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Michael Harper is the leader of ConAgra, one of the biggest food consolidators in North America. Harper was able to gain control of the company in 1974 then expanded and improved its production.
ConAgra became widely distributed in supermarkets, restaurants and other food stores.
Under his leadership, ConAgra has greatly grown in sales from $636 million to an astounding $9 billion in only over a decade.
Michael Harper's Get-Rich Formula
Michael Harper was born in small-town Lansing, Michigan. He studied at Purdue University and took his Master's Degree in Business at the University of Chicago. He first worked at Pillsbury Company in 1954 as an executive before setting his sights on ConAgra, Inc. in Omaha, Nebraska in 1974. He took over ConAgra, serving as President, CEO and Chairman of the Board at a time when the company was quickly losing grasp of the market and on the way to bankruptcy.
Harper immediately expanded territory by acquiring Banquet Foods and Armour Foods and dominated a large portion of the food industry in the United States, putting ConAgra back on its feet. In twenty years, he continued purchasing several brands and product firms and heavily invested in frozen foods and packaged meats.
Other popular brands like RJR Nabisco, Healthy Choice and Beatrice Foods were under his control during the 1980's. He believed that the market chooses brands that seem appealing, making for loyal customers. As such, he invested in this idea.
Harper finally stepped down in 1993 and ConAgra's stocks valued one hundred fifty times more than it did two decades ago. When he retired, ConAgra was already a multibillion-dollar giant in the food industry.
The Michael Harper Quick Bio
Full name: Charles Michael Harper
Birth date: 1927
Birth place: Lansing, Michigan
Company: ConAgra
Industry: Agriculture and Mining
Key success traits: relentless investor, clean and calm reputation
Additional:
Until today, ConAgra Foods Inc. still remains as a food industry behemoth in the United States owning both big and small firms and widely distributing popular brands and products such as Peter Pan peanut butter, Swiss Miss hot cocoa and Wesson cooking oil. Healthy Choice, a brand of Beatrice Foods Canada Ltd., is one which stemmed from Michael Harper himself, when he thought that his product line could get better by serving healthier dishes.
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