George Soros

Survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest as a teenager under a false identity before emigrating to Britain, studying philosophy at the London School of Economics, and building one of the most successful hedge funds of the twentieth century. His 1992 short sale against the British pound, which forced the UK out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on "Black Wednesday," is still studied as a case of a single trader moving a national currency. He has since redirected the bulk of that fortune through the Open Society Foundations, funding civil-society and pro-democracy groups across dozens of countries.