Alan Wurtzel is an American businessman, author, speaker, and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

. He spent 13 years as

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

Circuit City Circuit City is an American consumer electronics retail company, which was founded in 1949 by Samuel Wurtzel as the Wards Company, operated stores across the United States, and pioneered the electronics superstore format in the 1970s. After m ...

before retiring in 1986. He now acts as trustee for the

Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips (art collector), Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the ...

and the

Chesapeake Bay Foundation The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is a non-profit organization devoted to the restoration and protection of the Chesapeake Bay in the United States. It was founded in 1967 and has headquarters offices in Annapolis, Maryland. The foundation h ...

Career

Wurtzel received a B.A. from Oberlin College and a J.D. from

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

. He joined Circuit City in 1966 as vice president of legal affairs and then was CEO from 1972 to 1986. He was chairman of the board from 1984 to 1994 and vice-chairman from 1994 to 2001. Circuit City was profiled as one of the eleven companies in Jim Collins' 2001 book ''

Good to Great ''Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't'' is a management book by Jim C. Collins that describes how companies transition from being good companies to great companies, and how most companies fail to make the transition ...

''. Wurtzel sold all of his Circuit City Stock in 2000, and left the company in 2001. Under his leadership, the company grew to be the best performing

Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by '' Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...

Company for any fifteen-year period between 1965 and 1995. Wurtzel was director of Dollar Tree Stores, Inc., retiring from the board in 2009, and from 1989 to 1996, was on the board of

Office Depot The ODP Corporation is an American office supply holding company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company has combined annual sales of approximately $11 billion, and employs about 38,000 associates with businesses in the United States. ...

. He has been an active investor in startup companies and remains on the board of two privately held companies. On October 9, 2012, Wurtzel released his book on the history of Circuit City, ''Good to Great to Gone'', with

Diversion Books Diversion Books, originally founded as a digital publisher in 2010, is an American publishing company based in New York City. It publishes titles in physical, digital, audio, and other formats. The company specializes in non-fiction (history, pop ...

Personal life

Since retiring from Circuit City, Wurtzel has split his time between commercial and non-profit activities. Early on, much of his time was devoted to higher education and K-12 educational reform. He was a trustee of

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virginia ...

where he endowed a professorship in memory of his father, a member of the

Virginia State Board of Education The Virginia State Board of Education is an independent board established by the state of Virginia in the United States which helps set state elementary and secondary educational policy, advocates within state government for elementary and secondar ...

and the State Council for Higher Education. He was also a director of not-for-profit standards-based education policy organizations including New American Schools,

National Center on Education and the Economy The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) is an American not-for-profit education research, advocacy, and educator professional learning organization based in Washington, DC, that first formed in 1988 as the Carnegie Forum on Educa ...

, and the Council for Basic Education. As a member of Virginia's State Board of Education, he actively participated in the formulation and adoption of the current Standards of Learning program. Currently, Wurtzel is a trustee of The Phillips Collection, where he has been active in developing its expansion and investment plans; the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group that works to protect the Bay; the

Brady Campaign Brady: United Against Gun Violence (formerly “Handgun Control, Inc”., the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control and against ...

, a gun violence prevention organization, and his alma mater Oberlin College. He is married to the playwright Irene Rosenberg Wurtzel, and has three grown children. He lives in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

and

Delaplane, Virginia Delaplane is an unincorporated community in northern Fauquier County, Virginia, approximately due west of Washington, D.C. Delaplane is situated along U.S. Route 17, U.S. Route 50, and Interstate 66; bordering Upperville, Virginia to the north, ...

References

External links

* http://www.jimcollins.com/ * http://circuitcitystory.com/ * http://www.circuitcity.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Wurtzel, Alan American chief executives American businesspeople in retailing American philanthropists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people