William F. Kerby was born in Washington, DC in 1908, and died in 1989. Kerby was the person most responsible for chaperoning the business-news daily The Wall Street Journal to its place as the second largest national newspaper in the United States, with a readership surpassing 2 million.
Kerby was the CEO and chairman of Dow Jones & Company from 1966 until his retirement in 1977. The Harvard Business School chose Kerby as one of its “Great American Business Leaders” of the 20th century.