College sports is big business, and as overseer of a 14-school juggernaut, Delany is widely considered its most powerful exec. Big Ten revenue—$338 million in fiscal 2014—is sure to grow after this season, when the commish negotiates new multibillion-dollar TV contracts. Money pouring into Northwestern, U. of I., and other schools could rise by two-thirds, … Read more
A mainstay on just about every important board in town (McDonald’s, Lyric), this longtime chief was named by Barron’s one of the world’s 30 best CEOs yet again last year, up there with Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon. (“His corporate engineering has helped investors realize great value,” the paper explained.) White’s next challenge: integrating the … Read more
After 40 years at Chicago’s most storied financial services company, eight of them as its chief, Waddell’s place on this power list is beginning to seem as constant as Earth’s orbit around the sun. The year 2015 was unusually good for the powerful banker: Northern Trust posted a 10 percent return after years in the … Read more
He ranked a lofty No. 5 on last year’s list. But that was before the Bulls and the White Sox, the cornerstones of Reinsdorf’s estimated $1.2 billion fortune, started to show cracks. The Sox tanked despite a roster of many of the best-paid players in town, and the Bulls—well, you know how that ended. One … Read more
He may be new to the corner office (as of July), but not to Boeing: Muilenburg started working at the aerospace giant as an engineering intern back in 1985. So far, he’s had a few wins (for example, reaching a union contract deal) and a few stumbles (Boeing stock fell 15 percent in the January … Read more
Don’t call her George Lucas’s wife. The only Chicagoan to land on Time magazine’s 2015 list of the 100 most influential people—alongside the likes of Apple CEO Tim Cook and the infamous Koch brothers—Hobson is, of course, a major power in corporate America: She’s president of Ariel Investments and on several blue-chip boards (Starbucks, Estée … Read more
Chicago’s storied history of corruption tends to keep its U.S. attorneys busy, and Fardon certainly isn’t getting shortchanged. His office recently nabbed former U.S. House speaker Dennis Hastert and on-the-take ex–CPS chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett; it was the first in the nation to drop the hammer on a “spoofer,” a trader who cheated millions of small … Read more
The Force is definitely with Lucas. He’s worth billions. He’s got a powerful, glamorous wife (No. 18). A new baby. And an old baby, Star Wars, that was, of course, just reinvigorated by director J.J. Abrams and smashed box-office records around the world. (Lucas consulted on the film.) New interest in the Star Wars series … Read more
Bluhm has struggled with union headaches lately, and his upscale Rivers Casino in Des Plaines ended a four-year growth streak last year. But it’s still the most profitable casino in Illinois. And Bluhm shows no signs of slowing down: The art lover was recently elected a board cochair of New York’s prestigious Whitney Museum of … Read more
The past year can’t have been much fun for Rosenfeld, thanks to pressure from major investors Nelson Peltz and William Ackman that led to intense cost cutting. But it paid off: Mondelez stock rose 23 percent in 2015, handily beating both its industry peers and the S&P 500. Her next tasks are to goose growth … Read more
