David E. Simon is chairman and chief executive officer

Chief executive officer

A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 of Indianapolis

Indianapolis

Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...

-based Simon Property Group, an S&P 500

S&P 500

The S&P 500 is a free-float capitalization-weighted index published since 1957 of the prices of 500 large-cap common stocks actively traded in the United States. The stocks included in the S&P 500 are those of large publicly held companies that trade on either of the two largest American stock...

 company and the largest U.S. publicly traded real estate

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

 company.

Early life and career

Simon is the son of Melvin Simon

Melvin Simon

Melvin Simon was an American businessman and film producer, who co-founded the largest shopping mall company in the United States, the Simon Property Group, with his younger brother, Herbert Simon....

, chairman emeritus of Simon Property Group. He obtained a B.S. degree from Indiana University

Indiana University

Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

 in 1983 and an MBA from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

's Graduate School of Business

Columbia Business School

Columbia Business School is the business school of Columbia University in Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1916 to provide business training and professional preparation for undergraduate and graduate Columbia University students...

 in 1985.

After graduating from Columbia, Simon began at First Boston

First Boston

First Boston Corporation was a New York-based, bulge bracket, investment bank, founded in 1932 and acquired by Credit Suisse in 1990. Together with its sister investment banks, it was referred to as CS First Boston after 1993 and part of Credit Suisse First Boston after 1996, the First Boston part...

. Then, from 1988 to 1990, he worked at Wasserstein Perella & Co.

Wasserstein Perella & Co.

Wasserstein Perella & Co. was an investment bank established by Bruce Wasserstein, Joseph R. Perella, Bill Lambert, and one other founder in 1988, former bankers at First Boston Corp., until its eventual sale to Dresdner Bank in 2000 for some $1.4 billion in stock...

as a vice president.

Simon joined Simon Property precursor Melvin Simon & Associates in 1990 as Chief Financial Officer. In 1993 he led the efforts to take Simon Property Group public with a nearly $1 billion initial public offering that, at the time, was the largest real estate stock offering. Simon became CEO in 1995 and Chairman in 2007.

Personal

Simon is a member and former chairman of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) board of governors and is a former trustee of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). He has received numerous industry honors, and in 2000, he was inducted into the Indiana University Kelley School of Business Academy of Alumni Fellows.

David Simon is married to Jackie Simon.