William Frank Blount, AM (born July 26, 1938) is an American businessman, and currently the chairman and CEO of

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

firm JI Ventures, Inc. Blount previously served as chairman and CEO of Cypress Communications Inc., and director and CEO of

Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...

Corporation Limited in Australia.

Early life and education

Blount received a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in Electrical Engineering from the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

in 1961, an

M.B.A. A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as account ...

from

Georgia State University Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a Public university, public research university in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is also the ...

in 1969, and a SM (master's degree) in Management Science from the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

in 1971.

Career

From 1993 to 1999 Blount served as Chief Executive Officer of Telstra Corporation in Australia. He was previously Group President of AT&T Corp. On June 9, 1999 he was appointed an Honorary Member of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

(AM), "for service to business, particularly as the Chief Executive Officer of Telstra". In 1999, Blount became affiliated with The Jordan Company, L.P., a private investment firm that specializes in buying and building businesses in partnership with management. Blount currently serves as a director of

Caterpillar Inc. Caterpillar Inc. (stock symbol CAT) is an American ''Fortune'' 500 corporation and the world's largest construction-equipment manufacturer. In 2018, Caterpillar was ranked number 65 on the ''Fortune'' 500 list and number 238 on the Global ''Fo ...

Entergy Corporation Entergy Corporation is a Fortune 500 integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations in the Deep South of the United States. Entergy is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, and gene ...

Hanson plc Hanson UK, formerly Hanson Trust plc, is a British-based building materials company, headquartered in Maidenhead. The company has been a subsidiary of the German company HeidelbergCement since August 2007, and was formerly listed on the London S ...

ADTRAN Adtran, Inc. is a leading global provider of open, disaggregated networking and communications solutions. Adtran Is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. The company is ISO 9001 and TL9000, ISO 14001, and ISO 27001 certified. History ADTRAN ...

and

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a su ...

References

Living people 1938 births Caterpillar Inc. people Georgia State University alumni Georgia Tech alumni MIT Sloan School of Management alumni American chief executives of financial services companies Honorary Members of the Order of Australia Telstra people {{US-CEO-stub