Bruce Rauner

His mother, Ann (née Erickson) Rauner (1931–2011), was a nurse, and his father, Vincent Rauner (1927–1997), was a lawyer and senior vice president for Motorola.

He has three siblings, Christopher, Mark, and Paula, and is of half Swedish and half German descent.

Bruce Vincent Rauner (born February 18, 1956) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and politician who served as the 42nd governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019.

A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the chairman of R8 Capital Partners and chairman of the Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR.

His parents divorced and his father remarried to the former Carol Kopay in 1981.

Through his father's second marriage, he has a stepsister, Larisa Olson.

His first job was as a Paperboy.

Rauner graduated summa cum laude with a degree in economics from Dartmouth College, where he was a brother of Theta Delta Chi.

He later received an MBA from Harvard University.

Rauner was the chairman of private equity firm GTCR, where he had worked for more than 30 years, starting in 1981 after his graduation from Harvard through his retirement in October 2012.

A number of state pension funds, including those of Illinois, have invested in GTCR.

In 2003, Rauner received the Daley Medal from the Illinois Venture Capital Association for extraordinary support to the Illinois economy and was given the Association for Corporate Growth's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rauner was awarded the 2008 Distinguished Philanthropist award by the Chicago Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Also during the election, the media reported on a controversy regarding Rauner's daughter being admitted to Walter Payton Prep school in Chicago in 2008 through the "principal picks" process.

Rauner and his wife were nominated for the Golden Apple Foundation's 2011 Community Service Award.

Rauner has been a financial supporter of projects including Chicago's Red Cross regional headquarters, the YMCA in the Little Village neighborhood, six new charter high schools, an AUSL turnaround campus, scholarship programs for disadvantaged Illinois public school students, and achievement-based compensation systems for teachers and principals in Chicago Public Schools.

He provided major funding for the construction of the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College, endowed full professor chairs at Dartmouth College, Morehouse College, University of Chicago, and Harvard Business School, and was the lead donor for the Stanley C. Golder Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurial Finance at the University of Illinois.

Rauner announced his candidacy for governor of Illinois in June 2013.

In 2013, Rauner opened an office for a self-financed venture firm, R8 Capital Partners.

The firm planned to invest up to $15 million in smaller Illinois companies.

Rauner served as Chairman of Choose Chicago, the not-for-profit that is the city's convention and tourism bureau, resigning in May 2013, and as Chairman of the Chicago Public Education Fund.

Rauner has also served as the Chairman of the Education Committee of the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago.

As of 2013, Rauner served on the board of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Rauner is also a frequent donor to his fraternity at Dartmouth, Theta Delta Chi.

In March 2013, Rauner formed an exploratory committee to look at a run for Governor of Illinois as a Republican.

Rauner said that his top priorities included streamlining government, improving education, and improving the state's business climate.

He supported term limits and said he would serve no more than eight years (two terms) as governor.

On June 5, 2013, Rauner officially announced his candidacy for governor, telling Chicago magazine's Carol Felsenthal that his platform would include overhauling tax policy and freezing property taxes.

In October 2013, Rauner announced that his running mate would be Wheaton City Councilwoman Evelyn Sanguinetti.

He won the Republican nomination in March 2014 and defeated Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn in the general election.

Throughout Rauner's term in office, he was unable to achieve many of his legislative goals due to the state's Democratically-controlled legislature, and a standoff between Rauner and the legislature over budget cuts led to a two-year budget crisis.

Prior to his 2014 run for Illinois governor, Rauner served as an advisor to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Rauner won the March 18, 2014 Republican primary with 328,934 votes (40.13 percent), defeating State Senator Kirk Dillard, who received 305,120 votes (37.22 percent), State Senator Bill Brady (123,708 votes, 15.09 percent) and Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford's (61,848 votes, 7.55 percrent).

For the general election, Rauner was endorsed by the majority of Illinois newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Herald, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

During the general election, television ads aired regarding Rauner's role in a chain of long-term care homes owned by his companies that faced lawsuits stemming from the death and alleged mistreatment of residents.

Among the problems outlined in court cases, state records, and media reports were the deaths of developmentally disabled residents in bathtubs, "deplorable" living conditions, sexual assaults, and a failure by employees to stop residents from harming themselves.

In 2015, Rauner reported earning over $180 million.

In the 2018 gubernatorial election, Rauner narrowly survived a challenge in the Republican primary from State Representative Jeanne Ives, but lost the general election to Democratic challenger J. B. Pritzker in a landslide.

Rauner and his lieutenant Evelyn Sanguinetti remain the last Republicans to have held statewide office in Illinois.

Rauner was born in Chicago and grew up in Deerfield, Illinois, a suburb 10 miles north of Chicago city limits.