William Augustus Franke (born April 15, 1937) is an airline investor and a co-founder and Managing Partner of
Indigo Partners
Indigo Partners, LLC is an American private equity firm which has a controlling interest in the American Frontier Airlines and Chilean low-cost JetSmart, as well as holding stakes in Mexican budget airline Volaris and European low-cost carrier ...
LLC, a private equity fund focused in air transportation. He has been the President at Franke and Company, Inc. since 1987. Franke has been Chairman of
Wizz Air
Wizz Air, legally incorporated as Wizz Air Hungary Ltd. ( hu, Wizz Air Hungary Légiközlekedési Zrt.) is a Hungarian ultra-low-cost carrier with its head office in Budapest, Hungary. The airline serves many cities across Europe, as well as ...
since 2004, and serves as Chairman of
Frontier Airlines. He also serves as the President and Chairman of Bristol Group SA.
Education and early career
Franke graduated from
Stanford University with a BA in History in 1959 and an LL.B. in Law in 1961. In his early career he was the CEO of a
''Fortune'' 500 forest products company, Southwest Forest Industries (now
Smurfit-Stone Container
Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation was a global paperboard and paper-based packaging company based in Creve Coeur, Missouri, and Chicago, Illinois, with approximately 21,000 employees. In 2007, Smurfit-Stone was ranked 13 in Pricewaterhouse ...
) and Chairman of
Circle K
Circle K Stores, Inc. is a Canadian chain of convenience stores headquartered in Laval, Quebec, Canada. It is owned by the multinational company Couche-Tard. Founded in 1951 in El Paso, Texas, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in ...
, which he restructured through bankruptcy. He was Chairman and CEO of
America West Airlines
America West Airlines was a major American airline, founded in 1981, with service commencing in 1983, and having reached US$1 billion in annual revenue in 1989, headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. At the time of its acquisition of US Airways, Amer ...
from 1993 to 2001, Chairman of
Singapore-based
Tiger Airways
Tiger Airways Singapore Pte Ltd, operating as Tigerair, was a budget airline headquartered in Singapore. It operated services to regional destinations in Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, Taiwan, China and India from its main base at Singapore Changi ...
from 2004 to 2009, and Chairman of
Spirit Airlines from July 2006 to August 2013.
Philanthropy
He was awarded an honorary doctorate from
Northern Arizona University in 2008 where, following a $25 million donation, The W. A. Franke College of Business was named after him. In 2016 he made a donation of $24 million to the
University of Montana
The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fa ...
. He has also donated to his alma mater
Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford La ...
to create The W. A. Franke Professorship in Law and Business. In 2021, he donated $25 million to the
University of Arizona to be put towards scholarships, housing stipends, and study abroad programs for honors students; the Honors College was thus renamed the W.A. Franke Honors College.
References
Further reading
*
1937 births
Living people
Stanford University alumni
Stanford Law School alumni
Businesspeople in aviation
People from Bryan, Texas
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