Irving Saul Shapiro (July 15, 1916 – September 13, 2001) was an American lawyer and businessman, best known for being the first lawyer to become

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...

. Shapiro served as DuPont chairman from December 1973 to 1981. In 1987, he took over leadership of the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland with additional facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American busin ...

Biography

Born in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, Shapiro was the son of

Lithuanian Jewish {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Litvaks , image = , caption = , poptime = , region1 = {{flag, Lithuania , pop1 = 2,800 , region2 = {{flag, South Africa , pop2 = 6 ...

immigrants. His father was a dry cleaner and

tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...

. He was a graduate of the

University of Minnesota Law School The University of Minnesota Law School is the law school of the University of Minnesota, a public university in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The school confers four law degrees: a Juris Doctor (J.D.), a Master of Laws (LL.M.), a Master of Science in Pa ...

. He started his career as a government lawyer. In 1951, Shapiro joined E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company working in their legal department. He worked his way up to the top of the company eventually serving as chairman and chief executive officer from 1973 to 1981. He was a member of both the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

Publications

* ''America's Third Revolution: Public Interest and the Private Role'' with Carl B. Kaufmann (1984)

References

External links

* * * 1916 births 2001 deaths DuPont people University of Minnesota Law School alumni Delaware lawyers 20th-century American lawyers American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent 20th-century American businesspeople American chief executives of Fortune 500 companies {{US-business-bio-1910s-stub Members of the American Philosophical Society