Gary Winnick is an American financier best known for founding and being Chairman of Global Crossing between 1997 and 2002. He resigned from the company in 2002 just before the company filed for bankruptcy protection. He is a global philanthropist who has funded hospitals, museums, schools and college scholarships. The Winnick Family Foundation has funded scholarships at Stanford University, Cornell University, Brown University, Tufts University and LIU Post, and endowed a faculty position at Columbia University. As of April 1999, Winnick had amassed the fastest billion dollar fortune in history with $4.5 billion in 18 months from a $15 million investment in Global Crossing. He reached the mark faster than Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. He is currently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Winnick & Company, a Los Angeles-based private investment firm founded in 1985.
Early life
Winnick was born to a Jewish family in 1947 and grew up in New York, New York. His father owned a restaurant-supply business. When he was 16, he got his first job at a Howard Johnson's on Northern Boulevard. He graduated from the C.W. Post University, part of Long Island University, in 1969.
In 1997, Winnick founded Global Crossing Limited. Global Crossing laid the first privately financed underwater fiber optic cable network across the Atlantic Ocean, and partnered with Microsoft and Softbank Corp. to build a high capacity telecommunications network. The company succeeded in quickly laying cables between North America, Europe and Asia to create a network that at the time represented 20% of all undersea capacity leaving the United States. The company, which Winnick served as Chairman, went public in 1998. Global Crossing was profitable its first year in operation. In January 2002, Global Crossing reorganized under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced that Singapore Technologies Telemedia would take a controlling interest in the company. Winnick created a $3.5 billion cash tender for the stock of Global Crossing, which was the largest offer in the industry at that time. Winnick resigned as Chairman of Global Crossing in December 2002. Global Crossing insider sales were about $150 million in 2001. Of the total amount sold by company executives and directors since 1999, about $735 million was sold by Winnick, both directly and through foundations. Winnick donated $25 million to Global Crossing employees who lost money in the company’s 401k retirement plan.
Philanthropy
Winnick founded The Winnick Family Foundation in 1983. As Chairman, he funds such initiatives as The Winnick Family Clinical Research Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and The Winnick International Conference Center of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jerusalem. He has endowed a Winnick Faculty Scholar at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Winnick serves on several boards, including The Museum of Modern Art, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, Hillel International, and The Greatest Generations Foundation. Winnick has funded student scholarships at Brown University, Cornell University, Syracuse University and the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University. At Long Island University, he restored the Post Mansion and transformed the main cafeteria into the Arnold S Winnick Student Center, named in memory of his late father. Among the many grantees the foundation supports are the Winnick Popular Library at the Los Angeles Central Library, Teach for America, the Winnick Family Children's Zoo in Los Angeles Zoo, Skirball Cultural Center's Winnick Hall, the Los Angeles Police Foundation and The Greatest Generations Foundation.
Personal life
He received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, C.W. Post Campus, in 2004. He is married to his wife, Karen Beth Winnick; they have three sons. Karen is an author, illustrator, and publisher of children's books. According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, Winnick is the owner of the 28,000-square-foot “Bellagio House” near the Bel-Air Country Club.
