Who is Doug Burgum? Flash Uganda Media looks at his biography, age, wife, family, tribe, achievements, and relationship with Joseph Boyd Burgum, Katherine Kilbourne, Kathryn Burgum, Microsoft Business Solutions Group, Brent Sanford, Tammy Miller, Burgum, the early life and education of the former president of Great Plains Software.
Doug Burgum also known as Douglas James Burgum is an American businessman, investor, politician, and philanthropist.
He has been North Dakota’s 33rd governor since 2016 making two terms in office. He is also the second-richest governor in the country, with an estimated net worth of 1.1 billion.
Burgum, a Republican and former president of Great Plains Software, is running for president of the United States in 2024.
Early Life and Education
Doug Burgum was born on August 1, 1956, in Arthur, North Dakota, where his grandfather had established a grain elevator in 1906.
Burgum is the youngest of three siblings of a father who died during his freshman year of high school and a mother who served as the dean of the College of Home Economics at what would become his alma mater, North Dakota State University.
He is the son of the late Joseph Boyd Burgum and Katherine Kilbourne and grew up in Arthur, N.D., a small town northwest of Fargo.
Burgum attended Dakota High School, where he was a member of the school’s basketball team as a point guard.
Burgum’s first business at a very young age was that of a shoe shiner. Later, he launched a chimney-sweeping company to get through college.
He received his undergraduate degree from North Dakota State University (NDSU) in 1978. He submitted an application to the Stanford Graduate School of Business during his final year at NDSU.
He got approved to attend Stanford to study business. He made friends with Steve Ballmer when he was there and subsequently became the CEO of Microsoft.
In 1980, Doug Burgum graduated with an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.
After that, Burgum relocated to Chicago and joined McKinsey & Company as a management consultant.
Later, in 2000 and 2006, he was awarded honorary doctorates from North Dakota State and the University of Mary.
Doug Burgum is married to Kathryn Burgum.
Career and Professional Work Experience
To provide the first funding for the accounting software company Great Plains Software in Fargo, North Dakota, Burgum mortgaged $250,000 of farmland in March 1983.
In 1984, he helped a small number of family members acquire the remaining shares of the business, at which point he was named the company’s president.
Great Plains Software frequently appeared on Fortune magazine’s list of the top 100 American firms to work for during the 1980s.
Burgum expanded the business beyond North Dakota utilizing the Internet, and by 1989 it had roughly 250 workers, $300 million in annual revenues, and a 1997 IPO.
Match Data Systems, a Philippine-based development team, was purchased by the business in 1999. For $1.1 billion, Burgum sold Microsoft Great Plains Software in 2001.
He has said that he established the business in Fargo so that he could hire engineering students from North Dakota State University, which served as a feeder institution.
Microsoft Career
Doug Burgum was appointed Senior Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions Group after the transaction, the division that resulted from the acquisition of Great Plains by the business.
He was in charge of giving enterprise apps top priority at Microsoft.
Burgum indicated interest in leaving his position as senior vice president to take the chairmanship of Microsoft Business Solutions in 2005.
But he informed journalists in September 2006 that he intended to part ways with Microsoft permanently by June 2007. Satya Nadella took his post, and according to Nadella, Burgum motivated him to “find the soul of Microsoft.”
Investing companies
Burgum co-founded Arthur Ventures in 2008, a venture capital firm that makes investments in companies that work in the fields of clean technologies, life sciences, and technology.
The firm started out with a $20 million fund and made the majority of its investments in North Dakota and Minnesota-based businesses.
Its operations had been extended by 2013 to include Nebraska, Missouri, Arizona, and Iowa.
Burgum founded the Kilbourne Group, a company that specializes in developing properties in Downtown Fargo.
He also developed plans for a 23-story mixed-use structure that would be the highest structure in Fargo and bear the name Dakota Place or Block 9 in 2013.
Governor of North Dakota
Burgum declared his Republican candidacy for governor of North Dakota in 2016.
Despite having no prior political experience, he was denied the state Republican Party’s support for governor in favour of longstanding attorney general Wayne Stenehjem.
However, two months later, he easily defeated Stenehjem in the primary election to win the nomination.
In the general election in November, Burgum ran against Democrats Marvin Nelson and Marty Riske and prevailed with more than 75% of the vote.
On December 15, 2016, he and his campaign companion Brent Sanford were sworn in as governor.
Sanford announced his resignation as lieutenant governor on December 20, 2022, with effect from January 3, 2023. Tammy Miller, Burgum’s chief operating officer, was selected to succeed Sanford.
Burgum vetoed a bill to increase the state’s interstate speed limit to 80 mph on March 20, 2023.
He signed two bills that provide over $500 million in tax relief during the 2023 legislative session, one of which exempts members of the North Dakota National Guard and Reserve from paying income taxes.
2024 presidential campaign
Doug Burgum announced in March 2023 that he would be interested in seeking the presidency of the United States in 2024.
On June 7, he made his official candidacy announcement in The Wall Street Journal. Following his announcement, Burgum started his campaign, making numerous trips to Iowa.
Since he started his campaign, Burgum is said to have spent more money on commercials than any other presidential candidate.
Burgum started giving away $20 gift cards for contributions to his primary campaign starting on July 10, 2023.
Achievements and Awards
Doug Burgum was on the Stanford Graduate School of Business advisory board and the Success Factors board during the 2000s, rising to the position of chairman from 2007 until the company was acquired by SAP in 2011.
After the board of three members (none of whom acted as the actual chair) grew in 2012, he was appointed as the organization’s first chairman of the board.
He twice served as Intelligent InSites’ temporary CEO between 2011 and 2014; he has been the organization’s executive chairman of the board since 2008.
He joined the board of directors of Avalara the same year in 2008.
Burgum has contributed to charitable organizations like the Plains Art Museum. He gave North Dakota State University a renovated school facility that he had purchased in 2000 in the year 2001.
The Doug Burgum Family Fund, which Burgum established in 2008, focuses its charity donations on children, education, and health.
Controversies
Burgum made a number of contentious decisions as governor.
He restricted transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity and prohibited nearly all abortions in the state during the first six weeks of pregnancy, with the exception of rape and incest.
In his 2024 Presidential campaigns, Burgum controversially promised $20 gift cards—dubbed “Biden Economic Relief” cards—to 50,000 persons who contributed $1 to his campaign, despite the fact that candidates are not permitted to reimburse supporters for contributions.
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