Werner Michael Blumenthal

Chairman and CEO of Unisys, the American global information technology company, Blumenthal is recognized as a leading figure in both the technology industry and public service.

He was born in Oranienburg, Brandenburg, Germany, the son of Rose Valerie (née Markt) and Ewald Blumenthal, who owned a dress shop. The Blumenthals were Jewish, and left the country in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. They went to Shanghai, and then to the United States in 1947.

He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1951 with a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business. Blumenthal later received a Ph.D. from Princeton University, where he also taught economics from 1953 to 1956. He then joined Crown Cork International Corporation, where he rose to Vice President and Director.

In the 1960s, he entered politics and public service and served in the State Department from 1961 until 1967 as Advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson on trade. Following a ten-year career as President and then Chairman of the Board with Bendix International, President Jimmy Carter appointed him as United States Secretary of the Treasury, where Blumenthal served from January 23, 1977, to August 4, 1979.

In 1980, he returned to the business sector and joined Burroughs Corporation as Vice Chairman, then Chairman of the Board a year later. Burroughs was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. After a merger into the Unisys Corporation in 1986, he became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Unisys — an American global information technology (IT) company based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. The company provides a portfolio of IT services, software, and technology. Blumenthal remained at Unisys until his retirement in 1990.

He has served as Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin from December 1997. In 2008, he was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and pledged to back President Barack Obama. He has been the recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence, and in 1999, he received the Leo Baeck Medal for his humanitarian work promoting tolerance and social justice.

He has lived with his wife Barbara (née Bennett) in Princeton, New Jersey. They had one son together and Blumenthal had three daughters from a former marriage. His memoirs entitled "In achtzig Jahren um die Welt. Mein Leben" (Around the World in Eight Years. My Life) was published by Propyläen Publishers in October 2010.