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avatar for Michael R. Bloomberg

Michael R. Bloomberg

Founder of Bloomberg LP and the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change

Michael R. Bloomberg is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who served three terms as mayor of New York City, from 2002 through 2013. He began his career in 1966 with an entry-level job at Salomon Brothers, an investment firm. In 1981, he launched a technology startup to provide real-time data and analysis to the financial services industry. Bloomberg LP has since grown into a global company that has offices in 73 countries on six continents, employing 16,000 people and serving 320,000 subscribers. In 2014, after spending twelve years at New York’s City Hall, Bloomberg returned to the company he founded and resumed leading it on January 1, 2015.

The spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship that led Bloomberg to found the company has led the company to expand in new directions. In 1990, to better meet the needs of clients, Mike Bloomberg launched a news division to compete with the international wire services. Over the years, Bloomberg News expanded into television and radio, as well as print and internet publications. Today, Bloomberg covers the world with more than 2,400 reporters and editors who produce more than 5,000 daily stories. Bloomberg has also brought its business model to new fields, creating Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Government, and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Each provides data, news, and analytics to decision-makers and those who seek to influence them.

As a philanthropist, Mike Bloomberg has given away more than $3.3 billion. His foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, is active in more than 90 countries and employs a unique data-driven approach to its five main focus areas: public health, education, the environment, the arts, and government innovation. Bloomberg also leads a number of bi-partisan coalitions that are taking action on urgent national issues, including illegal guns, immigration reform, infrastructure investment, and climate change. He serves as board president of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of the world's megacities working together to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2014, Bloomberg was appointed to be a U.N. Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, where he is focusing on helping cities and the private sector set and achieve more ambitious goals for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York City less than two months after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Under his leadership, the city rebounded faster and stronger than expected, and his administration cut crime by 32 percent, to an all-time low, and raised high school graduation rates by 40 percent, after two decades with no progress.  His environmental agenda reduced the city’s carbon footprint by 19 percent and his health policies, many of which have been emulated around the world, increased life expectancy by three years. He expanded support for arts and culture, introduced innovative new anti-poverty programs, and attracted record numbers of tourists. His economic policies, which supported entrepreneurs, small businesses, and emerging industries such as tech and bioscience, helped New York City create a record number of jobs, most of them outside of Manhattan, and weather the Great Recession far better than the country as a whole. 

Bloomberg graduated from The Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School.

My Speakers Sessions

Tuesday, April 5
 

10:25am PDT