Elbert Hubbard - no picture credit · Public domain

A German banker who founded the Rothschild banking dynasty, building a financial network across Europe's capitals that came to dominate international finance from the 1820s through the 1870s. Working from Frankfurt's Jewish ghetto, he placed his five sons in different European cities to run a coordinated family enterprise — an innovation in cross-border finance that Forbes later ranked among the most influential business achievements in history.