Ken Griffin: a success story
Ken Griffin is the founder of the largest investment fund Citadel. The businessman has a billion-dollar fortune and is considered the richest man in the state of Illinois. He is known as a talented investor and an active public figure who is engaged in charity.
Griffin was born in 1968 in a Florida resort town. In high school, he loved math, had a passion for technology, and in high school, he worked as a part-time computer repairman.
At 17, Ken founded his own company, Discovery Educational Systems, which sold software for schools. The firm still exists to this day, although Griffin was long out of it.
Ken got his college degree at Harvard in Economics. Back in his freshman year, a young man tried himself out as an investor. He was attracted by an article in Forbes magazine with analysis of the Home Shopping Network. Having studied the information, Griffin came to the conclusion that its shares will soon fall, and decided to bet money on this fact. The young man’s expectations were met and he decided to go deeper into this activity.
In his second year of university Ken has already created his first hedge fund with a capital of 265 thousand dollars. Money for the firm he borrowed from family and friends, and trading operations were carried out in the dorm room. In 1978, there was a collapse of the Dow Jones index, thanks to which Griffin was able to earn a lot of money. By 1989, Ken graduated from Harvard and became a millionaire. In the same period, he met the head of Glenwood Capital. The businessman liked a talented young man, and he invested a million dollars in his fund. This deal was profitable for both parties – its profit was 70%.
In 1990 Ken opened a new fund – Financial Group, the initial capital of which was $4.6 million. However, not everyone wanted to invest in a firm whose director is only 23 years old. But the founder of Glenwood Capital helped, and things went up.
After the 1994 crisis and financial losses, Griffin renamed the fund Citadel. Since then, the company has been able to withstand the crisis and increase its revenue every year.
Ken Griffin is known for his charitable work. He provides financial assistance to educational projects and has allocated a large sum to open an art institute in Chicago. Together with his wife, Ken has created a charitable foundation that supports children’s hospitals and centers. The businessman gave Harvard University the largest donation in the history of the university – 150 million dollars. In addition, Griffin helped the Museum of Chicago buy a 36-meter-long skeleton of titanosaur.