, insists that non-business and non-finance graduates make very good employees because they often have different thought processes. ‘If they’ve studied history, for example, their research skills give them a huge boost. They’re self-starters—they’re used to going away, studying on their own, and coming back with a view. These are important skills for us,’ Dyer says. Dyer’s sentiments are substantiated by recruiters at other firms, such as Goldman Sachs, where liberal arts graduates constitute the largest group of employees and significantly outnumber those with undergraduate degrees in business or finance.” 

—Andrew Belasco, The Enlightened College Applicant: A New Approach

“Any good and well-rounded liberal arts education is a strong foundation for business. Ultimately, you have to be able to write, speak, and think. Still, for me, history is singularly the best discipline for success in business. In history, you learn and become immersed in why people and groups do things over an extended period of time. History validates that people and organizations act in clear, recognizable patterns. You also learn about human nature. Behavior becomes very predictable, which is vital to understand in business because you have to be able to anticipate how people will behave; you have to stay ahead of actions.” 

—John Fea, Why Study History?

“[History majors] explore the tension between labor and management, immigrants and nativists, or any of the countess groups in opposition. You develop a keen sense of how coalitions form and conflicts get resolved. In any of these disciplines, you balance competing ideas in your own mind; you create carefully calibrated models that take the whole picture into account. Know what makes other people tick, and you can steer through complex situations skillfully. “Most liberal arts majors have a conscience—or at least they have been taught the basis for forming one,” a Chicago hiring manager told me in the midst of a long conversation about his firm’s recruiting practices. He wasn’t trying to malign people with preprofessional degrees. But he was trying to help me gain a deeper understanding of the reasons why an aptitude for reading the room makes business sense.”

—George Anders, You Can Do Anything

“History isn’t a series of blind facts registered by an unbiased cosmic recording device. It’s a string of very personal events experienced by emotional, fallible human beings. If you want to understand what really happened and how it impacted people, whether it was 100 years ago or earlier this morning, you might need more than one source. And for the sources you do use, it might behoove you to know a little about who they are and why they might have seen things the way they did.” 

—Paul Smith, Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale

“Duke University professor Robert J. Thompson argues that liberal education could provide an appropriate model for developing ‘intellectual and personal skills with the traditional professional and technical focus on solving complex problems.’ And Macalester College president Brian Rosenberg ‘believes an English or a history major may be more practical, in the long run, than a business or accounting degree.’" 

—William Moner, Phillip Motley, and Rebecca Pope-Ruark, Redesigning Liberal Education: Innovative Design for a Twenty-First Century Undergraduate Education

“Over three decades of working with history majors, I’d estimate that less than one in five have gone on to become history teachers or to work in closely related fields such as museum studies, archive management, or historical preservation. The vast majority have taken different paths: in banking, financial planning, and insurance; in library science and computer science; in the national park service or the foreign service; in film production, law enforcement, and public affairs; in medicine, the ministry, or the military. Others are earning their bread as journalists, attorneys, firefighters, chefs, pilots, social workers, urban planners, and community organizers. The explanation for this should be obvious. The academic study of history is less a gateway to a particular occupation than a stepping stone to lifelong learning. Yet its practical benefits include an array of intellectual skills that are integral to any number of occupations. These include the ability to read closely, think analytically, argue logically, and communicate persuasively. The evidence that these are among the traits that employers most highly value is overwhelming. A recent survey of employers found that 93 percent agreed that ‘a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than [a job candidate’s] major.’” 

—Robert Tracy McKenzie, A Little Book for New Historians: Why and How to Study History

“A relatively straightforward fix [to the management problem in global business] is to employ more history graduates. . . . This line of thinking thus creates two parallel training needs in organizations. One is to develop the capability to train people in business who have studied history and liberal arts, such that they will be able to succeed and rise to senior management. The other will be to develop training programs for managers to help them understand global complexity, and perhaps prepare them for geo-political disruption.” 

—Mike Rosenberg, Strategy and Geopolitics: Understanding Global Complexity

“I studied Modern History . . . Enjoyed myself and got on with my chess career. Again, history is quite different from finance, but there’s lots of disciplines that studying history teaches you that apply to finance as well. The key is to draw on all kinds of sources. If I sit down to do a business deal I wouldn’t think I am a chess player, I wouldn’t think I am a historian, but I am sure the experience of all of them helps me a lot. It teaches you to look at problems in a more balanced way.” 

—Gary Kasparov, quoted in Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, The Day Kasparov Quit

“Sometimes, humility is the hidden virtue employers want. During college, Joe Indvik struggled to pin down the accuracy of follies of Herodotus’s ancient histories. Indvik came up with some intriguing ideas but also conceded that in certain areas, ‘We just don’t know.’ Now he works in Washington, DC, as an environmental consultant, advising the Department of Energy and an assortment of start-ups. Many engagements involve bridging different viewpoints on the same problem, in the same way that a historian unravels conflicting narratives. ‘Sometimes, the right answer is the midpoint of all the viewpoints. Sometimes, a viewpoint is just plain wrong. I find that the best leaders are humble enough to understand when their behavior is part of the very problem they are trying to solve.’ 

—George Anders, You Can Do Anything

“ ‘Study accounting and you’ll become an accountant. I studied history and I run the company.’ Well, it wasn’t just studying history that paved the way for this liberal arts graduate’s professional success, of course. She had plenty of transferable skills from other work and volunteer experiences, a keen sense of where the industry was going and, when coupled with the classic traits of the liberal arts—research, writing, creative problem-solving—her ascendancy to leadership was inevitable.” 

—Donald Asher, quoting a Wheaton alumna and CEO of a Boulder, Colorado, software company, in Cool Colleges

“The trajectory of my own career is based on writing. I studied history in school, not business. . . . Writing is a very marketable skill. I could sit across the table from a client and say, ‘Hey, look, I can create a sentence, a paragraph, an article, or whatever you need to convey your idea or message.’ That’s a valuable commodity. . . . There’s no leadership without clear communication. In order to rise in an organization like Citigroup you must be able to convey your ideas to large numbers of people in an understandable, concise, and appealing way. Leaders must be persuasive communicators in order to inspire others to help them achieve their goals. That’s accomplished, in most instances, through a combination of writing and speaking.” 

—Kevin Ryan, Write Up the Corporate Ladder

“Historians are trained to build an understanding of people within their own context, determine the factors that shaped their decisions, and evaluate the impact of those decisions on the immediate and distant future. They also identify parallel experiences across time to compare how people managed similar dilemmas. As a way of knowing, history does far more than explain why things happen. It offers a vast experience beyond what any individual can generate through their own personal encounters. . . . a broader sense of history provides valuable insight into leadership. . . studying political leaders like Otto Von Bismark, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill provide case studies on effective leadership in context that can be applied to a corporate environment. Holger Seim, the CEO of the Berlin-based learning company Blinkist, suggests that young CEOs study a variety of part leaders to build the confidence to develop their organizations. . . . Good history can serve as didactic commentaries on the patterns and themes that shape life and provide poignant lessons on leadership . . . the logics of governing organizational life are rooted in history, which offers implications and best practices for leaders and managers to optimize their collective workforce. . . . [history facilitates] emotional and social intelligence, allowing leaders to make connections with their stakeholders and promote organizational identity, foster loyalty, and reinforce core values. . . . leaders who understand their company’s history are able to effectively maintain the core mission of their organizations while managing change. . . . the pursuit of history itself is an important aspect of good leadership. . . . all history is valuable for those in leadership. The issues historians write about ultimately intersect with the demands of political life, religious life, and business life. For example, any leader dealing with issues of race and gender as part of organizational strategy needs to engage with at least the results of historical inquiry, if not some of these studies themselves. Making productive changes to existing policies requires some knowledge of previous dynamics within societal networks. This requires an understanding of the research done by others and an investigation into the trends represented within an organization. Thus, history serves as at type of advisor to those in leadership. It presents different scenarios as a test for current dilemmas and offers a type of hindsight that shows possible outcomes to different solutions.” 

—Mark Blincoe and John R. Shoup, History and Leadership: The Nature and Role of the Past

“There is almost no phase of business life that can be successfully conducted without the benefit of humanistic values and insights . . . [S]tudying the humanities gives you a sense of perspective. In discussions of corporate management nowadays, we often find the word ‘stewardship’—and with good reason. Certainly, a corporation must serve the interest of its customers, employees, and shareholders. But that alone is not enough. In the cities and towns where its facilities are located, it must also act with a sense of responsibility of the natural environment, the economic health of the country, and ultimately, the welfare of future generations. People who have studied history and philosophy find it easy to maintain such a broad perspective. They know that what a corporation does can have moral implications that may reach far beyond the making of goods and the earning of profits . . . [To] thrive—even to survive—you have to be able to envision new things, as well as new ways of doing old things. You have to extrapolate on the basis of what worked in the past. You have to be able to organize and reorganize your operations to achieve economy and eliminate redundancy. And you need the power to imagine how the course of events might be changed, and by what kinds of intervention. In the information- and service-driven economy of the new century, the skills of the creative learner in utilizing new sources of information in new ways seem even more valuable to employers, public and non-profit agencies, and graduate programs.” 

—Howard Greene and Matthew W. Greene, The Hidden Ivies

Morten Albæk, founder and CEO, Voluntas A/S

Dwight W. Anderson, founder of Ospraie Management, global asset management

Binyamin Appelbaum, business and economics representative, New York Times editorial board

Ernest C. Arbuckle, former Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business

Claude Arpels, owner, Borbonese and Alessandro Dell’Acqua

Jim Bacchus, founding member & former chair, Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization

Alfred Bader, co-founder and former Chief Chemist, Aldrich Chemical Company

Bertrand Badre, founder and CEO, BlueOrange Capital

Bill Bain, management consultant; founder of Bain & Co.

Stewart W. Bainum, Jr., Chairman, Choice Hotels

Dean Baker, co-founder, Center for Economic and Policy Research

Peter Barnes, co-founder and former president, Working Assets Money Fund

George S. Barrett, former CEO, Cardinal Health

Eddie Basha, Jr., Chairman and CEO, Bashas’ Inc.

Jeff Bates, co-founder, Slashdot

Zai Bennett, director, Sky Atlantic

Simon Beresford-Wylie, CEO, Imagination Technologies

Laurent Berger, general secretary, French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT)

Susan MacTavish Best, CEO, Living MacTavish; founder, Best PR

Porter Bibb, investment banker and first publisher of Rolling Stone

William Birdthistle, Director, Division of Investment Management, SEC

Laszio Birinyi, Jr., founder of Birinyi Associates asset management

Joan Blades, co-founder, Berkeley Systems software

Ernie Blake, founder, Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico

Lloyd Blankfein, senior chairman and former Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs

Peter Boizot, founder, PizzaExpress

William Bortrick, chair and editor, Burke’s Peerage

Adam Bosworth, former Vice President of Product Management, Google

James W. Bradford, former CEO, AFG Industries and United Glass Corporation

Harry Brandon, founder and Chief Operating Officer, Smith Brandon International consulting

Matthew Brouillette, founder and president, Commonwealth Partners

Christopher H. Browne, former director, Tweedy, Browne investment firm

David Bunnell, founder, PC Magazine, PC World, and Macworld

Stewart Butterfield, founder, Ludicorp, creator of Flickr and Game Neverending

Wally Byam, founder of Airstream, Inc.

Ely Callaway, Jr., founder, Callaway Golf Company

Carmen Callil, founder, Virago Press

Jeff Campbell, former CEO, Burger King

Mitch Caplan, former CEO, E-Trade Financial Corporation

Michael Carey, co-founder, ATLAS Space Operations; CEO, AAC Microtec

Kent Carroll, publisher, Europa Editions, former Editor-in-Chief, Grove Press

Brian Cashman, General Manager and Senior Vice President, New York Yankees

Tom Cassidy, former CNN business reporter and anchor

Julie Chaiken, fashion designer, founder of Chaiken clothing line

John T. Chain, director, R.J. Reynolds, ConAgra, Kemper Insurance

T.K. Chand, Director, Vedanta Ltd.; former chair, NALCO

Kenneth Chenault, former CEO and Chairman, American Express

Julia Child, chef, entrepreneur, author

Anwar Chitayat, founder and former CEO and Chair, Anorad Corporation

Richard Clark, former president, CEO and chair, Merck Pharmaceuticals

Douglas Clayton, founder and CEO, Leopard Capital

James Click, General Manager, Houston Astros

Jared Cohen, President of Global Affairs, Goldman Sachs

Charles W. Coker, former president and CEO, Sonoco Products; director, Bank of America

Leonard S. Coleman, Jr., former President of the National League

Miles A. Copeland III, entertainment executive, manager of The Police

Lloyd Cotsen, former president and CEO, Neutrogena

John Coumantaros, chairman and former CEO, Flour Mills of Nigeria

Nancy Cruickshank, Chief Digital Officer, Carlsberg Group A/S

Patrick Cunnane, CEO, Advanced Sports International

Eric Daniels, former CEO, Lloyds Banking Group

William Danoff, portfolio manager, Fidelity Contrafund

Maureen Kempston Darkes, former president, General Motors International

Alexander Darwall, founder and manager, Devon Equity Management

Bob Davoli, Gutbrain Ventures, venture capital firm

Katherine August de Wilde, former president, First Republic Bank

William S. Dietrich II, founder and former chairman and CEO, Dietrich Industries

Bertis Downs IV, entertainment lawyer; R.E.M. manager

David Drummond, Sr. VP of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, Alphabet

Donna Dubinsky, PDA pioneer, former CEO, Palm; co-founder, Handspring & Numenta

Thomas L. Dunne, publisher, Executive Vice President, St. Martin’s Press

Blair Effron, financier, co-founder, Centerview Partners

Ian Bruce Eichner, real estate developer and founder, The Continuum Company, LLC

Inger McCabe Elliott, founder, China Seas, Inc.

Bob Ely, former president, SeafoodAlliance; founder, M&M Investors; former CEO, PayDQ

Ron Erickson, CEO, Visualant; co-founder, Microrim, GlobalVision, & Egghead Software

Paul Fang, Chairman and President, Midea Group

Eric Fanning, President and CEO, Aerospace Industries Association

Gerald Fauth, former Chairman, National Mediation Board

John Ferriter, former Executive Vice President, William Morris Agency

Peter R. Fisher, Senior Director, BlackRock Investment Institute

Richard B. Fisher, former President and Chairman, Morgan Stanley

Catherine Austin Fitts, Managing Director, Dillon, Read & Co.

Maurice Flanagan, founding CEO of Emirates; Executive Vice-Chair, The Emirates Group

William Clay Ford, Jr., Executive Chair, Ford Motor Company

Henrietta H. Fore, Chair and CEO, Holsman International management firm

Daniel Fournier, Chairman and CEO, Ivanhoe Cambridge

John B. Frank, Vice Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management

Bill Franke, co-founder and Managing Partner, Indigo Partners LLC; President, Franke & Co.

Brandon Friedman, former CEO, McPherson Square Group; co-founder, Rakkasan Tea

Fabrice Fries, Chairman and CEO, Agence France-Presse

Mark B. Fuller, co-founder, Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte)

Jayne-Anne Gadhia, founder and Executive Chairperson, Snoop; former CEO, Virgin Money

Maury Gallagher, CEO and Chairman, Allegiant Travel

Julian Geiger, former CEO, Aeropostale

Joey Ghazal, restaurateur, founder of Fighterbrands Holdings & Pine Tree State Trading Co.

Charles K. Gifford, chairman emeritus, Bank of America

Richard Gilder, head, Gilder, Gagnon, Howe brokerage; co-founder, Gilder Lehrman

Eric Gleacher, founder and former chairman, Gleacher & Co. Investments

Rick Goings, former chairman, Tupperware Brands

Dave Goldberg, founder of LAUNCH Media and former CEO, SurveyMonkey

David Goldhill, co-founder and CEO, Sesame; chair, Leapfrog Group

Jack Graham, founder, chairman and CEO, ICAT Holdings; former CEO, Paraline Group

Daniel Gross, editor-in-chief, strategy + business magazine

Wyc Grousbeck, majority owner, Boston Celtics

Howard M. Guttman, founder, Guttman Development Strategies

Oliver Haarmann, founding partner, Searchlight Capital Partners

John Hailer, former president and CEO, Natixis Global Asset Management

George Halvorson, former CEO, Kaiser Permanente

Bill Hambrecht, Chairman, WR Hambrecht & Co., architect of the Google IPO

Brad Handler, founder and chairman, Inspirato; first legal counsel for eBay

Carol Hansell, founder and senior partner, Hansell LLP consulting

Rachel Haot, Executive Director, Transit Innovation Partnership

Mihkel Harilaid, CEO and executive producer, Black Walk (television and film production)

Tristia Harrison, CEO, Talk Talk Group

Angela Hartnett, restauranteur and entrepreneur

Kevin Hartz, co-founder, Xoom

John Hatch, pioneer in modern microfinance, founder of FINCA International

Timothy Headington, CEO and owner, Headington Oil

Roger Headrick, former president, Minnesota Vikings

Sean Healey, Chairman and CEO, Affiliated Managers Group, asset management

Benjamin W. Heineman, Jr., former Senior Vice President and General Counsel, GE

John Hendricks, founder and former chair, Discovery, Inc., owner of TLC, Animal Planet

Steven M. Hilton, president, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

George A. Hirsch, magazine publisher; founder of the five-borough New York City Marathon

Saul Holiff, music promoter, manager for Johnny Cash

Edmund Hollander, President, Hollander Design Landscape Architects

James C. Hormel, former president, Hormel Foods

Chris Hughes, co-founder and former spokesperson, Facebook

T. Don Hutto, co-founder, Corrections Corporation of America

Jason Hyland, Senior Advisor, Dentons Global Advisors; former president of MGM Japan

Adi Ignatius, editor-in-chief, Harvard Business Review

David Bronson Ingram, Chairman and President, Ingram Entertainment; founder/chair, DBI

Martha Rivers Ingram, Chair and CEO, Ingram Industries

Bill Jemas, former president, Fleer Entertainment Group; former VP, Marvel Comics

Kelvin A. Jeremiah, President and CEO, Philadelphia Housing Authority

Willene Johnson, former Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

William D. Johnson, former president and CEO, Pacific Gas and Electric

David Kaiser, former president, Rockefeller Family Fund

Maria Kang, fitness advocate, coach, founder of No Excuse Mom

Kent Karosen, former president and CEO, Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation

Sam Kass, chef, entrepreneur, former Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition Policy

Kyle Kazan, CEO, Glass House Group; founder and chair, Beach Front Property

Gail Kelly, former CEO, Westpac; first female head of a top-fifteen Australian company

Theo Killion, former CEO, Zale Jewelers; former director, Jewelers of America

James Kilts, former CEO, Gillette Corporation

Richard H. Kimball, founding partner, Technology Crossover Ventures

Ian King, business journalist, host of Ian King Live on Sky News

Holly Kinser, President, The Kinser Group lobbying firm

Donald Knauss, former CEO, Clorox Corporation

Angus Knowles-Cutler, managing partner, Deloitte

Jonathan Kraft, President, The Kraft Group; President, New England Patriots

Jack Krumpe, former CEO, Madison Square Garden, NJ Sports, and Javits Center

Philip Lader, former chairman, WPP advertising and communications

Mitch Lasky, general partner, Benchmark Venture Capital; video game entrepreneur

Marc Lasry, co-founder and CEO, Avenue Capital Group; co-owner, Milwaukee Bucks

David Lazarus, business and consumer columnist, KTLA and Los Angeles Times

Alexandra Lebenthal, managing director, Rockefeller Capital Management

Christopher Lee, founder and Managing Partner, AIG Highstar Capital

Thomas Leonardi, director, American Council of Life Insurers, Athene Co-Invest

Diana Lindsay, founder and president, Sunbelt Publications

Alasdair Locke, chairman, Abbot Group

Stephan Loewentheil, founder and president, 19th Century Rare Book Shops

Chris Lowney, Chair, CommonSpirit Health; former managing director, JP Morgan

Peter Lynch, manager, Magellan Fund, Fidelity Investments

Michael Lynton, Chairman, Snap, Inc.; former Chair and CEO, Sony Pictures

John J. Mack, advisor, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts; former CEO and chair, Morgan Stanley

Mark Maremont, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, business journalist, Wall Street Journal

Vincent Marotta, co-creator of Mr. Coffee

Marsh Marshall, Chief Operating Officer, Periwinkle Trading LLC

Gracia Martore, chair, Associated Press; former president and CEO, Tegna and Gannett

Carolyn McCall, CEO, ITV; former CEO, EasyJet

Wendy McCaw, owner, Santa Barbara News-Press

Aubrey McClendon, founder, former CEO American Energy Partners and Chesapeake Energy

John B. McCoy, former president, Banc One and director of AT&T and Cardinal Health

Mike McDaniel, head coach, Miami Dolphins

Tom McEnery, part owner, San Jose Sharks

Roger McNamee, founding partner, Elevation Partners (VC firm) and Silver Lake Partners

Heidi Messer, President and Chief Operating Officer, LinkShare

Eric A. Meyer, Web consultant, advocate for CSS standards; co-founder, CSS Samurai

Robert W. Mixon, Jr., co-founder, Level Five Associates

Mahbod Moghadam, Internet entrepreneur, co-founder of Rap Genius

Patricia Moller, former investment banker, Smith Barney and Moller Global

David Montgomery, former chairman and president, Philadelphia Phillies

Beth E. Mooney, former CEO, KeyCorp; first woman to lead a major U.S. bank

Charlotte Moore, BBC Chief Content Officer

James J. Morgan, former CEO, Atari and of Philip Morris USA

Michael Moritz, venture capitalist, Sequoia Capital

Daniel Mudd, former president and CEO, Fannie Mae, and former CEO, Fortress IG

Patrick Mweheire, CEO, Standard Bank Group for Eastern Africa

Douglas Myers, former CEO and chairman, Lion Nathan

Tom Naratil, CEO, UBS Americas Holding LLC; co-president GWM

John L. Nau, Chairman and CEO, Silver Eagle Beverages

Paula Nickolds, CEO, The White Company

Daniel Ninivaggi, Executive Chairman, Lordstown Motors; former CEO, Icahn Enterprises

Charles Noell, founder, JMI Equity

Michelle Nunn, CEO of CARE USA

Robert Nutting, principal owner and chair of the board, Pittsburgh Pirates

Crispin Odey, founder, Odey Asset Management

Akin Ogunbiyi, Chairman, Mutual Benefits Assurance PLC

Sean O’Keefe, former chairman, Airbus Group

Tom Okman, co-founder, Tesonet and Nord Security (NordVPN)

Lee Olesky, co-founder, Chairman, and CEO, Tradeweb

Robert Orr, former President, Boeing Japan; former Vice President, Motorola

Sandra Palmer, IT entrepreneur, founder SSP APTEC, Soulmates

Samuel J. Palmisano, former chair of the board and CEO, IBM

George Paton, General Manager, Denver Broncos

Jim Paymar, financial correspondent and anchor, CNBC and BusinessWeek

Len Peach, Chief Executive, National Health Service, UK

Steven Peikin, Co-Director, Securities and Exchange Commission

Ron Pelosi, former president, Forward Funds and Webster Investment Management

Jonnie Penn, author and artificial intelligence researcher

Christopher Perrin, CEO and co-founder, Classical Academic Press

David Wendell Phillips, former CEO, Crunch Music; founder & former CEO, NaturalPath Media

Betsy Plank, founder, Betsy Plank Public Relations; “first lady of public relations”

Joe J. Plumeri, Vice Chair, First Data; former CEO, Willis Group Holdings

Alex Pomson, Managing Director, Rosov Consulting

Daniel J. Porter, Founder and CEO, Overtime digital sports media company

Jared Porter, former Executive Vice President and General Manager, New York Mets

Lewis Thompson Preston, former President of the World Bank

Jennifer Pritzker, investor, philanthropist; founder, Tawani Enterprises

Scotty Probasco, former Chair of the Executive Committee, SunTrust Bank

Eugene S. Pulliam, former publisher, Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News

Andrew Puzder, former CEO, CKE Restaurants

Romesh Ratnesar, Deputy Editor, Bloomberg Businessweek

Sigrid Rausing, owner, Granta magazine and Granta Books

William R. Rhodes, President and CEO, William R. Rhodes Global Advisors

Danny Rimer, Partner, Index Ventures, Silicon Valley venture capital specialist

Walter Robb, co-founder and former co-CEO, Whole Foods

Gordon P. Robertson, President, Christian Broadcasting Network

Burton Rocks, sports agent, C.L. Rocks Corporation

Jim Rogers, co-founder, Quantum Fund and Soros Fund Management; creator, RICI

Alison Rose, first British woman to lead a major bank; former CEO, NatWest Group

Evan Rosen, Executive Director, Culture of Collaboration Institute

John Rowe, chairman and CEO, Exelon Corporation

Wick Rowland, President and CEO emeritus, Colorado Public Television

J. Brendan Ryan, Vice Chair, FCB Worldwide advertising agency

David Sainsbury, Chair, Sainsbury supermarket chain

Marina Salamon, founder and president, Altana

John Sall, software developer; co-founder, SAS Institute, JMP stats

John B. Sams, former president of Air Force Systems, Boeing

Stephen Sanger, former chairman and CEO, General Mills; former director, Wells Fargo

Lauren Santo Domingo, co-founder and Chief Brand Officer, Moda Operandi

G.S. Sareen, CEO and President, Omni United Pte.

Christopher Sarofim, President, Sarofim International Management; Director, Sarofim Group

John Schneider, General Manager, Seattle Seahawks

Rock Scully, former manager of the Grateful Dead

George Seay, co-founder and chairman of Annandale Capital

Bud Selig, Commissioner of Baseball, 1998 – 2015

Adam Sender, hedge fund manager; founder, Exis Capital Management

Mark Shapiro, CEO, Toronto Bluejays

Evan Sharp, co-founder and chief design and creative officer, Pinterest

Stratford Shields, Managing Director, Loop Capital Markets

T. Russell Shields, Chair of Ygomi and CEO of RoadDB

Thomas Siebel, founder, Siebel Systems, CEO of C3.ai artificial intelligence software

Robert S. Silberman, former CEO, Strayer Education

Ben Silverman, co-CEO, Propagate

Janmejaya Sinha, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group, India

Daniel Smokler, Chief Innovation Officer, Hillel International

Jeff Smulyan, founder and CEO, Emmis Communications

Don Southerton, former CEO, Bridging Culture Worldwide

Clark Spencer, President, Walt Disney Animation Studios

Robert K. Steel, financier, former Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, New York City

Douglas Steenland, former President and CEO of Northwest Airlines

Hank Steinbrenner, co-chairman, New York Yankees

Greg Steinmetz, securities analyst, former finance reporter for Wall Street Journal

James T. Stephens, former president and chairman, EBSCO Industries

David Stern, NBA Commissioner, 1984 – 2014

Charles F. Stewart, CEO, Southeby’s

Howard Stringer, former President/CEO, Sony Corporation; former President of CBS

Dana Strong, CEO, Sky Group Media; former president, Xfinity

Amy Adams Strunk, controlling owner, Tennessee Titans

Gabriel Stulman, Founder and CEO, Happy Cooking Hospitality

Barry F. Sullivan, former Chairman and CEO, First Chicago

Justin Sun, cryptocurrency entrepreneur, founder of Tron

Steve Swindal, Chairman of Port Tampa Bay; former general partner, New York Yankees

Bryant Terry, chef, food justice activist; winner of the Beard Foundation Leadership Award

Ouigi Theodore, designer, stylist, entrepreneur Brooklyn Circus

David Thomson, chairperson, Thomson Reuters

John L. Thornton, Executive Chairman, Barrick Gold Corporation, PineBridge

David Tisch, angel investor; managing partner, BoxGroup; co-founder, TechStars

Samuel Tombs, Chief UK Economist, Pantheon Macroeconomics

Alan Tonelson, Research Fellow, U.S. Business and Industry Council

Michael Trope, sports agent, youngest agent in history to represent NFL players

Richard Uihlein, founder, Uline Company

Keven Undergaro, creator of online network AfterBuzz TV; film and TV writer

Tarjani Vakil, first woman to lead a major bank in India; former chair, Exim Bank

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, founder and CEO, Insurrection Media

Francesco Vianello, software reverse engineer

Natalie Villalobos, Head of Developer Inspiration and Inclusion at Google

Shazi Visram, Founder and CEO, Happy Family Brands

Pim van Vliet, head of conservative equities, Robeco Asset Management

Chris Vogelzang, CEO, Danske Bank

Philippe von Borries, co-founder, Refinery29; president, Lonely Planet

Philippe von Stauffenberg, CEO and founder, Greenback Recycling Technologies

George Herbert Walker IV, Chairman and CEO, Neuberger Berman

Robert Weil, Executive Editor and Vice President, W.W. Norton/Livright

Steve Westly, Managing Partner of The Westly Group, former state controller of California

William O. Wheatley, Jr., former Executive Vice President, NBC News

Jay Whitehead, Chairman/CEO of ReentryCenters.com; publisher, CRO

Meredith Whitney, financial forecaster known as “The Oracle of Wall Street”

Kevin Wilhelm, CEO, Sustainable Business Consulting

Lorraine Williams, TSR executive

Sevetri Wilson, Founder and CEO, Resilia

Brian Witkin, founder and CEO of Pacific Records

Morgen Witzel, management consultant, focusing on China

Neal S. Wolin, CEO, Brunswick Group

Guy Wyser-Pratte, head of Wyser-Pratte investment fund

Amy Wyss, trustee, National Outdoor Leadership School and the Wyss Foundation

Robert K. Yin, President, COSMOS Corporation

Peter A. Zandan, Executive Chairman, Quantified Communications

Jake Zim, Senior VP of Virtual Reality, Sony Pictures Entertainment

Robert Zoellick, 11th President of the World Bank Group

John Zogby, pollster, founder of the Zogby International Poll