Douglas L. Becker

Laureate Education Inc.

Douglas Becker has built Baltimore-based Laureate Education, Inc., into an international network of higher-education institutions with more than 50,000 employees and 80 campus-based and online universities in 28 countries.

Most of Laureate’s various for-profit institutions are overseas and have more than 1 million students in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Becker has led the company since 1991, under its former incarnation as Sylvan Learning Systems. The Baltimore native built Sylvan Learning Systems into a kindergarten-12th grade tutoring giant, with nearly 2,000 learning centers and 200,000 students before branching out in 1999 into higher education.

The tutoring business was sold in 2003 to allow Laureate to focus on higher education.

Becker is also chairman of the board of the International Youth Foundation, which the company says has invested more than $200 million to improve conditions and prospects for young people in 86 countries.

He also supports many civic groups in Baltimore. He was the founding chairman of Port Discovery, the Children’s Museum in Baltimore, and still serves on its board of directors. He’s also served on boards at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Greater Baltimore Committee, the Economic Alliance of Baltimore and the Enoch Pratt Library.