Biography
Melissa Harris is a business columnist at The Chicago Tribune. Her twice-weekly column chronicles the city's business elite. Prior to the ...
Chicago auto restorer driven to establish provenance of rare French luxury car
May 19, 2012
David Cooper instructed the tall, elegant gentleman with a white beard to close his eyes and imagine he was behind the wheel of his mother's car in the 1940s.
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Warren Buffett's son works on immigration reform
April 28, 2012
— Wearing a black fleece pullover and blue cargo pants, Howard Buffett loaded his jumpy Slovakian-born German shepherd Bolek into his Ford F-250 Super Duty and radioed his crew that he was on his way.
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Visiting NATO summit journalists to get home-cooked meal
April 27, 2012
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has touted the upcoming NATO summit as an opportunity to show off Chicago to thousands of visiting journalists.
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Groupon chairman talks tech, rocky IPO
April 15, 2012
Nearly a month ago, I asked Eric Lefkofsky, the Chicago venture capitalist who helped launch Groupon, to sit for an interview.
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Sheila O'Grady steps down as Illinois Restaurant Association chief
April 10, 2012
When Sheila O'Grady began her tenure as president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, the mandate was clear: Assert the association's clout by overturning the city's foie gras ban and defeating a proposed 3 percent state payroll tax.
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Scholarship program offers more than money
March 25, 2012
The first time an interviewer asked bubbly 23-year-old Noor Shaba why she wanted to be a pharmacist, her answer lasted nearly a minute.
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New McDonald's CEO stays true to his roots
March 23, 2012
McDonald's next chief executive, Don Thompson, is not afraid to tell people where he came from: the 1300 block of North Cleveland Avenue, three blocks north of Cabrini-Green.
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Interview with Douglas Oberhelman, CEO of Caterpillar
March 16, 2012
Douglas Oberhelman is the most outspoken business leader in Illinois.
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Ken Griffin interview: Billionaire talks politics and money
March 11, 2012
Billionaire investor Kenneth Griffin, founder and chief executive of Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel, arguably is this city's only Wall Street titan.
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Sam Zell names co-presidents at Equity Group Investments
March 8, 2012
Billionaire investor Sam Zell has rearranged leadership at the top of his investment firm, hiring David Helfand and naming him and William Pate co-presidents of Equity Group Investments.
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G-8 consuls in Chicago prepare for summits
March 4, 2012
Italian Consul General Alessandro Motta held a meeting Thursday that gave Italian-American community leaders some hope.
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Moshe Tamssot's Monks of Invention to gather again in Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest Interactive Festival
February 25, 2012
The South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, is a spring break for nerds. Attendees sit in sessions by day and "hot tub" at wild parties thrown by Internet moguls and corporations by night.
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Richard Daley boosts profile of Katten Muchin's expansion to Shanghai
February 23, 2012
The law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman threw a party Wednesday night celebrating the opening of its Shanghai office, its first in China.
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Romney fundraisers have ball rolling in Chicago
January 22, 2012
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has built a who's who roster of Chicago business leaders to help him raise millions in President Barack Obama's backyard.
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NATO/G-8 fundraising must move at feverish pace
January 19, 2012
The task of raising tens of millions of dollars in donations for the NATO and G-8 summits means fundraisers will need to move as aggressively as the Art Institute did in its campaign to build the Modern Wing.
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CEOs need to brace for G-8, NATO
December 8, 2011
The G-8 and NATO summits being held in May in Chicago are expected to draw thousands of protesters, and Christie Hefner had heard that some local CEOs were being told by their senior staff to "get out of town" that week to avoid them.
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Group targets growth in city
October 27, 2011
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has touted and touted his work on economic development, often choosing little-watched advisory committees to help him shape his policies.
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Chicago technologist Harper Reed joins President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign
June 2, 2011
Well-known Chicago technologist Harper Reed has joined the Obama 2012 campaign as chief technology officer, the campaign confirmed Wednesday.
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New website helps neighbors share stuff, be green
May 26, 2011
Chuck Templeton believes that the greenest thing anyone can do is not buy something.
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Business charm school in session
September 4, 2010
— When it comes to the economy, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett wants to remind everyone: Her boss inherited this mess. She said so numerous times during a less than 20-minute interview in the West Wing Thursday on the Obama administration's on-again, off-again relationship with big business.
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Rep. Melissa Bean bucks Obama administration on financial reform legislation
December 20, 2009
The setting: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Capitol Hill office. In one room, moderate Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean of Chicago's northwest suburbs and Treasury officials. In another room, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Pelosi.