Robert Kenneth Kraft [ 1 ] born June 5, is an American billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and chief executive officer CEO of the Kraft Group , a diversified holding company with assets in paper and packaging, sports and entertainment, real estate development , and a private equity portfolio.
Kraft attended Columbia University on an academic scholarship and he served as class president. Kraft was elected chairman of the Newton Democratic City Committee when he was Kraft considered running against Representative Philip J.
Philbin in but chose not to, citing the loss of privacy and strain on his family that politics would have caused. Kraft was further discouraged from entering politics by the suicide of his friend State Representative H. James Shea, Jr. Kraft began his professional career with the Rand-Whitney Group, a Worcester -based packaging company run by his father-in-law Jacob Hiatt. In , he founded International Forest Products, a trader of physical paper commodities.
The two combined companies make up the largest privately held paper and packaging companies in the United States. Kraft was an investor in New England Television Corp. In , Kraft was named president of the corporation. Following the season, Kraft announced that the franchise would fold. Kraft has been a New England Patriots fan since their American Football League days and had been a season ticket holder since when the team moved to Schaefer Stadium.
The stadium was considered to be outdated and nearly worthless, but the purchase included the stadium's lease to the Patriots which ran through Kiam was nearly brought down by bad investments of his own and was forced to sell the Patriots to James Orthwein in However, due to terms in the operating covenant, any potential buyer would have to negotiate with Kraft. It was the highest price ever paid for an NFL team at the time.
