Prominent Georgians make Forbes list of 250 self-made Americans
Some of the most prominent names in Georgia are highlighted in a Forbes list of those who overcame circumstances to become among the most accomplished people in the country.
Forbes’ Self-Made 250 list is part of the magazine’s Forbes 250 series, as the United States prepares to mark its 250th anniversary on the Fourth of July this year.
The list spotlights “those whose journeys began with profound disadvantage and were defined by resilience, reinvention and ambition,” according to Forbes. A panel of judges compiled the list using a 1-to-10 ranking to quantify the “distance traveled” from struggle to success.
Among those recognized are Georgians and people with ties to Georgia whose lives represent inspiring stories of surmounting adversity to reach the heights of their fields.
Rosalind Brewer
Brewer is interim president of Spelman College and a former CEO of Sam’s Club and Walgreens. Forbes highlights that Brewer is the child of General Motors assembly line workers, and placed her at No. 234 on the list.
A 1984 graduate of Spelman, Brewer became the only Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company when she was named CEO of Walgreens in 2021. She was previously a chief operating officer at Starbucks.
Brewer also has an ownership stake in the Atlanta Falcons.
Marcia Taylor
Taylor is CEO, chair and owner of the Bennett Family of Companies, a trucking and logistics giant based in McDonough.
Forbes noted Taylor, at No. 224 in the list, “escaped an abusive marriage. With her second husband, she turned a struggling trucking company into a logistics powerhouse called Bennett.”
Dan Kurzius
Kurzius cofounded Mailchimp, which was sold for $12 billion to Silicon Valley’s Intuit in 2021 as one of the biggest sales of an Atlanta tech company.
He was “a part-time DJ and former competitive skateboarder who’d bluffed about his coding skills before co-founding Mailchimp,” according to Forbes, which has Kurzius at No. 160.
Tope Awotona
Awotona cofounded Calendly, one of the few Atlanta startups to be valued at or above $1 billion.
He immigrated from Lagos, Nigeria, to the U.S. as a teenager and “founded Calendly by maxing out his credit cards,” according to Forbes, which put him at No. 149. He was also named last year as one of the world’s 21 Black billionaires.
John Hope Bryant
Bryant is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Atlanta-based financial literacy nonprofit Operation Hope. He’s also an investor in Centennial Yards, the redevelopment of downtown Atlanta’s Gulch.
Forbes notes Bryant, at No. 145 on the list, was raised in a poor neighborhood in Compton, California, and was “homeless before launching his first business venture.”
Raj Sardana
Sardana is founder and CEO of Atlanta-based IT firm Innova Solutions.
He “came to Georgia Tech in the 1980s with $100,” according to Forbes, which has him at No. 85 on the list.
The IT billionaire “spent his childhood in a 225-square-foot, government-provided one-bedroom in India with no heat, no refrigeration or phone,” Forbes said.
Alice Walker
Walker was and became a Pulitzer Prize-winning author for her acclaimed book “The Color Purple.”
The classic American novel was adapted as a 1985 film, and a musical production of “The Color Purple” debuted in Eatonton last year.
Walker, at No. 83 on Forbes’ list, was born in 1944 in the Jim Crow era as the youngest of eight children raised by sharecroppers.
Ken Langone
Langone, a New York investor, helped launch Atlanta-based Home Depot as the company’s investment banker. He famously told the company’s founders, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, after they were fired from another home improvement store before launching Home Depot, “You’ve just been kicked in the (butt) with a golden horseshoe!”
Forbes said Langone, at No. 44, is the son of a plumber and a cafeteria worker who “dug ditches for the Long Island Expressway before getting his degree in economics.”
Arthur Blank
Blank is a cofounder of the Home Depot who now owns the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United, PGA Tour Superstore and the Mercedes-Benz Stadium under AMB Sports + Entertainment.
At No. 37 on the list, Forbes notes Blank was born in Queens, New York, and “lived in a single-bedroom apartment. His father died when he was a teenager and Blank did landscaping and ran a laundry service to pay for college.”
Tyler Perry
Entertainment mogul Perry might be one of the most recognizable business leaders in Georgia.
Forbes, which put Perry at No. 25, said the producer dealt with poverty and abuse growing up in New Orleans and was once homeless. “Inspired to write out his stress, he dropped out of high school and started performing the plays he wrote in small theaters,” Forbes said.
The actor and playwright first came to Atlanta for Freaknik, financed plays with his life savings and eventually grossed more than $500 million at the box office for his films, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported.
Perry also converted 330 acres of former Army post Fort McPherson in southwest Atlanta into one of the largest studios in the United States.
Clarence Thomas
Thomas, the second Black Supreme Court justice, was born in Pin Point, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Savannah.
“His father deserted his family when he was very young,” Forbes wrote, putting Thomas at No. 16 on the list. “His mother sent Thomas, age 7 at the time, and his younger brother, Myers, to live with their maternal grandparents in Savannah, providing more stability but no indoor plumbing.”
He was the only Black student in his high school, and eventually went to Yale Law School and became a Supreme Court justice in 1991 after contentious confirmation hearings.
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