Michael R. Bloomberg

Mike Bloomberg is an entrepreneur and three-term mayor of New York City whose innovations in business, government, and philanthropy have made him a pioneering leader on critical issues facing the U.S. and the world. He has launched major coalitions to save and improve lives, including America’s largest campaigns to prevent gun violence and fight the climate crisis. He serves as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Ambition and Solutions, and as WHO Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries.

In 1966, after graduating from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School, Bloomberg was hired by a financial services firm, Salomon Brothers, for an entry-level job. He quickly rose through the ranks and eventually headed up the firm’s information systems. When Salomon was acquired in 1981, he was let go. With a vision for an information technology company that would bring greater transparency and fairness to the financial system, he launched a small startup in a one-room office. Bloomberg LP has grown every year since it was founded and today employs 20,000 people in some 120 countries.

Just weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York City and led the city’s resurgence. He spearheaded the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan, fought poverty with new programs that became national models, and turned around a failing school system. Bloomberg reduced carbon emissions by 13 percent, increased New Yorkers’ life expectancy by three years, and cut crime by a third while reducing incarceration by nearly 40 percent. Despite the Great Recession, he led the city to record job growth.

After his third term in City Hall, he resumed leadership of Bloomberg LP and expanded his philanthropic work. Bloomberg Philanthropies has now given away more than $11 billion supporting its five main focus areas: public health, the arts, education, the environment, and government innovation. Bloomberg has also launched a series of major efforts to help fight the coronavirus in the U.S. and around the world, and the Greenwood Initiative, which works to increase Black wealth and address historic inequities across the country.

He is the father of two daughters, Emma and Georgina, and has two grandchildren.