Mike Milken
"The Man Who Changed Medicine"
(www.mikemilken.com)

In 1972, three years after Michael Milken began a legendary career on Wall Street, his wife told him her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. That was when Milken began a search for medical solutions that has played as large a role in his life as his better-known innovations in finance. Nearly 33 years after he began parallel careers in philanthropy and finance, Fortune magazine wrote, "No one had ever really pulled together the full picture of how - and how much - (Milken) has shaken up the medical establishment and saved lives." That was corrected in a 2004 Fortune cover story under the headline "The Man Who Changed Medicine."

Milken is now recognized for his three decades of driving medical research toward cures and improved treatments for all life-threatening diseases. Fortune noted that he "has energized the medical establishment. Now thousands are living longer — and leaders everywhere are taking notice." He formalized his previous philanthropy in 1982 by co-founding the Milken Family Foundation (www.mff.org), which has supported worldwide research on pediatric neurology, nutrition, brain and breast cancers, and leukemia. The Foundation’s coveted Milken Educator Awards, called the "Oscars of Teaching" by Teacher magazine, is the largest such program in the U.S. and since 1985 has honored 2,300 K-12 teachers and principals in partnership with the departments of education in 48 states. Each educator receives an unrestricted $25,000 prize and participates in an annual professional conference.

Milken is chairman of FasterCures (www.fastercures.org), a Washington-based think tank dedicated to removing barriers to progress in medical research. He had earlier founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation (www.pcf.org), whose funding of more than 1,500 programs at 200 research centers in 20 countries make it the world’s largest philanthropic funder of research on that disease. Forbes said, "Prostate cancer, once a research backwater, is suddenly sexy thanks to the work of one patient: Michael Milken." PCF advocacy for increased government and private support has helped build a $10-billion global research enterprise. Milken also joined with leading physicians in launching the Melanoma Research Alliance (www.melanomaresearchalliance.org) to accelerate research progress against fatal skin cancers.

He also chairs the widely respected Milken Institute (www.milkeninstitute.org), a non-partisan, economic think tank whose scholars consult for government and private organizations, publish influential studies and host major conferences. The annual Milken Institute Global Conference brings 3,000 thought leaders and decision makers from 60 nations to Los Angeles. The next Global Conference is April 26-28, 2010.

As a financier, Milken is often said to have revolutionized modern capital markets, making them more democratic and dynamic by innovating a wide range of financing techniques previously unavailable to most companies. A Washington Post column said he “helped create the conditions for America’s explosion of wealth and creativity,” a process that Business Week said "shook America’s defeatist Establishment out of its gloom." Starting in 1969 at what would become Drexel Burnham Lambert, he financed thousands of companies that created millions of jobs. An article in The New York Times said, "Mr. Milken helped create a new generation of companies and an entirely new way to finance nascent ideas that have helped fuel the global economy." The former editor of the Harvard Business Review wrote, "Much of the strength and resilience of the economy today – including its ability to rebound in times of adversity – is due to the way people using Milken’s financing vehicles remade ailing companies or put their entrepreneurial zeal to work." In 1989, the government charged him with securities/reporting violations in a case that continues to engender controversy. He admitted conduct that resulted in five violations during a brief period in his 20-year Wall Street career. Such conduct had never before (or since) been prosecuted criminally. After paying a $200 million fine and serving a one-year-and-10-month sentence, he resumed his philanthropic work.

A Phi Beta Kappa Berkeley graduate, Mike (what everyone calls him) received his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He has received honorary degrees from business and medical schools; he writes frequently about public-policy issues in major publications; and he is a widely sought-after speaker at conferences around the world. Mike and his wife Lori, who have three children and four grandchildren, celebrated their 41^st wedding anniversary this year.

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