Harry J. Sonneborn

Harry J. Sonneborn was the financial wizard behind The McDonald's Hamburger Empire. The adopted son of German Jewish immigrants, he was raised in New York. His first marriage to his first wife, June; produced a son and a daughter. After a messy divorce, Sonneborn married his second wife Aloyis Keister, who remained devoted to him until his death due to complications from diabetes in 1993.

A former vice president of finances at Tastee Freeze, before approaching Ray Kroc with revolutionary new financial ideas for franchising in 1955, Sonneborn served as McDonald's president until he resigned in 1967 due to a dispute with Kroc; who had the last word as the company’s CEO. Convinced that Kroc was leading the company into trouble, Sonneborn sold his sizable block of McDonald's stock for three million dollars as he left the company. Selling off his stock was one of the few financial mistakes he ever made. McDonald's stock split three ways over the next decade. Had Sonneborn waited to sell, he would have made over one hundred million by 1977, and by the time of his death in 1993, his stock would have been worth a cool billion. He ultimately made up for his underestimation of McDonald’s, but his bruised ego never quite recovered. He refused to ever eat at a McDonald’s again and stuck to his guns until the day he died.

After leaving McDonald’s, Sonneborn continued to be heavily involved in the business world through the stock market, capital investments, and banking. He and his wife Aloyis founded several philanthropic foundations, and were to a great extent involved in charitable organizations and fundraisers. During his final years, Harry J. Sonneborn devoted himself to entertaining close friends, travel, and his hobby of photography. He was posthumously vindicated by Ray Kroc several years after his death, and just months before Kroc himself died. (See quote below.) It is a pity Sonneborn never lived to see that day. He deserved far better for saving the company from financial ruin during the years he served as its president and for making McDonald’s a mega-corporation. Sonneborn should have been lauded by McDonald's as the financial genius that he was instead of being stricken from Mcdonald's history:

In the book, McDonald’s: Behind the Arches, Love (1995) the secret was revealed:
“What converted McDonald’s into a money machine had nothing to do with Ray Kroc,
or the McDonald brothers, or even the popularity of McDonald’s hamburgers, French fries,
and milk shakes. It was Harry J. Sonneborn.”

“McDonald’s real moneymaking engine was its little-known real estate business, Franchise Realty Corporation; envisioned and created by Harry Sonneborn. The obscure McDonald’s alter ego company was based on Sonneborn’s unique even lesser known financial formula.”

Just months before Ray Kroc died, he commented (Love, 1995): “Harry alone put in the policy that salvaged this company and made it a big-leaguer. His idea is what made McDonald’s rich.”

Better late than never, but Ray Kroc's pronouncement changed nothing at McDonald's where Kroc had decades earlier ordered Sonneborn officially written out of the company as if he never existed. No matter how hard you try searching for a reference to Harry J. Sonneborn, you will find only a few third party marketing companies and university professors who mention this extraordinary man's contribution to corporate America. This article is a small effort to correct that injustice. Maybe McDonald's will wake up and will correct their rewritten history, that is obviously a Kroc, as it leaves out Harry Sonneborn.