Ken Griffin Biography & Net Worth

Ken Griffin Biography & Net Worth

Ken Griffin is an American hedge fund manager, businessman and investor. He is the chief executive officer, Co-Chief Investment Officer, and majority owner of ‘Citadel’, a successful investment firm he founded in 1990. Managing his firm and also getting involved in several other businesses are the chief sources of Ken Griffin net worth. It has been revealed that Citadel operates with an investment capital of about $36 billion. Sister firm ‘Citadel Securities’ takes care of two of every five stock trades. He has achieved enormous success in his lifetime, and this is his biography and success story.

Ken Griffin’s Early Life

Kenneth Cordele Griffin was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States on October 15, 1968, and was raised in Wisconsin and Boca Raton, Texas. The son of a building supplies executive, his father was employed at General Electric where he served as project manager.

Griffin attended middle school in Boca Raton and later Boca Raton Community High School. In high school, he was the president of his school’s math club, and ran a discount education software business out of his bedroom named EDCOM. He was featured in a Sun-Sentinel article in 1986, titled, “For team of Boca students, computer’s screen is arena”. In the article, Griffin states that he believes he will become a lawyer or entrepreneur and goes on to mention that he thinks the job market for computer programmers will decrease over the coming decade. In 1986, Griffin started at Harvard College, and started investing soon after he discovered what he believed were lags in the convertible bonds market, which allowed bonds to be converted into stock. He convinced school proprietors to allow him to mount a satellite dish on Cabot House’s roof, aimed at receiving stock quotes. He got $100,000 from his grandmother and others, and then asked Merrill Lynch convertible bonds manager, Terrence J. O’Connor, to help him open a brokerage account. In 1987, his first fund was launched with $265,000, a few days after his 19th birthday.] Griffin completed his studies at Harvard College in 1989, graduating with a degree in economics.

Ken Griffin’s Career

As soon as he completed his graduation at Harvard College, Ken Griffin moved to Chicago to work with a well-known investor named Frank Meyer. Meyer founded and owned Glenwood Capital Investments, and gave Griffin $1 million to trade.

In 1990, Griffin established the global financial firm, Citadel, with an investment of $4.6 million. His previous boss Frank Meyer also assisted him in setting up the company. By the year 1998, his company had expanded to have over a hundred employees and investment capital of $1 billion.

In 2014, he was included on the board of trustees of the University of Chicago. He is also a member of a number of organizations including Economic Club of Chicago and Commercial Club of Chicago. He currently serves as the vice chairman of Chicago Public Education Fund.

Griffin is also an active art buyer, known to buy art from mainstream artists. His collection includes Jackson Pollock’s 1948 painting, David Geffen of Willem de Kooning’s, Paul Cézanne’s painting Curtain, and many more.

Awards & Achievements

Ken Griffin’s illustrious career is one that is adorned by many accolades. He has received several well-deserved awards and honors in his lifetime career. Top of the list is his 2008 induction into the Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame of the Institutional Investor’s Alpha. For his donations, the Field Museum of Natural History changed the name of their dinosaur exhibit to the Griffin Dinosaur Experience.

In 2019, he gave $125 million to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. It is said that this is the biggest gift ever received by the museum. Today, the museum is known as the Kenneth Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.

Personal Life & Family

Ken met Katherine Weingartt during his schooldays. They began dating, and married after sometime. However they divorced after a few years. In 2002, Ken met Harvard Business school graduate Anne Dias, and married her in 2003. After three children between them, the couple divorced in 2015 citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Ken is one of the most noted investors and businessmen in America. He donates a high percentage of his earnings to many charitable trusts and organizations. Between 2007–2008, he made a lot of political donations to various parties and candidates, including American Crossroads and the Republican Governors Association. He also made a huge donation of $5.855 million to Freedom Partners Action Fund, Conservative Solutions PAC, and Right To rising USA. In the 2012 presidential elections, he made huge donations to Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign as well as pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future. Along with his wife, he established the Kenneth and Anne Griffin Foundation in 2009. Their foundation focused on donations to libraries and public schools. He has also worked with the world-renowned philanthropic organization “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”. In 2011, he donated the sum of $11 million to the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, intended to be utilized in building a chapel.

Ken Griffin Net Worth

Mr. Griffin has been a force to recognize in the business world since he stepped in as a newbie in 1989. He established his own financial firm in 1990, and the rest is history. Today, he ranked among the world’s richest people. Forbes magazine named him the youngest self-made human in 2003, and as of 2020, he was the richest person in Illinois and the 45^th richest person in the United States.

Ken Griffin net worth is currently estimated at $14 billion. His massive fortune has come from his career as a hedge fund manager and investor where he has achieved unquantifiable success. He owns three Carlton Gardens near Buckingham Palace expected to cost around $122 million. He also owns a property in Palm Beach, Florida, which he purchased in 2013 for the sum of $130 million. After splashing $238 million on a penthouse in New York, Ken Griffin holds the record for any house purchase in the United States.