Doug Burgum

Douglas James Burgum (born August 1, 1956) is an American businessman and politician serving since 2016 as the 33rd governor of North Dakota.

He is among the wealthiest governors in the U.S., with an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion.

A member of the Republican Party, Burgum was a candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election.

Burgum was born and raised in the small town of Arthur, North Dakota.

Burgum was born on August 1, 1956, in Arthur, North Dakota, where his grandfather had founded a grain elevator in 1906.

He is the son of Katherine ( Kilbourne) and Joseph Boyd Burgum.

After graduating from college in 1978, and getting an MBA in 1980, he mortgaged inherited farmland in 1983 to invest in Great Plains Software in Fargo.

He attended North Dakota State University (NDSU) to earn his undergraduate degree in 1978.

During his senior year at NDSU, he applied to the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

He also started a chimney-sweeping business.

"The newspaper wrote a story about me as a chimney sweep", he later recalled; it "ran a photo of me sitting on top of an icy chimney in below-freezing weather in Fargo. The story made the AP wire service. I was later told it caused quite a stir in the Stanford admissions office: 'Hey, there's a chimney sweep from North Dakota who's applied.'"

He was accepted to study business at Stanford.

While there, he befriended Steve Ballmer, who became CEO of Microsoft.

During his last year at Stanford, Burgum "spent the whole final quarter on a project team with Ballmer."

He received his MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 1980.

Burgum then moved to Chicago to become a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.

During the 1980s, Fortune magazine often ranked Great Plains Software among the nation's top 100 companies to work for.

In March 1983 Burgum mortgaged $250,000 of farmland to provide the seed capital for the accounting software company Great Plains Software in Fargo, North Dakota.

Becoming the company's president in 1984, he grew Great Plains into a successful large software company.

He became the company's president in 1984 after leading a small group of family members in buying out the rest of the company.

Burgum grew the company to about 250 employees by 1989 and led it to about $300 million in annual sales and a 1997 IPO, after using the Internet to help it expand beyond North Dakota.

In 1999 the company acquired Match Data Systems, a development team in the Philippines.

He later received honorary doctorates from North Dakota State in 2000 and from the University of Mary in 2006.

Burgum sold the company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001.

While working at Microsoft, he managed Microsoft Business Solutions.

He has served as board chairman for Atlassian and SuccessFactors.

Burgum is the founder of Kilbourne Group, a Fargo-based real-estate development firm, and also is the co-founder of Arthur Ventures, a software venture capital group.

In 2001 Burgum sold Great Plains Software to Microsoft for $1.1 billion.

He has said he built the company in Fargo because of its proximity to North Dakota State University, which acted as a feeder school, in order to employ its stream of engineering students.

After the sale, Burgum was named Senior Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions Group, the offshoot created from merging Great Plains into the corporation.

At Microsoft, he was responsible for making enterprise apps a priority.

In 2005, Burgum expressed interest in stepping down as senior vice president to become Microsoft Business Solutions chairman.

But in September 2006, he told journalists that he planned to leave Microsoft entirely by 2007.

He was replaced by Satya Nadella; Nadella has said Burgum inspired him "to find the soul of Microsoft".

In 2009, Burgum was "urged to apply" for the position of president of North Dakota State University, but in 2010 he was passed over for Dean Bresciani.

A lifelong resident of North Dakota, Burgum entered the Republican primary in the 2016 North Dakota gubernatorial election with no political experience.

He upset longtime Attorney General and Republican-endorsed candidate Wayne Stenehjem in the primary election, and defeated Democratic nominee Marvin Nelson by a landslide in the general election.

He was reelected by a wide margin in 2020.

In June 2023, Burgum launched a campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

He ended his candidacy in early December.