Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Fiat Chrysler chief executive Sergio Marchionne and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen were among newsmakers in government, business and finance who died in 2018.
The business world lost Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the Swedish furniture empire Ikea; Charles Lazarus, who created Toys “R” Us; Kate Spade, the fashion designer who built an accessories empire; Stan Lee, who turned Marvel Comics into a global entertainment juggernaut; and Albert Frere, the Belgian billionaire dealmaker whose empire stretched from energy to alcohol.
Financial leaders who died included billionaire financier and philanthropist Peter G. Peterson; Richard Jenrette, co-founder of the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette; Martin Whitman, founder and former chief investment officer at Third Avenue Management; William Bain, who formed consulting firm Bain & Co.; and William McDonough, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Among deceased public sector figures were six-term U.S. Senator John McCain, former CIA chief Stansfield Turner; South African anti-apartheid activist Winnie Mandela; ex-Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci; and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
IBJ reported on several notable deaths in 2018, including those of Indianapolis Motor Speedway matriarch Mari Hulman George, Heritage Group founder Fred Fehsenfeld, journalist Matthew Tully, Judge Patricia Gifford and banker Andy Paine.
Jim Shaw, 60. Former chief executive officer of Shaw Communications Inc., the Canadian telecommunications company his father founded in 1966. Died Jan. 3 following a brief illness.
Brendan Byrne, 93. Governor of New Jersey from 1974 to 1982 who brought casino gambling to the state and oversaw the local economy’s transformation to one driven by services and trade instead of manufacturing. Died Jan. 4.
Bruce Halle, 87. Billionaire who founded Scottsdale, Arizona-based Discount Tire Co., the world’s largest independent tire and wheel retailer. Died Jan. 4.
John Young, 87. The commander of NASA’s first space shuttle mission, he was one of only 12 humans to walk on the moon. Died Jan. 5 following complications from pneumonia.
Peter Sutherland, 71. The Dublin-born ex-head of the World Trade Organization and until 2015 chairman of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s European operations. Died Jan. 7.
Keith Jackson, 89. Voice of U.S. college football broadcasts for almost 40 years best known for his “Whoa, Nellie!” exclamation at big plays. Died Jan. 12.
William Bain Jr., 80. Formed Boston-based Bain & Co., a consulting firm focused on developing long-term, strategic plans for companies, and Bain Capital, a private equity company where he was a mentor to Mitt Romney. Died Jan. 16.
Stansfield Turner, 94. CIA director who replaced cloak-and-dagger surveillance methods with technology to keep tabs on America’s enemies during President Jimmy Carter’s administration in the 1970s. Died Jan. 18.
Paul Bocuse, 91. One of the 20th century’s most influential chefs who built on the traditions of French haute cuisine with a distinctive style that emphasized simplicity and freshness. Died Jan. 20 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease.
William J. McDonough, 83. His decade-long tenure as Federal Reserve Bank of New York president included dealing with the near-collapse of Long-Term Capital Management LP and the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Died Jan. 22.
Ingvar Kamprad, 91. Swedish entrepreneur who founded Ikea furniture chain and became a billionaire by selling affordable, easily transportable tables, chairs and bookcases to the masses. Died Jan. 27.
Jon Huntsman Sr., 80. Billionaire industrialist and philanthropist in Utah and the father of that state’s governor. Died Feb. 2.
Morgan Tsvangirai, 65. The former labor union leader who led Zimbabwe’s main opposition party for almost two decades and failed to unseat Robert Mugabe as president in several elections that were marred by allegations of violence and rigging. Died Feb. 14 following treatment for cancer.
Leo Civitillo, 43. Global head of fixed-income capital markets at New York-based Morgan Stanley who joined the bank in 2004. Died Feb. 17.
Billy Graham, 99. Christian evangelist nicknamed “God’s machine gun” who preached riveting, rapid-fire sermons to millions of people and became the confidant of world leaders including every U.S. president from Harry Truman to George W. Bush. Died Feb. 21 after developing Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer.
Nanette Fabray, 97. Dancer and actress whose work on Sid Caesar’s pioneering television comedy shows influenced a generation of comediennes. Died Feb. 22.
Roger Bannister, 88. The U.K. athlete who as a medical student six decades ago became the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. Died March 3 following treatment for Parkinson’s disease.
Oskar Groening, 96. Dubbed the “accountant of Auschwitz,” the low-ranking official was convicted at age 94 of complicity in the murder of at least 300,000 Jews at the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. Died March 9.
Hubert de Givenchy, 91. French fashion designer who dressed Jackie Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn and whose House of Givenchy became synonymous with modern elegance, then sold his brand to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton in 1988. Died March 10.
Peter G. Peterson, 91. Wall Street rainmaker with global connections who served as U.S. Commerce secretary and emerged from a fight for control of Lehman Bros. to become a billionaire as co-founder of the private-equity firm Blackstone Group LP in New York. Died March 20.
Charles Lazarus, 94. He combined supermarket-style service with touches of whimsy in creating Toys “R” Us Inc., a longtime retail success that fought high debt and fierce competition before collapsing it bankruptcy several months before his death. Died March 22.
Wayne Huizenga, 80. Billionaire entrepreneur who made Waste Management Inc. and Blockbuster Video the leaders in their industries and used his wealth to buy professional baseball, football and hockey teams in Florida. Died March 22.
Peter Munk, 90. Canadian immigrant who founded Barrick Gold Corp. in the early 1980s and transformed it from a small-scale operation into a global empire. Died March 28.
Martin J. Whitman, 93. Morningstar’s mutual fund manager of the year in 1990, he made “safe and cheap” a value-investing mantra during more than two decades heading the Third Avenue Value Fund. Died April 16.
Barbara Bush, 92. The wife of former President George H.W. Bush and mother ex-President George W. Bush, she embodied the old-fashioned sensibility that family comes before careers or politics. Died April 17.
Tom Wolfe, 88. The U.S. author who took a new mixture of journalism and literary techniques to mind-bending heights in works such as The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff. Died May 14.
Bernard Lewis, 101. Princeton University professor emeritus whose warnings about rising Islamic fundamentalism and a looming “clash of civilizations” made him a leading scholar of the terrorism age. Died May 19.
Frank Carlucci, 87. He led the Defense Department under President Ronald Reagan and later expanded the influence of Carlyle Group as the investment firm’s chairman. Died June 3 of complications from Parkinson’s disease.
Red Schoendienst, 95. Hall of Fame baseball player who won World Series titles with the St. Louis Cardinals as a player and manager. Died June 6.
Kazuo Kashio, 89. One of four brothers who founded Tokyo-based Casio Computer Co., which popularized pocket calculators and shock-proof wristwatches. Died June 18 from pneumonia.
Charles Krauthammer, 68. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist whose frequent appearances on cable news programs made him an influential proponent of conservative causes. Died June 21 of cancer of the small intestine.
Wang Jian, 57. Co-chairman of HNA Group Co., the Chinese conglomerate that sold billions of dollars in assets recently amid soaring borrowing costs. Died July 3 from a fall.
Lord Carrington, 99. House of Lords member who served six U.K. prime ministers and was the last survivor of Winston Churchill’s administration. Died July 9.
Ron Dellums, 82. California Democrat with a focus on civil rights who entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1971 as a black liberal who opposed the Vietnam War. Died July 30.
Paul Laxalt, 96. Republican U.S. senator from Nevada who was President Ronald Reagan’s closest friend and confidante in Congress. Died Aug. 6.
V.S. Naipaul, 85. Nobel Prize-winning author who was born in Trinidad of Indian ancestry and lived in the U.K. writing unsparing novels about colonizers and liberation movements in Africa and the Caribbean. Died Aug. 11.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 93. Former prime minister who transformed India into a nuclear-armed nation and ignited a weapons race in South Asia. Died Aug. 16.
Aretha Franklin, 76. Former gospel singer who went on to reign over the music industry as the Queen of Soul with hit songs such as Respect, Chain of Fools and (You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman and was the the first female inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Died Aug. 16 of pancreatic cancer.
Kofi Annan, 80. Ghanaian diplomat who was the first UN secretary general from sub-Sahara Africa and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. Died Aug. 18.
Vaughn Beals Jr., 90. Executive credited with resurrecting the Harley-Davidson motorcycle from the brink of bankruptcy in the 1980s to a symbol of made-in-America pride. Died Aug. 19.
John McCain, 81. The 2008 Republican presidential nominee and Vietnam War hero who was a senior voice on defense and foreign policy in the U.S. Senate, where he had served since 1987. Died Aug. 25 following treatment for glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Neil Simon, 91. His Broadway plays including Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple and Lost in Yonkers made him the most commercially successful playwright of his time. Died Aug. 26 of complications from pneumonia.
Richard DeVos Sr., 92. Billionaire co-founder of the Amway direct-selling empire who used his fortune to buy the Orlando Magic basketball team and back conservative political causes. Died Sept. 6.
Burt Reynolds, 82. U.S. actor who starred in movies such as Deliverance, The Longest Yard and Smokey and the Bandit, which established him as a likable, adventurous rogue. Died Sept. 6 from cardiac arrest.
Clayton Riddell, 81. Founded Canadian oil company Paramount Resources Ltd. in 1976 and co-owned the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames team. Died Sept. 15.
Tran Dai Quang, 61. Elected president of Vietnam in 2016, he advocated expanding the nation’s private sector and developing closer ties with the U.S. Died Sept. 21.
Charles Aznavour, 94. Known as the “French Frank Sinatra,” he recorded more than 1,400 songs and appeared in more than 60 films while pursuing his passion for Armenian causes during a lifelong career in show business. Died Oct. 1.
Jamal Khashoggi, 59. Prominent Saudi Arabian journalist and critic of the Saudi government who lived in the U.S. and worked as a Washington Post columnist. Murdered on Oct. 2 by Saudi agents in their nation’s consulate in Istanbul.
Leon Lederman, 96. Nobel Prize-winning U.S. physicist who co-discovered one of the universe’s subatomic building blocks before coining the term “God particle” to describe the mechanism that gives mass to matter. Died Oct. 3.
Alex Spanos, 95. Billionaire real-estate developer who in 1984 purchased the National Football Leagues’s San Diego Chargers team, now called the Los Angeles Chargers. Died Oct. 9.
William Coors, 102. Heir to the Coors brewing dynasty who helped transform a local product into a national brand while promoting conservative views and anti-union policies that led to consumer boycotts. Died Oct. 13.
Paul Allen, 65. Billionaire who co-founded Microsoft Corp. with Bill Gates and used his fortune to invest in professional sports teams, cable TV and real estate. Died Oct. 15 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Wanda Ferragamo, 96. She turned her husband’s Italian shoe company into a luxury-goods empire after taking over Florence, Italy-based Salvatore Ferragamo SpA more than 50 years ago. Died Oct. 19.
Walter Kwok, 68. Former chairman of Hong Kong real-estate firm Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. who was kidnapped in 1997 by a local gang leader. Died Oct. 20.
Gilberto Benetton, 77. Co-founded the Italian family’s namesake apparel company more than 50 years ago and oversaw its diversification into infrastructure, food service and finance. Died Oct. 22.
Terry Laughlin, 63. Bank of America Corp.’s vice chairman, who ran its $2.8 trillion wealth-management business. Died Oct. 25.
Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, 60. Thai billionaire whose fortune came from King Power Group’s empire of duty-free stores and who stunned the sports world by taking perennially mediocre Leicester City to the pinnacle of English soccer in 2016. Died Oct. 27 in a helicopter crash.
James “Whitey” Bulger, 89. Boston mob boss and informant who corrupted FBI agents, murdered his associates and spent 16 years on the run. Found murdered in his prison cell on Oct. 30 while serving a life sentence.
Jeremy Heywood, 56. Influential former U.K. cabinet secretary and head of the civil service. Died Nov. 4 from cancer.
Evelyn Y. Davis, 89. Self-proclaimed “queen of the corporate jungle” who turned public companies’ annual meetings into stages for a theatrical, confrontational and self-promoting version of shareholder activism. Died Nov. 4.
Stan Lee, 95. The head of Marvel Comics who brought a modern sensibility to comic books and provided lucrative fodder for Hollywood as co-creator of imperfect superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men and Iron Man. Died Nov. 12.
Igor Korobov, 62. Head of the Russian military’s main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, which was accused of interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the nerve-agent poisoning of an exiled double-agent in the U.K. earlier this year. Died Nov. 21.
Robert C. McNair, 81. Founding owner of the NFL’s Houston Texans team. Died Nov. 23 following treatment for cancer.
George Ty, 86. Billionaire founder of the Philippines’ second-largest lender, Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co., and Toyota Motor Corp.’s partner in the southeast Asian nation. Died Nov. 23.
Bernardo Bertolucci, 77. Italian film director best known for the steamy Last Tango in Paris and The Last Emperor, which earned him an Oscar for directing. Died Nov. 26.
George H.W. Bush, 94. The 41st U.S. president whose single term in office was notable for its restrained response to the fall of the Soviet Union and a military victory that liberated Kuwait from an Iraqi invasion. Died Nov. 30.
Albert Frere, 92. Belgian billionaire whose investments shaped some of Europe’s largest companies in more than a half-century of deal-making. Died Dec. 3.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, 91. Led the oldest Russian human-rights organization and was a driving force behind the civil-rights movement in the Soviet Union. Died Dec. 8.
Nelson Martinez, 68. Former Venezuelan oil minister who once led refiner Citgo Holding Inc. Died Dec. 12 while in custody following his arrest in 2017 as part of a crackdown on alleged corruption and illegal crude oil sales.
John Hickey, 50. Managing director at Stifel Financial Corp. who worked in the firm’s institutional equities sales and trading group in New York. Died Dec. 13 when he was struck by a train.
Colin Kroll, 34. Co-founder and CEO of the HQ Trivia quiz app who had previously helped start Vine, a short-format video startup acquired by Twitter. Found dead in his home on Dec. 16.
Penny Marshall, 75. Actress who starred in the sitcom Laverne & Shirley before becoming one of the top-grossing female directors in Hollywood with films such as Big and A League of Their Own. Died Dec. 17 due to complications from diabetes.
Jim Rogers, 71. Duke Energy Corp.’s CEO from 2006 to 2013, when he agreed to step down as part of a settlement with regulators probing the company’s takeover of Progress Energy. Died Dec. 17.
Tyrone Thomas, 42. Citigroup Inc.’s head of North American loan sales, who also worked to attract and retain a more diverse workforce at the bank. Died following treatment for brain cancer, his managers informed colleagues on Dec. 18.