One of the world's leading experts on finance, Steve Forbes has carved out a distinguished career as publishing executive, prolific author, and active member in Republican politics. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes, Inc. and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Magazine, Forbes runs the nation's leading business magazine, with a circulation of more than 900,000. A widely respected economic forecaster, he is the only writer to have won the highly prestigious Crystal Owl Award four times.
In both 1996 and 2000, Forbes campaigned vigorously for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. In addition, Forbes has spent the past four decades serving on numerous boards, including The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the School of Public Policy of Pepperdine University, the Heritage Foundation, and FreedomWorks. Currently he holds honorary degrees from more than 20 colleges or universities.
A big part of Forbes' success can be traced back to his days as an undergraduate student at Princeton University. As the scion of an American publishing dynasty, Forbes arrived on campus in 1966, quickly joining the business and social fraternities, Alpha Kappa Psi and Tau Kappa Epsilon. In 1970 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history after completing a 75-page long senior thesis titled "Contest for the 1892 Democratic Presidential Nomination." But more importantly, in 1968, along with two other students, he founded the Business Today magazine at Princeton.
"There didn’t seem to be an appreciation of entrepreneurship, of free markets," Forbes said, explaining the reason behind his earliest publishing endeavor, "and so we thought that having students talk to students, to give a more balanced perspective, was a need and would be very helpful to the environment."
Since graduating, Forbes has been a strong supporter of his alma mater, describing his time at Princeton as "an informal combination of undergraduate and MBA." But at the same time, this relationship has seen some rocky waters. Notably, after serving on the Princeton Board of Trustees for 10 years, Forbes withdrew his donations to his alma mater in 1999 due to its hiring of a professor with controversial views. However, a year later, he was already back on campus again, opening his wallet to help create the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton. In association with Princeton's Department of Politics, the program offers students high caliber lectures nearly every week. One of these lectures includes Forbes' own pro-American lecture, which he delivered on campus in 2013, followed by a long session of questions by Princeton undergrads who were able to ask the legendary name about money, taxes, and politics.
Forbes returned again two years later in 2015 to help celebrate his 45th reunion and his daughter's graduation from Princeton, even further solidifying his family’s legacy at the university. And Business Today, the magazine that Forbes started over fifty years ago as a student, continues to be published by Princeton undergraduates. It is now the largest student-run magazine in the world.