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Herb Kelleher : The Founder & Former CEO of Southwest Airlines

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An aspiring journalist, who eventually became a lawyer and then a successful entrepreneur- Herb Kelleher, also wanted to live the lavish life that he had been seeing people living in his surrounding, and with the help of the right business plan and with the help of right people, he not only started one of the best airlines of America but also became one of the best CEOs of the country. Under his leadership, the airlines not only became the most preferred one by the consumers but was also voted Fortune magazine’s Best Place to Work in America

Early Life

Kelleher was born on 12 March 1931, to Harry Kelleher and Ruth Moore, in Camden, New Jersey. His father worked as the general manager at the Campbell’s Soup factory. He used to work at the same factory after school and also in the summer breaks, as a part-timer. He completed his high school education from Haddon Heights High School. He was a bright student and was also active in sports. He was in the Football team of the school and was a letterman in basketball and track. Later, he joined the Wesleyan University, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in English and Philosophy, in 1953. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at the university. Influenced by a Wesleyan trustee, he then went to study law at New York University as a Root-Tilden Scholar and earned a graduate degree in the same.

herb
Image Source: experience.hsm.com

Career

In 1956, Kelleher started working as a clerk at the New Jersey Supreme Court. In 1959, he joined the Newark, New Jersey, firm of Lum, Biunno and Tompkins, where he practised law for two years. In 1961, he moved to Texas and became a partner in the law firm of Matthews, Nowlin, Macfarlane & Barrett.

Founding Southwest Airlines

While living in Texas, Kelleher got influenced by the lifestyle of the local people and started looking for something challenging that could help him be like one of them. He wanted to start his own law firm or any other business. In 1966, he joined the Texas businessman Rollin King as his outside counsel. One evening in a meeting with a client, an air charter service owner, in the St. Anthony’s Club in San Antonio, they sketched out a plan on a napkin.

King and his banker, John Parker wanted to launch an affordable airline between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Kelleher joined hands with the two, and on 15 March 1967, with a seed money of $500,000, they launched the Southwest Airlines Co. Kelleher managed to buy a 1.8 per cent stake in the newly started airline company and was appointed as its first CEO. But due to some legalities, the airline kept from flying for a four-long year and had its first flight on 18 June 1971. The low prices of the flights, and other facilities like eliminating unnecessary services, made the airline an instant hit.

As the CEO of the company, Keheller brought a better working culture, making the employees work more passionately. In 1974, Southwest became the first airline to offer a profit-sharing plan, according to which employees owned 13 per cent of the company’s common stock. Southwest Airlines has constantly maintained its name in the top five Most Admired Corporations in America, in the Fortune magazine’s annual poll.

In 1982, Kelleher was assigned the post of the chairman and the president of the company, remaining on the position of the CEO. In 2003, the airlines had 33000 employees, and operated 2800 flights between 30 airports, with a total annual revenue of $6 billion and net profits of $442 million.

On 21 May 2008, Kelleher resigned as the chairman of Southwest Airlines.

Personal Life

Kelleher met his future wife, Joan Negley when he was in college and married her in 1955 when he was still studying law at the New York University. Fortune has also called him perhaps the best CEO in America. Kelleher was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2004. He was named the CEO of the Year from Chief Executive magazine in 1999 and also from the Fortune magazine in 2001. In 1990, the Financial World named him as the CEO of the Decade in the Airline Industry and was also named as the CEO of the Century by Texas Monthly in the same year.

Scott Cook : One of the Most Groundbreaking Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

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What can a bad boss lead its employees to? In the case of Scott Cook, his bad boss led him to think of starting his own business and establish a multi-billion empire for himself. Cook, an American billionaire businessman, is one of those people, who got their lives changed with a simple idea. The concept that people had never imagined of and thought as a non-profitable one, too. Not much people are aware of this nerd, who believed in his plan and gave a tough competition to multiple tech giants with his unusual product. But, who knows, are also aware of his management and leadership skills

Early Life

Cook was born and brought up in a suburb of L.A. He was a bright student at the school, and had programmed the school district’s one computer. After graduating from school, he got enrolled at the University of Southern California, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics and later, joined the Harvard Business School, from where he received an MBA degree.

Career

After completing his education, Cook, took a job at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he earned much experience in product development and consumer marketing. He also met his future wife Signe Ostby while working at P&G. After leaving the job and marrying Ostby, he with Ostby moved to Menlo Park, California, where he started working at Bain & Company as a consultant in the strategic consulting department.

Founding Intuit

On a fine day, in the early 80s, Cook was sitting in the kitchen of their silicon valley house, with his wife. His wife had complaints about the management and payment of the bills. Cook was prompted by the matter and thought that there might be some more people who find managing the various household bills a bit difficult. He came with an idea to develop software that would help the people to manage and pay their bills. The idea was first of its kind as there were not many users of computers at that time, especially women who stayed at home. Hence, it became difficult for him to raise funding for this idea.

Cook’s interaction with the programming languages had happened last when he was in high school, so he contacted his friend from the Stanford University, Tom Proulx, to help him out with the development process of the software.

In 1983, the two founded Intuit Inc. and launched the first software of their company, the first version of Quicken, written in Microsoft’s BASIC programming language. The software was designed to work on the IBM PC and UCSD Pascal for the Apple II. The product was a success and soon found a competitor. Microsoft also produced a similar software named Microsoft Money, but Cook had its move and provided its customers a US$15 rebate coupon, redeemable on software purchased in their stores. At the same time, the company got engaged with John Doerr, to expand its product lineup.

In 1993, the company was made public for ICO, and it made a major acquisition, i.e., of Chipsoft (a tax-preparation software company based in San Diego). In 1994, the market capitalization of the company reached US$2 billion, and Microsoft made a buyout offer for the company. But, due to some legal issues, the buyout failed, and Microsoft continued its competition with Intuit. During this time, the company started producing web-based products and invested in some really good projects.

The annual revenue of the company estimated by May 2018, was US$5 billion and its market capitalization was about US$50 billion.

Cook remained the chairman of Intuit from February 1993 to July 1998 and served as the president and the CEO of the company, from April 1983 to April 1994.

Personal Life

Cook and his wife Ostby are the parents of three children and live in Woodside, California. In 2002, the couple established the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Business. In 2005, he was placed at number 320, in the Forbes 400, and his estimated worth was of $1.1 billion. Cook is one of the directors of eBay and Procter & Gamble and serves on the dean’s advisory board of the Harvard Business School. He is also one of the investors in eBay, Amazon, and Snapchat and has been a mentor to entrepreneurs like Larry Page.

Robert Pera : The Wireless Wonder of Silicon Valley

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The CEO of Ubiquiti Networks, Robert Pera, is one of the youngest entrepreneurs and a self-made billionaire of the Silicon Valley. With the passion for designing products, he left a lavish job at Apple and started a company in an economical $650-per-month apartment/office, reminding himself that he must not fail. A media-shy entrepreneur who is living a lean life has the ambition to create internet connectivity that is available everywhere.

Early Life

Robert Pera was born on 10 March 1978 in San Carlos. His father worked as a business consultant, and his mother was a public relation officer. He was always interested in technology and computers. He started his first business when he was still in high school. He used to set up computers, networks, and some databases that ran the software. He was also a member of his school’s basketball team. The same time he was diagnosed by a heart-valve infection and had to leave the school for a year. After completing his school, he joined the University of California in San Diego, where he pursued a B.A. degree in Japanese Language and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He also obtained the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the same university.

Robert Pera
Image Source : networthstat.com

Career

Pera was a Steve Jobs admirer, and after completing his education, he got the opportunity to work at Apple Inc., as a hardware engineer. His work was related to testing the company’s Wi-Fi devices. After working there for some time, he discovered that the signal emitted by the power sources used by the Apple’s WiFi devices were below FCC limits, and the transmission range could be enhanced by boosting their power so that to make internet accessible at the places where the telephone and cable companies did not reach. He consulted his superiors regarding the same matter, but nobody took him seriously.

Founding Ubiquiti Networks

Pera had an idea, and he himself started working on his own low-cost, high-performance WiFi module, at his apartment for a long period of one year, and in early 2005, he quit Apple Inc. to form his own company, i.e., Ubiquiti Networks.

With the savings and credit card cash debt, he managed to raise $30,000 to invest in his company, and started Ubiquiti Networks, in March 2005. The main goal, to start this company was to wirelessly deliver the Internet to the underserved areas, using the existing wifi technologies. The first product series launched by the company included the Super Range mini-PCI radio cards SR2 and SR5.

The Super Range module used the Atheros chipset, operating at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands. The card received a successful welcome and was used by many small and medium scale Wireless Internet service providers, all over the world. Currently, the company deals in the four major products: airMAX, airFiber, airVision, UniFi and has spread its branches to other fields including wireless access points, security cameras and traditional networking equipment, etc., as well. Currently, more than 180 countries are using the equipment from Ubiquiti Networks, around the world.

Personal Life

The American entrepreneur secured a place in the Forbes’ list of 10 youngest billionaires in the world, at the age of 36. He is the 229th richest man in the United States, and the 642nd richest person, in the World Billionaire list. Pera took the company public in 2011 and raised US$ 33.5 million in the IPO. He owns the 64 per cent shares in the company.

In October 2012, he purchased the National Basketball Association franchise Memphis Grizzlies from Michael Heisley paying $350 million. Pera also supports the sports charity named Grizzlies Foundation operating in Memphis.

Jaguar Cars : One of the Most Luxury Automobile Manufacturers in the World

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Jaguar Cars, the name speaks for itself. The brand is almost a hundred years old and has seen its own ups and downs. It has been the provider of most luxurious cars that are at the same time the best at performance and technology. Jaguar is known for its exclusive designs and exceptional comfort and as the producer of one of the fastest cars in the world.

History

Two motorcycle enthusiasts, William Lyons and William Walmsley, from the UK, came together with an idea to start a business of manufacturing motorcycle sidecars and founded Swallow Sidecar Company, in 1922. In 1934, the company was renamed as the S.S. Cars Limited, making the shares of the company public.

The next year, the company manufactured the first 2½-litre engine sports car, with the name SS Jaguar 2½-litre, followed by another sports model with a 3½-litre engine SS Jaguar 100. After the second world war, the shareholders of S.S. Cars Limited decided to rename the company to Jaguar Cars Limited, in a meeting held on 23 March 1945, so that to have a unique name for the company and to avoid any connection with acronym S.S.

jaguar
Image Source : motortradenews.com

In the late 40s, the company dealt with a huge issue of shortage of materials, particularly steel, becoming entirely dependent for their bodies on external suppliers. But, by the mid-50s, the company started achieving fame after manufacturing a series of powerful sports cars, including Jaguar XK120, Jaguar XK140, Jaguar XK150, and Jaguar E-Type. At the time, all of those sports cars were powered by the jaguar’s twin-cam straight-six engine, that provided the maximum efficiency. The manufacturing of the cars was based on the Lyons’ mantra of “value for money” and followed the slogan “Grace, Space, Pace.”

Winning the Le Mans 24 hours race, firstly in 1951, and again in 1953, were two major benchmarks for Jaguar, in the long history in motorsport. Lyons was always focused on manufacturing the world-class sporting saloons in larger numbers than the sports car market could support, and as a result, Jaguar was able to achieve a financial stability and a status for distinction with a range of elegantly styled luxury saloons manufactured under its name. The luxurious and stylish saloons cars included the 3-litre and 3½ litre cars, the Mark VII, VIII, and IX, the compact Mark I and 2, and the XJ6 and XJ12.

Pressed Steel Company Limited, manufactured all the major parts of the Jaguar cars, and in mid-1965, British Motor Corporation (BMC) and the Austin-Morris, together, acquired the Pressed Steel Company Ltd. Later, BMC also acquired Jaguar and started a joint venture British Motor Limited, in 1965, that was renamed to British Motor Holdings at the end of 1966.

In 1968, British Motor Holdings, under the government pressure got merged with Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd. and was formed as British Leyland. But, the poor decisions made by the company as well as the financial difficulties, could not make the deal last longer, and due to monetary success, the companies eluded. In 1984, Jaguar also emerged as a separate company and under the leadership of chairman, Sir John Egan, started to rise rapidly.

The Jaguar engines became famous due to its ubiquity and longevity, and the next powerful engine introduced by Jaguar was Twin OHC XK Engine, that was used in the XJ6 saloon from 1969 through 1992. It even empowered the British Army’s Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) family of vehicles, the Fox armoured reconnaissance vehicle, the Ferret Scout Car, as well as the Stonefield four-wheel-drive all-terrain lorry.

In November 1989, Ford offered the Jaguar’s US and UK shareholders to buy their shares, and in 1999, Jaguar became a part of Ford’s new Premier Automotive Group along with Aston Martin, Volvo Cars and, from 2000, Land Rover. At the same time, Jaguar shared a common sales and distribution network as well as some components with Land Rover. All these years, Jaguar made no profits under Ford’s leadership, and in 2007, Ford announced a sale of Jaguar as well as Land Rover, together. On 2 June 2008, Tata Motors of India, acquired both companies by paying £1.7 billion. The Tata Group further established Jaguar Land Rover Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary and renamed the parent company to Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC.

Currently, Jaguar is a manufacturer of the car models including the F-Type convertible, the Jaguar XF, the Jaguar XJ, the Jaguar XK, and the Jaguar R models. In the future, we can expect to see a C-X17 and a four-door compact saloon known as XE.

Since the beginning of the manufacturing of Jaguar Cars, all of the vehicles had the iconic chrome-plated Leaping Jaguar, known as the “The Leaper” on the cap of the radiator of those vehicles. The same leaper is also a part of the logo of the company. But, due to some safety reasons, the leaper has been dropped from the current Jaguar models.

Alec Oxenford : Co-founder & Former CEO of OLX

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Alec Oxenford, born and brought up in Argentina, is an entrepreneur and a technology enthusiast, who has the credits for the establishing the foundation of some multi-billion projects. The native of Argentina, Oxenford completed his graduation in Business Administration from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, and later, joined Harvard University to pursue a master’s degree in the same stream.

Career

As soon as Oxenford completed his education, he started working at Boston Consulting Group. After working for six long years with the same company, Oxenford gained more skills and experience and founded DeRemate, an online consumer-to-consumer trading platform in Latin America, that was later acquired by eBay in 2005.

The time he was successfully running DeRemate, he also co-founded DineroMail.com, a popular payment platform in Latin America, in March 2003 and was associated with the same till December 2010.

Founding OLX

In 2006, Oxenford joined his hands with a French native and angel investor, Fabrice Grinda, to co-found another internet-based platform, as a Craigslist alternative for the world outside of the United States, OLX, a free classified for advertisements. Both were assigned the position of the CEO of the company. The idea was new, and there were not many supporters for the same. But, Oxenford and his partner were quite confident about it. The two came to the conclusion that first, they must test their portal in a native place or a developing country, to properly endorse its services. Hence, they first launched OLX for the people of Argentina, and then in a country overseas, i.e., India.

alec oxenford
Image Source : fortune.com

With good marketing techniques, it became popular in India in no time as a platform to online sell the second-hand items, and the goods that were no more required. Currently, OLX operates in 45 countries, with 330 million users and 60 million listings a month, becoming the largest online classified ads company.

In 2006, OLX acquired Mundoanuncio.com, another classified site to target the Hispanic market, and also invested in a Chinese classifieds site Edeng.cn, in 2007. It also started a partnership with Friendster, in 2008, and social network Hi5, in 2009. The website was modified with the social network widgets, improved search, Ajax-based editors, interactive maps, and mobile versions, with the addition of Web 2.0″ features to it, in 2008.

In 2010, the South African group Naspers acquired OLX, Oxenford remaining CEO through 2014, and Grinda remaining CEO until 2013.

In 2014, Oxenford left OLX and started working on his next project. In 2015, he co-founded another online buying and selling platform, this time especially for the mobile marketplace, named letgo. In the year 2017, the annual revenue of letgo was $375 million and confirmed for the first time that the company had a $1 billion valuation.

Personal Life

Oxenford has been an art lover and has collected various art pieces from around the world. He is also in writing and has spoken at Jóvenes Líderes in 2010, the Web 2.0 Conference in 2015, Red Innova in the years 2014, 2015, and 2016, Art Basel in 2016, and ArteBa in 2017. He was elected as the Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (2006-2011) and also received the CNN Internet Leader Award in 2001 and the Entrepreneur Award in 2003.

Zhou Qunfei : The Self-made Billionaire & the Founder of Lens Technology

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Zhou Qunfei, the founder of Lens Technology, is the world’s richest self-made billionaire, and one of the richest women in the tech sector. She despite facing a lot of difficulties and struggle, managed to accomplish what seemed impossible at a time. She, even, achieving so much in life, is still a grounded person and is not hesitant to sit down and work as a worker in her company. Travelling back and forth between China, Korea and the Silicon Valley, Apple and Samsung are one of the biggest clients of her organisation. Her rags-to-rich story is an inspiration to millions of women in a man dominating society.

Early Life

Zhou Qunfei was born in 1970, in Xiangxiang, Hunan province, in a family with bad financial conditions. Her father had retired from the army. He had become partially blind and lost a finger in an industrial accident before Zhou was born. Zhou lost her mother when she was five. Her father made his living by making bamboo baskets, chairs and repairing bicycles. As a child, Zhou started raising animals to earn a small profit to help her family financially.

zhou-qunfei
Image Source : vivify

Zhou completed her secondary education from a local school and moved to the Guangdong province, to live with her uncle’s family, at the age of sixteen, to become a migrant worker in Shenzhen. She aspired to join a government job, but due to lack of a diploma, she had to drop the idea. But, being a bright student, she took jobs nearby the Shenzhen University so that she could easily complete her studies along with work. With her dedication, she was able to pursue various courses and received multiple certifications in the subjects including accounting, computer operations, customs processing.

Founding Lens Technology

Although Zhou had started earning with her part-time jobs when she was a little kid, her first full-time job was with the small family-run firm making watch parts, where she was paid 180 yuan a month. In just three months, she wrote a humble resignation letter to her boss, as she was unable to co-op with the working conditions of the company. Her resignation moved her boss, who instead of accepting the resignation, promoted Zhou to a higher rank.

After working for a few years in the same company, in 1993, Zhou founded her own company that sold high-quality watch lenses, at the mere age of 22. The company’s first employees included her brother, sister, their spouses, and their cousins, who started their work in a three bedroom apartment. Zhou used her savings of HK$20,000 (~USD$3,000), to start the company. She got involved in every operation of the company and became proficient in each of it, including the repairs and creating improved designs of factory machinery. Her big break came when the Chinese electronics giant TCL Corporation approached her with a contract to make mobile phone screens, in 2001. In 2003, she again received an order from Motorola, to develop glass screens for their Razr V3. By the time, mobile companies had started using glass screens replacing the plastic screens for the mobiles.

Earning major profits in mobile phone screen manufacturing, in 2003, Zhou founded Lens Technology and started producing touch screen for smartphones. The company received its name, in order to be more visible for its potential customers, in the online searches. The company soon received orders from HTC, Nokia, Samsung Electronics and also from Apple, in 2007, the biggest breakthrough for Lens Technology, and became the topmost touchscreen supplier. The company also supplies the watch glass for the apple watches. By the year 2017, the company had established 32 factories at different locations and had hired 90,000 employees. In 2015, Zhou made the company IPO public on the ChiNext A-share market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and Lens Technology became China’s largest technology IPO, in the first quarter of 2015 and raised Zhou’s net worth by 452%.

Personal Life

Zou is married twice, and her first marriage was with her former factory boss. She has a daughter with him. In 2008, she married Zheng Junlong, an old colleague from Lens Technology, and the two have a son together. Along with working as her hobby, she also enjoys mountain climbing and playing ping-pong.

Zhou is China’s richest woman and is listed at number 61, in the Forbes list of 2016 Power Women. She was also named the number 18 on the Fortune 2016 Most Powerful Women of Asia-Pacific list.