Chairman and Co-founder, Dimensional Fund Advisors
David Booth co-founded Dimensional Fund Advisors in 1981 and is its chairman. The firm runs low-cost funds built on academic research into what drives market returns rather than on stock picking.
Booth was born in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1946 and earned a BA in economics in 1968 and an MS in business in 1969 at the University of Kansas. At the University of Chicago's business school he was a doctoral student and research assistant to Eugene Fama, leaving in 1971 with an MBA; there he met Rex Sinquefield, with whom he later founded Dimensional.
After Chicago he worked at Wells Fargo on a team led by John McQuown that built one of the first index funds. Dimensional, started in 1981, launched a passively managed small-company strategy. Booth ran the firm as CEO and later co-CEO until 2017, when Dave Butler and Gerard O'Reilly took over day-to-day leadership. Dimensional's Form ADV lists him as chairman and as owner of 25 to 50 percent of its parent, Dimensional Holdings Inc.
Forbes counts him among the world's billionaires. He pledged $300 million to the University of Chicago in 2008, and its business school now bears his name; he signed the Giving Pledge in 2018.
Sources · written 23 October 2026