Home Notifications Newsletters Next Share

These 18 insanely successful people all went to the London School of Economicshttps://www.businessinsider.in/these-18-insanely-successful-people-all-went-to-the-london-school-of-economics/billionaire-investor-george-soros-moved-to-london-from-hungary-in-1947-after-getting-a-ba-and-a-phd-in-philosophy-from-lse-he-worked-in-london-for-a-while-soon-after-he-moved-to-the-us-where-he-opened-soros-fund-management-soros-is-currently-the-26th-richest-man-on-earth-according-to-bloombergs-billionaires-index-/slidelist/49564817.cms2021-07-26T12:46:58+05:30

These 18 insanely successful people all went to the London School of Economics

Jul 26, 2021, 12:46 IST

Billionaire investor George Soros moved to London from Hungary in 1947. After getting a BA and a PhD in philosophy from LSE he worked in London for a while. Soon after he moved to the US where he opened Soros Fund Management. Soros is currently the 26th richest man on earth according to Bloomberg's Billionaires index.

Mick Jagger was studying at LSE when he began playing with the Rolling Stones in 1961. At first, he played with the Stones just on weekends and attended classes during the week, but he ultimately dropped out to pursue his music career.

Sir David Attenborough originally went to the University of Cambridge, but enrolled at LSE in 1964, while already working for the BBC. He started a degree in anthropology through a part-time course, but ended his studies after being offered a job as controller of BBC Two.

Janet Napolitano studied for a term at LSE in 1978. She was US Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013, and has been President of the University of California since then.

easyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou was born in Athens, and moved to London to take an undergraduate degree in economics at LSE, graduating in 1987.

Jay Bregman is currently CEO of Verifly, a company that aims to make drones safe. He is also former CEO and one of the founders of taxi-hailing app Hailo. He holds a MSc in Communications from LSE.

Cherie Blair is the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. She studied law at LSE and graduated in 1975. She is a distinguished barrister and founded the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, a network that helps female entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Kaushik Basu is the senior vice president and chief economist at the World Bank. He previously worked as an adviser to the Indian government and taught at Cornell University. He graduated from LSE with an MSc in economics in 1974.

George Papandreu was prime minister of Greece from 2009 to 2011. Earlier this year he founded the Movement of Democratic Socialists, a political party which got just 2.46% of the popular vote in elections in January. He holds an MA in Sociology of Development from LSE.

Juan Manuel Santos has been president of Colombia since 2010. Before that he served as the country's finance and defence minister. He studied as a postgraduate in LSE's economics department.

David Rockefeller — the world's oldest billionaire at 100 — studied economics for a year at LSE, meeting John F. Kennedy while he was there. He later went on to be chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan, and is now John D. Rockefeller's only surviving grandchild.

Robert Mundell won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1999, for his work on monetary and fiscal policies. He studied at LSE in 1956. Mundell is considering by some to be the "father of the Euro" and his work helped kick start the study of supply-side economics.

Salil Shetty is a human rights activist who has been Secretary General at Amnesty International since 2010. At LSE he studied an MSc in Social Planning and Policy, graduating with a distinction in 1991.

Anne Applebaum has been an editor at publications including The Economist and The Spectator. Most notably she won a Pulitzer prize in 2004 for her work Gulag: A History. Born in Washington DC, she studied at LSE as a Marshall scholar earning an MA in international relations.

Rajiv Shah was the Administrator for USAID, the US government agency for international development until earlier this year. He is now a fellow in Global Human Development at Georgetown University. Shah said that while studying at LSE in 1993 he experienced two key events in his life: he got his worst mark ever and met his wife.

Daron Acemoglu is a Turkish economist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He won the Nemmer Prize for economics in 2012. He graduated with a PhD in economics from LSE in 1990.

David Levering Lewis is a Pulitzer prize winning author for his work on the American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois. In 1962, he got his PhD in European and French History at LSE

Arguably, the most famous person ever to study at LSE is American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He enrolled on LSE's general course in 1935, but had to return to America due to ill health. He later attended Harvard and took classes at the Stanford Business School.

Now see...

Next Story The Future of Gaming Technology

View All Latest