Education
Ligon earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1973 from the Plan II Honors program at the The, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a member of the Tejas Club. He recently received a lifetime achievement award at The Tejas Club"s 85th anniversary in October 2010. He studied at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru in Lima, Peru in 1972/73.
He subsequently earned his Master of Arts in Economics in 1978 from the University of Texas at Austin, and an Master of Business Administration in 1980 from the Yale School of Management.
Career
He retired in June 2006, and is now a private angel-stage investor. Among his recent investments are Gazelle, Redfin, Rev.com, Carolina Trade (India), Eneza (Kenya) and Tazza Kitchen. Ligon and Richard Sharp, then Chief Executive Officer of Circuit City, developed the CarMax idea together in 1991 and launched the first CarMax store in Richmond, Virginia, in 1993.
Austin became president of CarMax in 1995.
He led the company through a decade and a half of rapid growth, including its IPO as a tracking stock of Circuit City in 1997. He added the title of Chief Executive Officer upon the company’s spin off from Circuit City in 2002.
Ligon came to Circuit City from Marriott Corporation where he had been senior vice president of strategic planning for Marriott Hotels and Resorts. He joined Marriott in 1984 as director of corporate planning, and served as vice president of both marketing and concept general management in the family restaurant division.
Ligon was previously a senior consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in London, England, from 1980 to 1983 and an independent financial consultant in Bangkok, Thailand during 1983-1984.
He worked as a health economist in Dallas and San Antonio during 1976-1978, and was a Teaching Fellow in economics at the University of Texas at Austin from 1973 to 1976. The primary focus of Ligon"s community involvement is education. He also serves on the board of several venture start-up companies.
Membership
He is a member of the governing boards of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company (UVIMCO), Saint John's College (Annapolis and Santa Fe), and, formerly, The University of Virginia. He is advisory board chairman of the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) at Johns Hopkins University, and an advisory board member of the Yale School of Management. Ligon earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1973 from the Plan II Honors program at the The University of Texas at Austin, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a member of the Tejas Club.
