# David G. Booth

David Gilbert Booth (born December 2, 1946) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors, which he co-founded with Rex Sinquefield.

## Early Life and Education

Booth was born in Lawrence, Kansas, home of the University of Kansas. Booth attended and graduated from Lawrence High School and then received a B.A. in economics in 1968 and an M.S. in business in 1969 from the University of Kansas. He then enrolled at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1969 as a doctoral student, leaving in 1971 with an M.B.A. degree. He was a research assistant to Eugene Fama, and he met his future business partner, Rex Sinquefield, at the school.
   University of Chicago basically plucked me out of Kansas and put me on this trajectory...Sometimes I wonder, why me? But it happened.
He has published research articles including “Diversification Returns and Asset Contributions” with Eugene Fama. The article won the 1992 Graham and Dodd Award of Excellence from the Financial Analysts Journal.

## Career

After Booth left graduate school in Chicago, he helped create one of the world’s first index funds in the 1970s as part of a team at Wells Fargo led by John “Mac” McQuown. He launched the first passively managed small company strategy after founding Dimensional in 1981. Under Booth’s leadership, Dimensional grew from a small business operating out of the spare room of his Brooklyn brownstone apartment to a global investment manager with more than 1,500 employees and around $800 billion in assets under management. Booth led Dimensional as CEO and later Co-CEO until 2017, when he stepped back from the daily management of the firm. He remains closely involved in strategic initiatives at Dimensional as Chairman.
Booth has spent his career applying groundbreaking financial theory and research to the world of asset management. His investment approach with Dimensional is based on the application of the efficient market hypothesis, and he helped pioneer what would later be called factor investing, targeting areas of the market that research shows have higher expected returns. Dimensional’s researchers and academics seek to develop investment strategies that will outperform index funds.
Booth has served on institutional boards, including the Becker Friedman Institute Advisory Board and the Hoover Institution Board of Overseers; as a trustee of New York's Museum of Modern Art, where he also serves on the executive committee; as a trustee emeritus of the University of Chicago; and as a life trustee of the University of Kansas Endowment Association.
According to Forbes, he had a net worth of $2 billion in August 2021.

## Philanthropy

An avid art collector and sports enthusiast, as well as a supporter of academia, Booth has participated in and donated to academic, artistic and athletic initiatives across the US. Booth has focused his philanthropy efforts on educational institutions and art restoration projects.
In 1999, Booth gave $10 million for construction of the Charles M. Harper Center building on the University of Chicago campus. Booth pledged a gift valued at $300 million in November 2008 to the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. He is a trustee emeritus of the university, and the Graduate School of Business is now named the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The gift of cash and stock is being spread over a period of years, and is dedicated to furthering the school's publications, international presence, research centers, and faculty professional development.
Booth has also donated to support athletics at the University of Kansas, and he is a vocal advocate of the role sports play in keeping alumni connected to a school. Booth gave $9 million to the University of Kansas in 2004 to fund the Booth Family Hall of Athletics attached to Allen Fieldhouse. In September 2017, Booth announced a donation of over $50 million to renovate the University of Kansas football team's stadium. The school renamed the stadium in his honor for the donation.
In 2010, Booth acquired Dr. James Naismith's original 1891 copy of the 13 basic rules of basketball at auction for $3.8 million (paying a total of $4,338,500 for the rules, auction house fees, and buyer's premium). He then donated the rules to the University of Kansas. The University of Kansas is known as the "Cradle of Basketball" because Naismith and his protégé Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, the "Father of Basketball Coaching," coached at KU and helped basketball mature into the sport as it is known today. The purchase price set a world record for sports memorabilia. The purchase of this historical artifact was documented in the 2012 ESPN 30 for 30 film There's No Place Like Home.
The Booth Center for Special Collections at Georgetown's Lauinger Library, which contains a number of archival documents related to Georgetown as well as an extensive collection of rare books, manuscripts, and art, was funded by a $3 million donation from Booth in 2014, two years after his daughter graduated from the school.
The David Booth Conservation Center and Department, which is responsible for the preservation of the Museum of Modern Art’s collection in New York, and the museum’s Conservation Fellowship Initiative, which launched in 2018, were made possible through the David Booth Conservation Center Endowment Fund.
In May 2018, Booth signed the Giving Pledge, promising to dedicate half of his wealth to philanthropy. The pledge, created by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, is a philanthropic movement through which wealthy individuals commit to give the majority of their fortunes to charitable causes, either during their lifetimes or in their wills.
In 2019, Booth pledged a $10 million gift to The University of Texas at Austin to support construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope. Three years later, he was awarded the University of Texas College of Natural Sciences Distinguished Service Award and inducted into the college’s Hall of Honor.

## Personal life

David G. Booth married Suzanne Deal Booth in 1998, and have later divorced. They have a son, David Booth, and a daughter, Erin Booth.

## Awards and Honors

* 2022 Museum of Modern Art’s David Rockefeller Award
* 2018 University of Chicago Medal
* 2017 Investment News Icons and Innovators Award
* 2016 Institutional Investor Investment Management Lifetime Achievement Award
* 2016 Forbes Money Masters: The 40 Most Powerful People in the Financial World
* 2012 Financial Management Association International’s Outstanding Financial Executive Award
* 2010 Investment News “The Power 20” in the financial services industry
* 1992 Financial Analysts Journal Graham and Dodd Award of Excellence