Georges Doriot

Georges Frédéric Doriot (September 24, 1899 – June 1987) was a French-American known for his prolific careers in military, academics, business and education. An émigré from France, Doriot became a professor of Industrial Management at Harvard Business School and then director of the U.S. Army's Military Planning Division, Quartermaster General, during World War II, eventually being promoted to brigadier general. In 1946, he founded American Research and Development Corporation, regarded as one of the world's two first venture capital firms, earning him the sobriquet "father of venture capitalism". In 1957, he founded INSEAD, now one of the world's top business schools. Doriot was born in Paris, France in 1899, to Berthe Camille Baehler and Auguste Doriot, the pioneering motorist, racer, engineer, factory manager, dealer and car manufacturer (owner of D.F.P.). Doriot enlisted in the French army in 1920. He emigrated to America to earn an MBA and stayed on, becoming a professor at the Harvard Business School in 1926. He became a U.S. citizen in 1940 and the following year was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps. As Director of the Military Planning Division for the Quartermaster General, he worked on military research, development and planning, eventually being promoted to brigadier general. In 1930, Doriot co-founded the CPA - Centre de Perfectionnement aux Affaires - which became part of HEC Paris in 2002, then rebranded as the HEC Paris executive MBA, de facto one of the oldest executive MBAs in the world. In 1957, Doriot founded INSEAD, the world's top global graduate business school in France with a group of his former Harvard MBA students. In 1946, Doriot returned to Harvard and the same year he founded American Research and Development Corporation (ARDC), one of the first two venture capital firms along with Ralph Flanders and Karl Compton (former president of MIT), to encourage private sector investments in businesses run by soldiers who were returning from World War II.