Robert Kraft

Background

Robert Kraft was born on June 5, 1941, in Brookline, Massachusetts to Sarah Bryna and Harry Kraft who were of Jewish ancestry. He graduated from Columbia University and earned his M.B.A. at Harvard Business School in 1965.

He began his professional career at the Rand-Whitney Group, a packaging company based in Worcester and which he chairs to this day. He also founded International Forest Products in 1972, which traded in physical paper commodities. These two companies are the largest paper packaging companies in the U.S. Kraft’s companies have produced both corrugated and foldable cartons that are used by several other industries around the world, such as cosmetics, candies, and toys. The business expanded to more interests over the years. In 1998, he formed the Kraft Group. In 1985, Kraft bought a horse racing track beside the New England Patriots stadium for $22 million. Two years later, Kraft bought the football team from Orthwein for $172 million. He made a lot of investments to spur the team’s growth. In 2017, Kraft bought Boston Uprising, an eSports team that plays in the Overwatch League. The team won the very first season of the league in 2018. He founded the New England Revolution, a soccer team that plays in Major League Soccer. He hired Bruce Arena as the team’s head coach in 2019, and they played their first playoffs in 2020.

Kraft also established the Kraft Foundation, which has donated millions of dollars to philanthropic projects such as those related to education, the protection of children and women, and American and Israeli causes. He was married to Myra Nathalie Hiatt for 47 years until she passed away in 2011; he has four children with Hiatt. Kraft recently married Dana Blumberg, an ophthalmologist.