Doug Burgum
Douglas James Burgum (born August 1, 1956) is an American businessman and politician serving since 2016 as the 33rd governor of North Dakota.[1][2] He is among the wealthiest governors in the U.S., with an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion.[3] A member of the Republican Party, Burgum was a candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election.[4]
Doug Burgum
3
Businessman, investor, philanthropist, politician
Management consultant
Burgum was born and raised in the small town of Arthur, North Dakota. After graduating from college in 1978, and getting an MBA in 1980, he mortgaged inherited farmland in 1983 to invest in Great Plains Software in Fargo. Becoming the company's president in 1984, he grew Great Plains into a successful large software company.[5] Burgum sold the company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001. While working at Microsoft, he managed Microsoft Business Solutions. He has served as board chairman for Atlassian and SuccessFactors. Burgum is the founder of Kilbourne Group, a Fargo-based real-estate development firm, and also is the co-founder of Arthur Ventures, a software venture capital group.
A lifelong resident of North Dakota, Burgum entered the Republican primary in the 2016 North Dakota gubernatorial election with no political experience. He upset longtime Attorney General and Republican-endorsed candidate Wayne Stenehjem in the primary election, and defeated Democratic nominee Marvin Nelson by a landslide in the general election. He was reelected by a wide margin in 2020.[6] In June 2023, Burgum launched a campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He ended his candidacy in early December.[7]
Early life and education[edit]
Burgum was born on August 1, 1956, in Arthur, North Dakota, where his grandfather had founded a grain elevator in 1906.[8] He is the son of Katherine (née Kilbourne) and Joseph Boyd Burgum.[9] He attended North Dakota State University (NDSU) to earn his undergraduate degree in 1978. During his senior year at NDSU, he applied to the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also started a chimney-sweeping business. "The newspaper wrote a story about me as a chimney sweep", he later recalled; it "ran a photo of me sitting on top of an icy chimney in below-freezing weather in Fargo. The story made the AP wire service. I was later told it caused quite a stir in the Stanford admissions office: 'Hey, there's a chimney sweep from North Dakota who's applied.'"[10]
He was accepted to study business at Stanford. While there, he befriended Steve Ballmer, who became CEO of Microsoft. During his last year at Stanford, Burgum "spent the whole final quarter on a project team with Ballmer."[10] He received his MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 1980. Burgum then moved to Chicago to become a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. He later received honorary doctorates from North Dakota State[11] in 2000 and from the University of Mary in 2006.[12] In 2009, Burgum was "urged to apply" for the position of president of North Dakota State University, but in 2010 he was passed over for Dean Bresciani.[13]
Business career[edit]
Great Plains Software[edit]
In March 1983 Burgum mortgaged $250,000 of farmland to provide the seed capital for the accounting software company Great Plains Software in Fargo, North Dakota.[8][14] He became the company's president in 1984 after leading a small group of family members in buying out the rest of the company. During the 1980s, Fortune magazine often ranked Great Plains Software among the nation's top 100 companies to work for. Burgum grew the company to about 250 employees by 1989 and led it to about $300 million in annual sales and a 1997 IPO, after using the Internet to help it expand beyond North Dakota.[15] In 1999 the company acquired Match Data Systems, a development team in the Philippines.[16] In 2001 Burgum sold Great Plains Software to Microsoft for $1.1 billion.[17] He has said he built the company in Fargo because of its proximity to North Dakota State University, which acted as a feeder school, in order to employ its stream of engineering students.[18]
Microsoft[edit]
After the sale, Burgum was named Senior Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions Group,[12][19] the offshoot created from merging Great Plains into the corporation.[11] At Microsoft, he was responsible for making enterprise apps a priority.[20] In 2005, Burgum expressed interest in stepping down as senior vice president to become Microsoft Business Solutions chairman.[21] But in September 2006, he told journalists that he planned to leave Microsoft entirely by 2007.[22] He was replaced by Satya Nadella; Nadella has said Burgum inspired him "to find the soul of Microsoft".[23]
Investment firms[edit]
In 2008 Burgum co-founded Arthur Ventures, a venture capital company that invests in businesses involved in technology, life sciences, and clean technologies.[24][25] The group began operation with a $20 million fund and primarily invested in companies in North Dakota and Minnesota.[26] By 2013 it had expanded its operations into Nebraska, Missouri, Arizona, and Iowa.[26] Burgum is also the founder of the Kilbourne Group, a real-estate development firm focused on Downtown Fargo.[27][28] In 2013 Burgum created plans to build the tallest building in Fargo—a 23-story mixed-use building—to be named either Block 9 or Dakota Place.[29] The building was completed in 2020 as the RDO tower. [30] The company has also advocated for a convention center to be built in Downtown Fargo.[31] It has acquired and renovated many Fargo properties, including the former St. Mark's Lutheran Church and the former Woodrow Wilson alternative high school.[32] Several of the companies he has invested in are in Fargo.[17][33]
Board work[edit]
Burgum has served on the advisory board for Stanford Graduate School of Business[12] and was on the board of SuccessFactors during the 2000s, becoming its chairman from 2007 till the 2011 sale of the company to SAP. In 2012 he became the first chairman of the board for Atlassian, after it expanded from its initial board of three members (none of whom served as the official chair).[34] During 2011 and 2014, he twice spent several months as the interim CEO of Intelligent InSites,[12] a company for which he has served as the executive chairman of the board since 2008.[25] That year he also became a member of Avalara's board of directors.[35]
Philanthropy[edit]
Burgum is a philanthropist and has supported philanthropic causes such as the Plains Art Museum.[36] In 2001[37] he donated a refurbished school building he had acquired in 2000 to North Dakota State University. It was named Renaissance Hall and became home to the university's visual arts department, major components of the architecture and landscape architecture department and the Tri-College University office.[38] In 2008 Burgum started the Doug Burgum Family Fund, which focuses its charitable giving on youth, education and health.[12]
Political career[edit]
Early involvement[edit]
Burgum endorsed Republican Steve Sydness for one of North Dakota's U.S. Senate seats in 1988.[39] He also supported the gubernatorial campaigns of Republicans John Hoeven and Jack Dalrymple in 2008 and 2012.[40][41]
Governor of North Dakota[edit]
In 2016, Burgum announced his candidacy for governor of North Dakota as a Republican. With no formal political experience, he lost the state Republican party's gubernatorial endorsement to longtime attorney general Wayne Stenehjem, but defeated Stenehjem handily in the primary election two months later to claim the nomination. Burgum faced Democrat Marvin Nelson and Libertarian Marty Riske in the November general election and won with over 75% of the vote.[6] He was sworn in as governor on December 15, 2016, alongside running mate Brent Sanford.[42][43]
Uniquely among Republicans, Burgum has set a goal for North Dakota to become carbon-neutral by 2030. He plans to pursue this goal while maintaining a robust fossil fuel industry, through the use of carbon capture and storage technology to capture and sequester carbon dioxide in the state's geologic formations. He supports the use of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery, the process by which carbon dioxide is injected into depleted oil fields to boost production. He also supports agricultural practices that store carbon in soil.[44] The announcement of the goal sparked $25 billion in private sector investment, according to remarks he made at the annual meeting of the North Dakota petroleum council.[45]