Eli Broad — BrandWiki

Eli Broad

Overview

Eli Broad

birth date	June 6, 1933
death date	April 30, 2021
birth place	New York City, U.S.
monuments	The Broad
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
alma mater	Michigan State University
occupation	Businessman · philanthropist
party	Democratic
spouse	Edythe Lawson (m. 1954)

Eli Broad ([1] June 6, 1933 –April 30, 2021) was an American businessman and philanthropist. In June 2019, Forbes ranked him as the 233rd-wealthiest person in the world[2] and the 78th-wealthiest in the United States, with an estimated net worth of $6.7 billion.[3] He was known for his philanthropic commitment to transforming public K–12 education to a charter school model, scientific and medical research, and the visual and performing arts.[4]

Early life

Broad was born on June 6, 1933, in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Rebecca (Jacobson) and Leo Broad,[5][6]

children	2

Career

Kaufman & Broad

Doing the accounting for Kaufman's small business led Broad to decide to enter homebuilding himself. In 1956, Broad and Kaufman decided to partner and build homes together.[8] Borrowing $12,500 from his wife's parents, Broad put up half the capital in their first venture together, building two model homes in the Northeast Detroit suburbs[8] where a new generation of first-time home buyers were flocking. By streamlining the construction process and eliminating basements, offering a carport instead, they could price the houses so the monthly mortgage would be less than the rent for a two-bedroom apartment. Kaufman and Broad named this model the "Award Winner" and priced it at $13,700.[8][9] After one weekend, seventeen were sold, and within two years Kaufman and Broad had built 600 homes in the Detroit suburbs.[8] In 1960, fearing that the Detroit economy was too dependent on the automotive business, they moved to Phoenix, Arizona.[8] In 1961 Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation (now KB Home) went public on the American Stock Exchange.[10] In 1963 Broad moved the company to Los Angeles. Soon after, Kaufman retired, and he and his wife Glorya Kaufman went on to become noted philanthropists.[8] By 1969 KB Home was the first homebuilder listed on the New York Stock Exchange.[10] In 1974, Broad stepped down as CEO.[8]

SunAmerica

In 1971 Broad acquired Sun Life Insurance Company of America, a family-owned insurance company founded in Baltimore in 1890, for $52 million.[11] Broad transformed Sun Life into the retirement savings powerhouse SunAmerica. SunAmerica went public in 1989, with a remaining share of 42% for Broad. In 1998 he sold SunAmerica to the American International Group (AIG) for $17.8 billion after three weeks of secret negotiations.[12] Broad continued as CEO of SunAmerica until 1999, when he left to focus on philanthropy full time.

Writing

In 2012, Broad's book, The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking,[13] was published by Wiley and Sons and debuted as a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller.[14][15]

In June 2019, The New York Times published an op-ed authored by Broad advocating for a wealth tax.[16]

Philanthropy and civic engagement

Eli and Edythe Broad created the Broad Foundations,[17] which include the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Broad Art Foundation. These organizations have assets of $2.5 billion.[18]

In the same year as its founding in 2010, the Broads signed onto the Giving Pledge, a commitment for wealthy individuals to give at least half of their wealth to charity.[19] The Broads personally committed to giving 75% of their wealth away.[20] As of October 2017, the Broads had given more than $4 billion to support K-12 public schools, advance scientific and medical research, and bring contemporary art to as wide an audience as possible.[18]

In 2017, Broad announced his retirement from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, passing responsibility to its president, Gerun Riley.[21] Broad said he would remain as a trustee of the foundation, and continue to serve on the board of the Broad Museum. Broad said he was in good health and felt like it was time to "step back".[22]

Education

The stated mission of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation's education work is to expand learning opportunities to students from underserved communities so they can reach their full potential.[23] The foundation has made $650 million in grants since it launched in 1999.[24] In 2001, Broad founded the Broad Center, a nonprofit focused on developing school system leaders.

The Broad Prize

From 2002 to 2014, the Broad Foundation awarded an annual $1 million Broad Prize for Urban Education.[25] The Broad Prize recognized the large urban school districts in America that have made the greatest improvement in student achievement while narrowing achievement gaps among low-income students and students of color. In 2012, the foundation launched the Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools, which awarded $250,000 to the top charter management organization in the country. Over the course of 17 years, prize money totaling nearly $18 million went to support college scholarships and college readiness programs.[26]

Arts

Broad was the founding chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1979 and chaired the board until 1984. He recruited the founding director of the museum[33] and negotiated the acquisition of the Panza Collection for the museum.

He served on the Chairman's Council for many years at both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.[34]

In 2008, the Broad Foundation donated $30 million to the Museum of Contemporary Art. The foundation's donation was contingent on the museum remaining independent and not merging with Los Angeles County Museum of Art.[35]

Broad was a life trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). In 2003, the Broad Foundation gave $60 million to the museum as part of its renovation campaign to create the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and for an art acquisition fund.[36]

The Broads donated $6 million to the Los Angeles Opera to bring Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen to Los Angeles for the 2009–10 season.[37] In June 2013, the Broads gave $7 million to continue funding the Eli and Edythe Broad general director at L.A. Opera, a position occupied by Plácido Domingo until his resignation from the post in 2019.

The Broads contributed $10 million in 2008 for a programming endowment for a music and performing arts center at Santa Monica College, the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage, and an adjacent black box performance space, the Edye.

In total, the Broads have pledged roughly $1 billion to Los Angeles art institutions. Broad called Los Angeles a "cultural capital of the world".[38]

The Broad

In August 2010, Eli Broad announced that he would build a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles.[39] Diller Scofidio + Renfro were chosen through an architectural competition to design the approximately 120,000-square-foot museum, which includes exhibition space, offices, and a parking garage.[40]

In February 2015, a public preview of a special installation attracted some 3,500 visitors while the museum was still under construction.[41] The Broad was opened by the Broads on Sunday, September 20, 2015.[42] To date, it has received more than 2.5 million visitors.[43]

Grand Avenue project

Scientific and medical research

The Broad Foundation's first major investment in scientific and medical research was in the field of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).[52] Since then, the foundation has expanded its scope to focus on genomics and stem cell research.[53]

In 2001, the Broads created the Broad Medical Research Program to fund innovative research to advance the treatment of IBD. The program was merged with the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America in 2013.[54]

In 2003, Eli and Edythe Broad gave the $100 million founding gift to create the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard,[55] which aims to improve human health by using genomics to advance the understanding of the biology of human disease and lay the groundwork for a new generation of therapies.[56] The following year, they gave another $100 million, and in 2009, they gave another $400 million to create an endowment and make the institute an independent nonprofit.[55] In 2013, the Broads announced an additional $100 million gift to the institute.[57] The Broad Institute now connects more than 4,000 scientists with an annual budget of more than $400 million.[58]

The Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of Southern California (USC) is the product of a public-private partnership between the voter-created California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which donated $30 million in 2006.[59] In 2007, the Broads also donated $20 million to the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[60] One year later, they gave a major gift to the University of California, San Francisco for the new headquarters of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, which opened in February 2011.

Eli Broad was also a life member of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Board of Trustees where he funded the Broad Center for the Biological Sciences.[61] In 2009, the Broads gave $5 million to fund the Joint Center for Translational Medicine at Caltech and UCLA. In 2018, the Broads pledged $5 million to Caltech to endow a professorial chair in honor of Caltech President Emeritus David Baltimore.[62]

Eli Broad

Early life

Career

Kaufman & Broad

SunAmerica

Writing

Philanthropy and civic engagement

Education

The Broad Prize

Art collection

Personal life

Honors and awards

Books

See also

External links

References

The Broad Center

Charter schools

The Broad Prize

The Broad Center

Charter schools

Arts

The Broad

Grand Avenue project

The Broad

Grand Avenue project

Higher education philanthropic work

Scientific and medical research

Gun control

Higher education philanthropic work