Laurene Powell Jobs (born November 6, 1963) is an American businesswoman, executive and the founder of Emerson Collective, which advocates for policies concerning education and immigration reform, social justice and environmental conservation. She is also co-founder and president of the Board of College Track, which prepares disadvantaged high school students for college. Powell Jobs resides in Palo Alto, California, with her three children. She is the widow of Steve Jobs, co-founder and former chief executive officer of Apple Inc. She manages the Laurene Powell Jobs Trust.
Early life and career
Powell Jobs grew up in West Milford, New Jersey. She earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences and a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1985. She received her M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1991.
In October 1989, Steve Jobs gave a “View from the Top” lecture at Stanford Business School. Laurene Powell was a new MBA student and sneaked to the front of the lecture and started up a conversation with Steve who was seated next to her. They ended up having dinner together that night. A year and a half later on March 18, 1991, they married in a ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. Presiding over the wedding was Kobun Chino Otogawa, a Zen Buddhist monk. Their son, Reed, was born September 1991, followed by daughters Erin in 1995 and Eve in 1998.
Powell Jobs co-founded Terravera, a natural foods company that sold to retailers throughout Northern California. She also served on the board of directors of Achieva, which created online tools to help students study and be more effective at standardized testing. Before business school, Powell Jobs worked for Merrill Lynch Asset Management and spent three years at Goldman Sachs as a fixed-income trading strategist.
Laurene Powell Jobs net worth: Laurene Powell Jobs is an American billionaire who has a net worth of $20 billion. Laurene Powell Jobs is probably best known for being the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. But the reality is, the majority of her net worth actually doesn’t come from the large stake in Apple she inherited from Steve. Most of Laurene Powell Jobs’ money is tied to her controlling stakes in two major American companies; Apple and Walt Disney. When Steve sold Pixar to Disney, he received 130 million shares of Disney. Today, Laurene owns 130,181,925 shares of Disney that are worth more than $13.15 billion. The remaining roughly $6 billion is mostly Apple stock but also at least $500 million in cash. She controls four percent of Disney through family trusts. She is said to own less than one percent of the business and her shares are therefore no longer reported. In 2015 Powell Jobs committed $50 million to high schools.
Outside of her association to Jobs, Powell is the co-founder and President of the Board of Directors at the national education nonprofit organization College Track, which works to send underprivileged youth to college. Powell previously co-founded Terravera, a food company that specialized in organic and healthy food products. And before going to business school, she also spent three years at the business firm Goldman Sachs. But it’s her philanthropy that she’s best known for, in stark contrast to her deceased husband, who was somewhat notoriously uninterested in charitable causes throughout his life. She is a member of the boards of directors of charitable and community organizations such as Teach for America, the Global Fund for Women, TV station KQED (PBS), EdVoice the New America Foundation and the Stanford Schools Corporation. Clearly, Laurene Powell Jobs is someone who isn’t content to just sit on her wealth, instead using her blessings to give back to not just her community but various communities all over the planet.
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