Famous MBA Alumni in Finance And Philanthropy
Our series on famous MBA alumni has uncovered the stories of tech giants and retail innovators, leading us through fast tracks to fame as well as quirky success stories. To wrap it all up, we’ll be looking at two of the largest names of them all. The heads of JP Morgan and the Gates Foundation – two very famous organizations, with worldwide impact and influence, and with potentially very different outlooks. Two organizations where, once again, the professional journeys of both their leaders can be traced back to an MBA.
Read on to learn more on what these world-shaping leaders studied and how it got them where they are today.
Melinda Gates, Gates Foundation, Duke Fuqua MBA Class of 1987 
Melinda Gates needs little introduction. A household name, she is known the world over for her philanthropy, her business acumen and her advocacy for those who need it most.
Gates completed a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Economics at Duke, then moved directly over to Duke Fuqua to pursue her MBA. The 10 years that followed saw her lead and develop multimedia products at Microsoft, before exiting the company and turning her attention to philanthropy. She became co-chair of the Gates Foundation with her husband, Bill Gates, a foundation that attempted to honor the belief that every person “should have the chance to live a healthy, productive life”. She worked to shape the strategies and directions of the foundation until her resignation in May 2024.
These days, she has announced her plan to focus specifically on reversing the rollback of women’s rights in the US and across the globe. The move is the latest in a long history of her advocacy for gender equality, with impacts that include 57% reductions in maternal deaths in Ethiopia; investment in businesses that champion paid family leave; and initiatives that aim to close the gender pay gap in tech.
Melinda Gates’ philanthropic work has earnt her spots on Forbes’ list of the World’s Most Powerful Women and even Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented to her and Bill Gates by Barack Obama in 2016.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, HBS Class of 1982
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The list of Jamie Dimon’s accomplishments is long. As Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, he is one of the few bank CEOs to join the list of billionaires. His career trajectory is marked by critical quick thinking and strategic expertise, turning the $511 million loss of 2000 at Bank One into earnings of $3.5 billion by 2003, engineering its sale to JP Morgan and steering the latter through the financial crisis in 2008.
The groundwork for Dimon’s success was laid in his time at Harvard Business School, where he was rumored to have numbered amongst the most prepared of the prestigious school’s students. The preparation appears to have paid off, since he graduated from HBS with an MBA in 1982 and was awarded the position of Baker Scholar – meaning he was in the top 5% of his class.
