Four MBA Holding World Leaders

Alexander De Croo:- Kellogg School of Management

Born in 1975, Alexander De Croo is a Kellogg School of Management MBA graduate who is also serving as the current Prime Minister of Belgium. Before his political career, De Croo worked for a prestigious consulting company named Boston Consulting Group.

The appointment of De Croo is in on itself a massive progress in Belgian politics: The country was not able to have a formal movement for almost two years. De Croo is exactly what divided countries such as Belgian needed for stabilization during a global pandemic.

De Croo is putting the management and business knowledge he gained from his MBA at Kellogg School of Management to test while leading Belgium’s National Security Council, which is the main government body responsible for handling the coronavirus pandemic. It is extremely hard to unite a government around very tough decisions such as lockdowns and curfews when historically the two regions in Belgium rarely agree on political decisions.

George W. Bush:- Harvard Business School

The president of the United States is the head of the state and the head of the executive branch of the federal government. To qualify for the position, Article II of the US constitution clearly states that a candidate must only be a natural-born citizen of the United States, at least 35 years, and a resident of the US for 14 years. There are no academic or job experience requirements for this job. However, the majority of candidates are Law school graduates from top Ivy League Law Schools such as Yale and Brown university.

Former President George H. Bush is partially an exception to the rule because he was an MBA graduate instead of a Law School graduate. The president graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA almost 25 years before he was elected.

Looking past his generalist, big picture, and highly delegative style of management, it is very clear that it matches the training and approach taught at Harvard. So, is a Harvard MBA an appropriate training for any person wishing to manage massive corporations or countries?  According to George Bush himself, Harvard was a turning point for him professionally. The school taught him the principles of capital, risk, and management.

 After graduating with an MBA from Harvard Business School, George W. Bush worked for many years in the oil business, owned the Texas Rangers, became the governor of Texas, then survived two long terms as President of the United States.

Michael Bloomberg:- Harvard Business School

In 2019, Billionaire Michael Bloomberg who is worth almost $60 billion, delivered a speech at Harvard Business school and urged the soon-to-be graduated class of 2019 to always demonstrate moral leadership and integrity in the service of country and capitalism. “Being ethical does not require a master’s degree” he said. Perhaps this describes exactly the man that is Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg earned his MBA from Harvard Business School at the age of 24 years old! He then got his first post-MBA job at Salomon Brothers & Hutzler, which was then a successful multinational bulge bracket investment bank based in New York City.

In 1981, Bloomberg cofounded a financial information and media company and named it after himself “Bloomberg LP. He now owns 88% of the company which is estimated to be making around $10 billion a year.

Besides his legendary business portfolio, Bloomberg is one of the world’s biggest philanthropists and just recently has donated more than $5 billion to tackle social issues such as gun control, climate change and racial injustice.

Although he was a republican when he became Mayor of NYC, Bloomberg announced that he would be running for president during the 2020 presidential elections but eventually dropped out and supported the then democratic nominee and current president of the United States, Joseph Biden.

Steve Ballmer:- Stanford

Steve Ballmer is the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers NBA basketball team. Before that, he was the CEO of Microsoft until 2014 when he decided to retire his long career spanning over a decade as CEO of one of the world’s biggest companies.

Ballmer rose through the ranks at Microsoft as he held multiple positions from Vice president of Marketing, Senior Vice President of Systems Software, to Senior Vice President and eventually President of the whole corporation.

Over his tenure at Microsoft, the company made almost $80 billion in revenue and was considered to be the third most successful and profitable company in the United States.

Steve Ballmer earned a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and attended Stanford’s Graduate School of Business to pursue an MBA prior to joining Microsoft to use the knowledge he gained during his two years at Stanford.