Bill Franke

Not to be confused with Bill Frank.

William Augustus Franke (born April 15, 1937)^[1] is an airline investor and a co-founder and Managing Partner of Indigo Partners LLC, a private equity fund focused in air transportation.^[2][3] He has been the President at Franke and Company, Inc. since 1987.^[4] Franke has been Chairman of Wizz Air since 2004, and is Chairman of Frontier Airlines. He also is the President and Chairman of Bristol Group SA.

Bill Franke
Born	(1937-04-15) 15 April 1937 (age 87) Bryan, Texas, US
Alma mater	Stanford University (BA, LLB)
Occupation	Businessman
Title	Chairman, Wizz Air and Frontier Airlines
Spouse	Carolyn Franke
Children	5

Education and early career

Franke graduated from Stanford University with a BA in history in 1959 and an LL.B. in Law in 1961. In his early career he was the CEO of a Fortune 500 forest products company, Southwest Forest Industries (now Smurfit-Stone Container) and chairman of Circle K, which he restructured through bankruptcy. He was chairman and CEO of America West Airlines from 1993 to 2001, chairman of Singapore-based Tiger Airways from 2004 to 2009, and chairman of Spirit Airlines from July 2006 to August 2013.

Philanthropy

He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University in 2008 where, following a $25 million donation, W.A. Franke College of Business was named after him.^[5] In 2016 he made a donation of $24 million to the University of Montana.^[6] He has also donated to his alma mater Stanford Law School to create The W. A. Franke Professorship in Law and Business.^[7] In 2021, he donated $25 million to the University of Arizona to be put towards scholarships, housing stipends, and study abroad programs for honors students; the Honors College was thus renamed the W.A. Franke Honors College.^[8]

References

1. MarketScreener. "William Franke - Biography". www.marketscreener.com. Retrieved 2022-06-15.
2. "William A. Franke Ph.D." Bloomberg. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
3. Reid, David (2019-06-19). "US private equity titan Bill Franke becomes latest Airbus XLR customer with 50 plane order". CNBC. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
4. "William A. Franke: Executive Profile & Biography - Bloomberg". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2019-07-15.
5. "W. A. FRANKE". Northern Arizona University. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
6. "$24 Million Gift Is Largest Ever To University Of Montana". Montana Public Radio. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
7. "Stanford Law School - Stanford Endowed Professorships and Directorships". Stanford University. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
8. "UArizona Names W.A. Franke Honors College in Recognition of $25M Gift". UA News. 9 October 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.

Further reading

• Sophie Segal (20 Aug 2019). "INTERVIEW: Indigo Partners founder Bill Franke". Flightglobal.