Yale SOM Alumni Head Two of Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”

Bright Horizons Family Solutions and CarMax, two companies founded and headed by Yale SOM alumni, have been named to the prestigious 2005 FORTUNE “100 Best Companies to Work For” list – an annual ranking recognizing employers who go beyond the norm to make their workplaces among the best in the nation. Results are based primarily upon a confidential, random survey of associates, as well as an evaluation of a company’s culture, compensation, training, and turnover.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions, the world’s leading provider of employer-sponsored childcare and early education, was co-founded by Linda Mason ’80 (Chairman) and Roger Brown ’82 (now president of Berklee College of Music). The firm operates more than 500 workplace childcare centers in 37 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Ireland, and the UK, and operates centers for firms such as Citigroup, Motorola, and Time Warner. This highly-regarded firm is also well known for its above-market employee salaries.

This is the sixth time Bright Horizons has been named to this list – and is one of only three Massachusetts-based employers named this year. To mark the achievement, Bright Horizons is making a donation to tsunami relief efforts in the name of its 16,000 employees, as well as establishing a special employee contribution-matching fund with Mercy Corps, a leading international relief agency run by another Yale SOM grad, Neal Keny-Guyer '82. According to Linda Mason, “Bright Horizons and our employees are committed to making a lasting difference not only for the children in our care, but also for children in need worldwide. It is part of the founding principles and collective mission that make Bright Horizons a great place to work.”

CarMax, the nation’s leading specialty retailer of used cars, has been named to the Fortune 100 list for the first time this year. CarMax currently operates 58 used car superstores in 27 markets and seven new car franchises. According to Austin Ligon ’80, President and CEO of CarMax, "Many Fortune readers will wonder how a company that sells cars, especially used cars, can be a great place to work. It's really pretty simple. By breaking the traditional industry approach and creating a customer-friendly, transparent, high-integrity selling process, we have cracked the code on how to make car buyers happy. The combination of a high-integrity process and happy customers helps us attract great associates who create a great working environment. It's a virtuous circle…Our competitive advantage is that we are ethical and trustworthy, and consistently go above and beyond for our customers and associates. Our managers treat their teams with the same level of integrity and trust that we want communicated to our customers."