About Mario Gabelli
Mario J. Gabelli is a philanthropist, investor, and chairman and chief executive officer of GAMCO Investors, Inc., the firm he founded in 1977. Today, it is one of the largest investment institutions in the world.
Of the Bronx
A native of the Bronx, Gabelli graduated from Fordham University summa cum laude in 1965 with a Bachelor of Science in accounting. Two years later, he earned an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School, and he has received honorary doctorates from Fordham University and Roger Williams University.
A Commitment to Philanthropy and Education
Gabelli serves on the boards of Boston College, Roger Williams University, Columbia Graduate School of Business, the American-Italian Cancer Foundation, and the Foundation for Italian Art & Culture. He is a trustee of the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States and of the E.L. Wiegand Foundation, and is a member of the Fordham University President’s Council.
The Birth of the Gabelli School of Business
In addition to his passion for investing, Gabelli holds an inviolate belief in education as the great equalizer, the heart and soul of the great American experiment. It is this belief that inspired his transformative 2010 and 2020 gifts to Fordham University, the largest in the University’s history, gifts that revolutionized business education at Fordham. Gabelli also funded the Gabelli School Ph.D. program, which welcomed its first students in fall 2016.
Mario Gabelli with President Tania Tetlow and Dean Lerzan Aksoy
In gratitude, the University renamed the undergraduate business college the Gabelli School of Business in 2010; five years later, the undergraduate and graduate business schools were unified under the Gabelli name. Gabelli's generosity, coupled with his work on the President’s Council, positions Fordham at the forefront in today’s business world.
Education is the great leveler, the engine of America’s meritocracy, and it must remain so for the country to compete in the global economy.
- Mario Gabelli