Bill Franke should not be confused with Bill Frank.
| Bill Franke | |
| Birth Date: | 1937 4, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Bryan, Texas, US |
| Occupation: | Businessman |
| Alma Mater: | Stanford University |
| Spouse: | Carolyn Franke |
| Children: | 5 |
William Augustus Franke (born April 15, 1937)[1] is an airline investor and a co-founder and Managing Partner of Indigo Partners LLC, a private equity fund focused in air transportation.[2] [3] He has been the President at Franke and Company, Inc. since 1987.[4] Franke has been Chairman of Wizz Air since 2004, and is Chairman of Frontier Airlines. He also is the President and Chairman of Bristol Group SA.
Franke graduated from Stanford University with a BA in history in 1959 and an LL.B. in Law in 1961. In his early career he was the CEO of a Fortune 500 forest products company, Southwest Forest Industries (now Smurfit-Stone Container) and chairman of Circle K, which he restructured through bankruptcy. He was chairman and CEO of America West Airlines from 1993 to 2001, chairman of Singapore-based Tiger Airways from 2004 to 2009, and chairman of Spirit Airlines from July 2006 to August 2013.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University in 2008 where, following a $25 million donation, W.A. Franke College of Business was named after him.[5] In 2016 he made a donation of $24 million to the University of Montana.[6] He has also donated to his alma mater Stanford Law School to create The W. A. Franke Professorship in Law and Business.[7] In 2021, he donated $25 million to the University of Arizona to be put towards scholarships, housing stipends, and study abroad programs for honors students; the Honors College was thus renamed the W.A. Franke Honors College.[8]