Eli Broad (pronounced as in “road”) is a renowned business leader who built two Fortune 500 companies from the ground up over a five-decade career in business. He is the CEO of SunAmerica Inc. and founder-chairman of KB Home (formerly Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation).
The son of Lithuanian immigrants who settled in Detroit, Broad graduated with honors from Michigan State University in 1954 with a degree in accounting. In 1991, Eli Broad made what was at the time the largest gift commitment ever made to a public business school. His $20 million commitment to the Eli Broad College of Business and the Eli Broad Graduate School of Management – both renamed in his honor – was designed to help Michigan State University’s new full-time MBA program emerge as one of the nation’s top graduate management programs.
Continuing support
Throughout the years, Broad has continued to add to his original gift. Broad has said the Midwest land grant university is the ideal candidate to help America regain its economic competitiveness through offering an enlightened curriculum and making quality education accessible to exceptional future business leaders from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds.
“By focusing Michigan State University’s MBA program on new management realities, and not simply on theory, by addressing real life problems of industry, and by attracting prestigious faculty and top students throughout the world, we will become more international in our thoughts and insights, and more competitive worldwide,” predicted Broad.
The Broad family’s commitment to philanthropy and community also includes ongoing leadership roles in art, education, science and civic development.
