Shelby Cullom Davis was an American investment banker, philanthropist, and former United States Ambassador to Switzerland hailing from the state of New New York
Education
After graduating from The Lawrenceville School in 1926, he matriculated to Princeton University, graduating in 1930 and earned a master"s degree at Columbia University in 1931. He earned a doctorate in political science at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, in 1934. His dissertation was about military personnel in Africa (Reservoirs of men, a history of the black troops of French West Africa).
Career
He served as the American envoy in Bern under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford from 1969 to 1975. He worked as a European correspondent for Columbia Broadcasting System in Geneva and as an economist before joining the staff of, whom he advised during Dewey"s presidential runs in 1940 and 1944. Under Mr. Dewey as Governor of New York, Davis served as First Deputy Superintendent of Insurance from 1944 to 1947.
He headed Shelby Cullom Davis & Company, a firm specializing in insurance securities that he founded in 1947.
He was its chairman at the time of his death. In the 1980s he made it to the Forbe"s richest 400 Americans list.
Davis died at his house in Hobe Sound, Florida, aged 85, following a brief illness. He also lived in Tarrytown, New New York
He provided significant financial support to Princeton University (his alma mater) and also funded chairs at Wellesley College, and professorships of free enterprise at Wellesley and at the Cullom - Davis Library at Bradley University.
A Professorship of International Security Studies at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy was also instituted in his name. He also provided support to the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York City. His generous support of the Society of Colonial Wars is recognized in part through the Shelby Cullom Davis Lecture. In December 2013 it was announced that through his charitable fund a $10 million donation was made to Colby College, Waterville, Maine.
Davis was chairman and treasurer of an eponymous, conservative think tank, the Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation, at the time of his death.
Membership
He became a member of the New York Stock Exchange in 1941 and for many years was the managing partner of the firm bearing his name.