Moritz Daniel Oppenheim · Public domain

Took over the founding bank, M. A. Rothschild & Söhne in Frankfurt, when his father Mayer Amschel Rothschild died in 1812, while his brothers built parallel Rothschild banking houses in Paris, London, Naples, and Vienna — together forming the first genuinely international banking network. He was ennobled as a baron by the Holy Roman Emperor's successor state in 1822, yet stayed close to Orthodox Jewish life; Eastern European Jews called him "the pious Rothschild."