Stephen Ross

Founder and chairman of the Related Companies and the owner of the Miami Dolphins.

Ross was born in Detroit in 1940 to a Jewish family that included his uncle, the business magnate, diplomat and philanthropist Max Fisher. Ross graduated from the University of Michigan before earning a JD from Wayne State School of Law and a master’s in law from New York University.

With a $10,000 loan from his mother, Ross started Related Housing Companies, which built low- and moderate-income housing nationwide. Ross has since parlayed Related into a global player, developing real estate not just all over the country but throughout the world.

In 2003, Related unveiled the Time Warner Center, a 2.8 million-square-foot mixed-use concept on the site of Columbus Circle’s old New York Coliseum. It featured curated retail, living, hotel and office space, and would serve as a model for Hudson Yards, the project Related would undertake later in the decade.

During the Great Recession, Related won the bid to build Hudson Yards, a 28-acre, 18 million-square-foot complex on the old Hudson Rail Yards on Manhattan’s Far West Side. The first phase opened in 2019. Its second phase was under construction as of fall 2020.