Fortune 500 CEOs^©

"Irv Shapiro led not only the Dupont Company, . . . his business sense and compassion were united as he led other business leaders to join him in pursuit of improving the lives of everyone he touched. . . He was a statesman and a gentleman."

Sept. 11, 2001 Obituary Statement of Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner

". . .there are few business leaders recognized throughout the country for probity and integrity in the way such leaders as Edward Filene, who headed the department store empire, Irving Shapiro, the head of Duport, Walter Wriston of Citibank, and John Whitehead of Goldman Sachs, were recognized as being spokespersons for a set of realistic, intelligent, public spirited values."

Arthur Levitt, former SEC Chairman

The selection of Irving Shapiro to head Dupont Corporation was a watershed moment in the history of Jews as CEOs of major U.S. Corporations. His appointment was seen to have broken a cultural logjam. It made Wall Street Journal headlines on December 14, 1973 and Shapiro was soon regarded as a prominent "business establishment" figure. For many, he was seen as "the first Jew to achieve such stature in a major corporation not founded or purchased by Jews."

Shapiro's selection was remarkable on many counts. In the 171 years since its founding by French immigrant Eleuthére Irénée (E.I.) du Pont in 1802, the Company was headed only by succeeding generations of Dupont family members. Further, Shapiro was neither an entrepreneur, nor was he trained as a manager. He did not, as was common in post World War II America, work his way up the organization chart through the rungs of operational, sales, and staff jobs.

Instead, after graduating from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1941, he joined the U.S. Justice Department where he argued and won his first Supreme Court case in 1948. Three years later, he joined Dupont's legal staff and shortly thereafter, negotiated resolution of the General Motors-Dupont anti-trust law suit. His skill in that important task earned him the trust of Dupont's senior management and Board. By 1970, he was a member of the Executive Committee and in July, 1973, he became Vice Chairman. He was ready for the next step to the Chairmanship.

Shapiro led Dupont in an era of regulation, recession and the energy crises which followed the Yom Kippur War. His diplomacy and skill in addressing those challenges gave him standing alongside such "white shoe" CEOs as Walter Wriston, John Whitehead, David Rockefeller, and others, as a leader of American industry.

For some, Shapiro's accession meant Jews had "arrived." Later, others would compare the notoriety surrounding his promotion to the relative quiet which greeted the naming of Michael Eisner to head Disney. They saw the change as proof Jews were finally accepted as CEOs of major U.S. corporations. That interpretation contains a good deal of truth, but the story is more interesting and more complex than that.

Conventional Thinking About Jewish CEOs

Over the 350 years following Peter Stuyvesant's failed attempt to keep Jews out of North America when they arrived from Brazil in 1654, the U.S. has been among the least discriminatory countries in the World for Jews. That history has, nonetheless, had its ups and downs. The generally benign period of most of the 1800s was interrupted in the late 1800's by the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany, which spread to the U.S. There was also discontent arising from the huge immigration of poor, often uneducated, Russian/Polish Jews between 1880 and 1924. Among them were anarchists, socialists, and communists, such as Emma Goldman, who soured many Americans on the recent immigrants. Certainly, controversy surrounding those emigrants contributed to anti-Jewish sentiment and the 1924 legislation which brought all immigration to a halt.

The anti-Semitism of Henry Ford (who promoted the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion as proof of Jewish duplicity and ambitions) and General Robert Wood (who, in a remarkable irony, refused to hire Jewish buyers or senior executives at Sears Roebuck from 1928 to 1954, after following Julius Rosenwald as Sears' CEO, were emblematic of the sometimes expressed, but often subtle anti-Semitism which kept Jews from senior management positions and off boards of directors in selected industries and companies.

Mid twentieth century "Conventional wisdom" held that Jews were unlikely to become chief executive officers (CEOs) of large U.S. companies. It was not considered their métier, (after all, they were not seen to be "organization men" or "grey flannel suit" types). Some were seen as "pushy" or "loud."

It was OK to have a Jew out there selling your products to fellow Jews, or to recruit a smart Jew for a professional staff job, such as corporate legal counsel or head of finance and accounting, but Jews were unlikely candidates for promotion to senior line management positions at corporate headquarters. This sentiment was empirically demonstrated by the long difficult history of Jewish exclusion from inner sanctum of companies and industries dominated by Gentiles. Moreover, they were often unwelcome in the halls of the exclusive golf and luncheon clubs where major customers were wooed, financiers and prospective new hires were wined and dined, and peers were entertained. And like much conventional wisdom of the times, it was self-fulfilling.

Jewish CEOs of Major Corporations in 1917

Harvard Business School Professor Richard S. Tedlow, and his associates, Courtney Purrington, and Kim Eric Bettcher recently summarized a business history project in their paper titled, The American CEO in the Twentieth Century. Their work looks at the backgrounds of major U.S. Company CEOs in 1917 and 1997. It seeks to evaluate the demographic characteristics of the leaders in those two eras and the differences that have arisen over the intervening eighty years.

For the 1917 group, they have identified what they believe were the CEOs of the 200 largest U.S. companies at the time. Of those 200, religion could be discerned for 153. Of them, Protestants dominated with two-thirds of the total. But Jews were a surprising and disproportionate 4.5 percent of the executives at a time when Jews were 3.4 percent of the U.S. population. Further, as noted above, this was a time when Jews were subject to some measure of heightened anti-Semitism.

Tedlow's research suggests the years around 1917 represent an era when professional managers were taking over from the "robber barons" and larger than life figures of the late 1800s and early 1900s such as, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould and others. This profile does not apply, however, to the seven Jews. Their stories belie the notion they were second generation professional managers. While it is difficult to know the backgrounds of all seven, we do know that:

• Daniel Guggenheim, with his father, Meyer, and six brothers were entrepreneurs who had emigrated from Switzerland. They began by importing embroideries but later, acquired interests in two successful Colorado copper mines. Eventually, the entire family fortune was invested in mining and smelters. Under David, the Guggenheim mining interests were parlayed into control of The American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) and under David, ASARCO became the world's dominant mining operation.
• Harry Hart, a German Jewish emigrant, began a Chicago clothing store with his brother Max in 1872. Fifteen years later, they brought aboard Marcus Marx and Joseph Schaffner to form Hart Scaffner and Marx. By 1917, it was one of America's foremost manufacturers of men's apparel.
• Fred Hirschhorn was the founder and chief executive of General Cigar Co. Little biographical information is available on Hirschorn but, like his contemporaries, William Paley, and Joseph Cullman, he was among the successful early twentieth century Jews in the tobacco industry. In 1960, the Cullman family acquired control of General Cigar, changed the name to Culbro Corporation, and as of 2005, they continue to lead the Company, albeit with a Swedish partner.
• Jules (or Julius) Kessler was a Hungarian emigrant Jew who started out selling whiskey during Colorado's 1870's silver boom. He set up his own distilleries and began selling direct to retailers (rather than through wholesalers). In the words of an August 26, 1935 Time magazine article, Kessler was so successful a distiller, salesman and operator, that "Distillers Securities Corp. ('The Whiskey Trust') put itself and its surplus stocks in his hands." Prohibition ended Kessler's era and he retired, a wealthy man, to Vienna, Austria, returning only after Repeal. Kessler was later honored by Seagrams when it formed a subsidiary and named it in his honor.
• Solomon Guedalia Rosenbaum was the 1917 CEO of the National Cloak & Suit Company. Though many pages from old National Cloak catalogues can be found, almost nothing is available on Rosenbaum. Nonetheless, as Thomas Sowell indicates in his book, Ethnic America, "By 1885, there were 241 garment factories in New York City – 234 of which were owned by Jews. . . As of 1890, about half of all Jews working in American Industry were clothing workers." Thus, it is not surprising that in 1917, a "Rosenbaum" would have been CEO of one of America's foremost apparel companies.
• Julius Rosenwald was already a successful manufacturer of men's summer clothing in 1895 when, with his brother-in-law, Aaron Nusbaum, he bought half of Sears Roebuck for $75,000. Roebuck, a watch maker had left the business, as did Nusbaum after a few years. Rosenwald became CEO working with Sears, a gifted promoter, and it was Rosenwald who built Sears into the foremost retailer of the times.
• Adolph Zukor was a Hungarian Jewish emigrant who became a wealthy entrepreneur as a furrier. He took a "flier" on penny arcades and nickelodeons, made money, and then partnered with Marcus Loew - to build a chain of theaters - and with Jesse Lasky - to build the Famous Players studio. In 1917, Famous Players acquired Paramount which Zukor then headed till 1936. He stayed on as a director, producer, and later Chairman Emeritus of Paramount until his death in 1976. His Paramount career spanned an astonishing fifty-nine years.

The Jews leading seven of America's 200 largest companies in 1917 were not professional second generation managers of established large corporations, nor did they "start at the bottom and work their way up." They were mostly first or second generation immigrants. They were successful entrepreneurs, running businesses they started or largely shaped. Some were involved in industries that traditionally had significant Jewish participation, such as retailing, (Jews started more than half of American's department stores), tobacco, and spirits. And though one might not think of mining as a Jewish industry, by 1917 the Oppenheimers were becoming prominent in diamonds and, as noted above, David Guggenheim was heading up the dominant U.S. mining company.

Another facet deserves mention. The 1917 data, though anecdotal, tends to corroborate the notion of Jews as entrepreneurs who pursued opportunities which did not compete directly with established Gentile companies and industries. "Ready to wear" apparel did not exist as an industry before the invention of the Singer sewing machine and the mass migration of Jews from the Russian Pale. Many of the newly arrived Jews were tailors and the inexpensive Singer sewing machine represented the opportunity to create a wholly new industry. Hart, Rosenwald, Guedalia and Zukor all got their start that way. Later, Zukor, like others of the so called "Hollywood Jews," pursued a counterpart new opportunity in theaters and film.

In short, the seven Jews were mostly involved in new companies and new industries or industries in which Jews had long been engaged. None was a professional manager, promoted through the organization to become its CEO.

The Outsiders

In 1988, Professor Abraham Korman of Baruch College wrote The Outsiders: Jews and Corporate America. His book supports the points made above but updates the analysis. Korman began by providing the historical business context, looking at different industries, such as commercial banking, insurance, shipping, and automobile production where there were relatively few Jews among senior executives. He contrasted that with retailing, entertainment, and apparel as examples of industries where Jews were numerous.

Korman cited a 1976 Fortune magazine article which estimated that 7 percent of CEOs at the 800 largest American corporations were Jews (versus their 2.75 percent of the U.S. population at the time.) He also described a 1985 Fortune study which found Jews to be 5 to 7 percent of the directors of large corporations and 7.6 percent of the CEOs. Still disproportionate overall, he nonetheless saw discrimination retarding Jews in selected industries.

He evaluated the 1985 data industry by industry, finding lowest Jewish penetration in upper ranks of the petroleum, chemical, food, glass, building materials, mining, and crude oil production businesses (all less than 4 percent). Highest Jewish penetration was found in apparel (26.7 percent), textiles and vinyl flooring (9.9 percent) and publishing/printing (9.5 percent). Korman also referenced a 1986 Korn-Ferry study showing that while 7.4 percent of top CEOs were Jews, of those CEOs under the age of 40, 13 percent were Jews.

A further study, not mentioned by Korman, but done in the same time frame, deserves mention. Business Week reported in its Oct. 20, 1989 issue that among the 1000 most valuable U.S. companies at the time, 62 percent were headed by Protestants, 23 percent by Roman Catholics and 13 percent by Jews. If those data were correct, Jews, then about 2.3 percent of the population were over represented as CEOs of the 1,000 most valuable companies by a factor of six.

In short, things were improving, albeit slowly. Jews were a growing proportion of the senior management and boards of large corporations and young Jews were doing even better. Many industries still favored old line Gentiles but others favored Jews and barriers appeared to be diminishing, even if only slowly.

More Recent Studies of Jews as CEOs

A review of the CEOs of Fortune's 100 largest U.S. Corporations in 2004 identifies nine prominent Jewish CEOs:

• Maurice Greenberg – American International Group
• Ivan Seidenberg – Verizon Communications
• Michael Dell – Dell Computers
• Robert Benmosche – Metlife
• Steven Ballmer – Microsoft
• Michael Eisner – Walt Disney
• Sumner Redstone – Viacom
• Seymour Sternberg – New York Life
• Brian Roberts – Comcast

In addition, another eight CEO's may well be Jewish, or be of Jewish heritage, though they are not widely identified as such. It appears that today, Jews probably serve as CEOs of perhaps 15 percent of America's largest companies. This is seven times what would be expected.

In 2003 and 2004, Fortune Magazine identified "The Power 25, The Most Powerful People in Business", the Warren Buffett's and Bill Gates' of corporate America. Of the 2003 group, six (24 percent) were Jews: Sandy Weill of Citigroup, Michael Dell of Dell Computer, Hank Greenberg of AIG Insurance, Sumner Redstone of Viacom, Ivan Seidenberg of Verizon, and Brian Roberts of Comcast. Of the 2004 group, five (20 percent) were Jews. Weill, having resigned from Citicorp, was no longer included. The article also identified three "Lions in Winter," "business legends no longer running the show." Andy Grove and Weill were two of the three "Lions".

In 2004, Professor Tedlow and his Harvard colleagues released their paper (cited earlier) which looks at the demography of CEOs of America's 200 largest companies in 1917 and 1997. For the 1997 group, they used Fortune Magazine's revenue based rankings as the indicator of size. Their work provides an excellent tool for evaluating the contemporary circumstances of Jews as CEOs of major American companies and the changes which have occurred over time.

For the 1997 group, Tedlow et al indicate that of the 200 CEOs, data on "religion" was available for only seventy-two, but of those seventy two, seventeen were Jewish. There is no assertion that the seventy-two are representative (though they feel most of those unaccounted for are likely to be Protestants). Nonetheless, it is surprising that 24 percent of those whose cultural or religious affiliation could be determined were Jews. Moreover, even if all of the remaining 128 CEOs, whose religious affiliation are unknown, were non-Jews, that would still leave Jews as CEOs of 8.5 percent of America's 200 largest companies in 1997. It is likely that the actual number is higher than 8.5 percent and, assuming some of those whose "religion" was not identified are Jewish, one may again surmise that today, Jews are CEOs of 10 to 15 percent or more of major U.S. Corporations.

Be that as it may, the seventeen corporate heads identified by Tedlow et al provide useful insight into contemporary Jewish CEOs of major U.S. corporations and the basis for comparing their circumstances with those of the 1917 group. Among the seventeen:

• Sanford I. Weill headed up Citicorp in 1997. A Cornell graduate, he began as a "runner" for Bear Stearns, became a broker, and soon, with three partners, started a stock brokerage firm. Weill, the leader, built the firm through fifteen acquisitions into the powerful Shearson brokerage. Later, after Weill had left Shearson, he began again in 1986, starting with Commercial Credit, a Control Data spin off. He built it through acquisitions into Citicorp, the world's largest financial services company.
• David H. Komansky headed Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith in 1997. Founded in 1917, Merrill Lynch is one of Wall Street's oldest and most powerful firms. It was run by founder, Charles Merrill, until 1956. Considered by many a Gentile brokerage firm, Komansky joined Merrill Lynch in 1968, shortly after he got out of the University of Miami. He served the firm in a wide range of positions over a twenty-seven year career before being named COO in 1995 and CEO in 1996. Komansky led Merrill Lynch for seven tumultuous years. Since retiring, he has served on numerous boards including the New York Stock Exchange.
• Maurice R. Greenberg headed American International Group (AIG) in 1997. Founded by non-Jew Cornelius Vander Starr, in 1919 as a Shanghai based offshore insurance company, Greenberg joined AIG in 1960 after two stints in the U.S. Army, one as an attorney, and eight years at Continental Casualty. Greenberg's early success in turning around AIG's failing North American operations led Starr to name him as his successor in 1967. Over the next thirty-eight years, Greenberg built AIG into the world's third largest insurance company, and the largest U.S. insurer. Before his 2005 troubles with New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer led to his retirement, Greenberg was regarded as one of America's foremost business leaders and philanthropists.
• Andrew S. Grove was CEO of Intel in 1997. Grove escaped Hungary in 1956, graduated from NYU and earned a Ph.D. in Engineering from Cal Berkeley before joining Fairchild Semiconductor. A few short years later, he was invited by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce to join them in founding Intel. By 1979, he was President and he led and transformed Intel through its various challenges, being recognized for all he had done by being named Time magazine's 1997 Man of the Year.
• Laurence A. Tisch was head of Loews in 1997. At age 23, he purchased a 300 room winter resort in Lakewood New Jersey. Later, joined by his brother Bob, the two bought other hotels before they took control of Loews Theaters (see Zukor above). They further diversified over the years, buying Lorillard, Bulova Watch Company, CNA Insurance company, controlling interest in CBS, and other companies. Before his death in 2003, Tisch, like Weill and Greenberg, was counted among America's foremost business leaders and major philanthropists.
• Harvey Golub was CEO of American Express (AMEX) in 1997. Amex was then nearly 150 years old, having been started by Henry Wells and William Fargo in 1850. During the 1980s, Golub's predecessor, James Robinson made a failed attempted to build Amex into a financial conglomerate. In 1984, Golub, a Senior Partner at the prestigious management consulting firm of McKinsey & Company, was recruited by Amex. In 1993, Robinson's failures led to Golub's promotion to CEO. In a series of moves, Golub turned the Company around and made it substantially more valuable. He retired in 2000, turning the reigns over to Kenneth I. Chenault, a talented black executive mentored by Golub. Golub now serves on a number of Boards, including his chairmanship of Campbell Soup Company.
• Gerald M. Levin was CEO of Time Warner in 1997. Time, was the 1923 creation of non-Jew Henry Luce while Warner was the Hollywood studio created by the four Warner Brothers. Levin joined Time's Home Box Office (HBO) in 1972 after brief stints with a law firm and one other business. He pioneered the distribution of HBO via satellite, a highly successful decision which transformed the industry, and he helped negotiate the 1990 merger with Warner (and later with Turner Broadcasting). Steven Ross became CEO after the Time-Warner merger and Levin was his protégé. When Ross died unexpectedly, Levin took over. Later, Levin's merger of Time Warner and AOL would prove a donnybrook and he stepped down in 2002.
• Michael S. Dell was CEO of Dell Computers in 1997. He started the Company in his college dorm room in 1984 with an initial investment of $1,000. He soon dropped out of college to pursue his creation, and like fellow drop-out, Bill Gates, he proved one could be very successful despite the absence of a sheepskin. In the ensuing twenty years, Dell built his company into the world's largest, most profitable, and most valuable computer manufacturer, a distinction which continues in 2005.
• Michael Goldstein was CEO of Toys 'R' Us in 1997. Founded in 1948 by Charles Lazarus with $2,000 of borrowed money, Toys 'R' Us became the largest U.S. toy retailer. Michael Goldstein had begun his career as an accountant with a Jewish accounting firm. He joined Toys 'R' Us in the early 1980s, presumably in an accounting role. When Lazarus stepped down in 1994, Goldstein became CEO, a job he held until 1998, while retaining the Chairmanship until 2001. Goldstein led the firm through seven challenging years as the Internet and discount retailers, such as WalMart, began cannibalizing the toy industry.
• Leslie H. Wexner started The Limited in 1963 with $5,000 of borrowed money. The son of Russian emigrants, Wexner began with a single store in suburban Columbus Ohio and, by 1997, had built a huge chain of specialty women's apparel stores. He is now also a major philanthropist.
• Stephen P. Kaufman was CEO of Arrow Electronics in 1997. Arrow, founded in 1935, is the world's largest distributor of electronic components and computer products. Kaufman, who graduated from MIT and the Harvard Business School, worked for Midland-Ross Corporation and for ten years was an associate and then Partner at McKinsey & Company. He joined Arrow in 1982 as President of the Electronics Distribution Division. He became Arrow's COO in 1985 and its CEO in 1986, serving for fourteen years before retiring as CEO in 2000 and as Chairman in 2002. He is now a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, while serving on several Boards of Directors.
• Lewis E. Platt was CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1997. Platt joined HP in 1966 after graduating from the Wharton Business School. Two years earlier, he had earned a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell. Platt held a variety of positions at HP before becoming Executive Vice President in 1987 and CEO in 1993. Following David Packard's retirement in 1990, John Young served briefly as CEO before Platt took over. Platt then served as CEO until 1999. After retirement, Platt was CEO of Kendall Jackson Winery from 1999 to 2001 and is now non-executive Chairman of Boeing.
• Harry P. Kamen was CEO of Metropolitan Life Insurance in 1997. Started in 1863, Metropolitan is America's second largest insurer. Kamen, a Penn undergraduate and Harvard Law school graduate, became CEO in April 1993 and served until mid 1998. He remains a Met Life director and was a director of Pfizer, the NASD, and a regular attendee of Bill & Hillary Clinton's Renaissance Weekend events.
• Arthur M. Blank was CEO of Home Depot in 1997. Started by Blank and Bernard Marcus in 1979 after their storied firing from the Handy Dan home improvement chain, Blank and Marcus began with three stores in Atlanta and built, what by 1997 was the world's largest home improvement store chain. Blank, since retired, has become a major philanthropist and the owner of the Atlanta Falcons football team.
• Seymour G. (Sy) Sternberg was CEO of New York Life Insurance Company in 1997. Founded in 1845, New York Life is the third largest U.S. insurance company. Sternberg became a Chartered Life Underwriter in 1976 after earning his Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University in 1968. He spent thirteen years with Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company before joining New York Life in 1989. He was promoted to COO in 1995 and CEO in 1997, a title he continues to hold in 2005. Sternberg has been involved in a large number of civic activities including board seats on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Big Brother Big Sisters of New York, the chairmanship of the CUNY Business Leadership Council and various appointments by the Clinton Administration.
• Sumner M. Redstone was CEO of National Amusements (now Viacom) in 1997. It was his creation. Having graduated from Harvard University in less than three years, Redstone was recruited by Edwin Reischauer to work in the Army unit that cracked the Japanese code during World War II. At War's end, Redstone attended Harvard Law School and then practiced law, including an assignment as a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General. In 1954, he left the practice of law to join the family's small chain of outdoor movie theaters. Through internal growth and a dizzying array of acquisitions, Redstone built the company into today's Viacom.
• John B. Hess was CEO of Amerada Hess in 1997. It was the creation of his father, Leon, son of Hungarian Jewish emigrants. Leon began by selling heating oil from the back of a truck in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Initially with his father's help, Leon built Amerada Hess into a major oil company. John, a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Business School, joined the family firm when he was 23. He became CEO in 1995, four years before his father died. John is active in support of Democrat party politics and was a significant supporter of Moveon.org. He is also on the Board of the USTA Tennis & Education Foundation.

Comparing the industries and people described above with their counterparts in 1917 reveals the sea change which has occurred over the intervening eighty years. The sense of optimism surrounding Shapiro's 1973 accession to head Dupont has been realized in the 1990s'

In part, this happened because the nature of American business changed. Heavy industries, such as steel, auto and appliance manufacturing, and others, largely run by Gentiles over much of the twentieth century, declined in importance while industries in which Jews were long prominent, such as finance, retail, media, and entertainment became more important. But the 90s also show evidence of growing Jewish leadership in companies and industries long considered to be the province of Gentiles.

As always for Jews there was the premium on education. All but one of the seventeen Jewish CEOs earned a bachelors degree from schools such as NYU(3), Cornell(2), and Harvard(2). The only non-degree holder, Michael Dell, dropped out of college to start Dell Computers. Even more impressive, thirteen of the seventeen earned graduate degrees or participated in graduate education, four at Harvard Business School, three at Harvard Law School, plus an MBA from Wharton and a Ph.D from Cal Berkeley.

As Jews have long been, some were entrepreneurial. These include Dell, Weill, Grove, Wexner, Blank, Redstone, and to some extent Greenberg. All of them were superb entrepreneurs.

But by 1997, some evidenced the more traditional temperament of CEOs who have worked their way up the organization chart, sometimes within companies whose long roots are considered to be quite Gentile. These include American Express, Merrill Lynch, Metropolitan Life, and New York Life. Golub and Kaufman both worked for McKinsey & Company and both worked their way up several non Jewish organizations before being promoted to, or hired to serve as CEOs of AMEX and Arrow Electronics, respectively. Komansky worked his way up Merrill Lynch after joining it in 1968 as a stock broker. Grove, though entrepreneurial, worked for years as "number 3" under two gentiles before becoming Intel's CEO. Platt worked his way up Hewlett Packard for twenty-seven years before becoming its CEO.

In short, times have changed. Anti-Semitism has receded. Clubs discriminate less than even twenty-five or thirty years ago. Jews and Gentiles now work and play side by side more than ever before. Recently, non-Jew Bill Gates handed over Microsoft's CEO slot to Jew, Steve Ballmer. Meanwhile, Sandy Weill, a Jew, turned Citicorp over to non-Jew Harold Prince. Goldman Sachs, which was created and long run by Jews is now headed by Henry Paulson, a Christian Scientist, and Ivan Seidenberg runs Verizon.

Jews are more assimilated and more accepted than ever. They have proven they perform well as CEOs of large organizations whether in industries and companies long considered Jewish havens or not. And, as has been proven true throughout this book, they are disproportionately successful in this role.