My Magic Two Words Are “What’s Next?”

Questions and Answers with Ed Hajim ’58

Ed Hajim tried to hide the story of his life from most of the people who know him. Even his wife, Barbara, and their children, G. B., Corey, and Brad, didn’t get the entire account until 2008, when Hajim was named chair of the University’s Board of Trustees.

Despite a five-decade connection to the University that began when he was a student, Hajim kept his background as a child who grew up in foster homes and orphanages as private as he could. Today, as a successful philanthropist, Hajim sees himself in a position to help students with hardscrabble backstories like his.

“In the end, adversity is a gift,” Hajim writes in his new memoir, On the Road Less Traveled (Skyhorse Publishing, 2021). “If you don’t experience it, you’ll never know how to overcome it. The disadvantages I endured sparked my ambition and work ethic. So it wasn’t fate. It was drive—some call it grit. It’s the one thing privileged people who feel entitled to everything and have nothing to fight for often lack. That was never me.”

His life’s story is harrowing but ultimately a story of success. As a toddler he was, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped by his father, led to believe that his mother was dead most of his life, and was left to fend for himself in foster services and orphanages. He worked to become one of the late 20th-century’s most successful Wall Street executives as well as a major philanthropist. A generous supporter of education, Hajim committed $30 million to Rochester, the largest single gift in the University’s history.

Working with his family, Hajim spent seven years on the memoir. In completing it, he realized that recounting his story might help other people.

“To me, if you could help a few people have it a little bit easier on their trip through the forest, then you’re doing something,” he says. “Love is doing things for other people. And this seems like the right time.”

Why did you want to write a memoir?

I was very embarrassed by my back history, so I buried it for most of my life. In fact, my wife, Barbara, really didn’t get the whole story for a long time. The kids got pieces of the story. Nobody got the story until I came to Rochester to become chairman of the Board of Trustees. I was planning to make the gift anonymously, but Jim Thompson [then chief advancement officer] said, “We can’t do that.” And Mark Zupan [then dean of the Simon Business School] started digging into my background—typical research guy—and found some details. I watched this, and I thought, “You know, you’re 72, we’ve got to get this down on paper.” Once I started writing it, I really wanted it to be private and self-publish it and give it away to friends. But you start to learn things when you start to write.

What did you learn?

Your background is very important to you. It can give you advantages and disadvantages. Even when you have a very disadvantaged background, it gives you certain definite advantages that other kids don’t have. Think about me, going 15 different places before I was 18 years old. Am I adaptable? You bet your ass I am. People say, “Give me a one-liner on the book. Is it, ‘Anything is possible?’” Anything is possible, given my background.

You’ve overcome extraordinary odds. Do you think your story is exceptional?

Am I the exception or the rule? Well, that’s the essence of what I think I have to share. Am I just unusual, or are there other aspects to it?

There are certain things you get by having a background like mine. Like adaptability, resilience, the ability to bounce back, perseverance. And gratitude and appreciation for having to earn what you have. There are advantages to having a challenging background. Luck is certainly a factor, and so is the context you find yourself in. I refused to accept the fact of my circumstances.

Some of my success was due to the fact that I had a certain innate talent. I had capabilities in engineering and math. But I also had a dream. I really wanted something, and I felt I could get it. I think some of these things can be learned. If someone like me can communicate that with kids, it can make their trip a little bit easier.

You arrived at Rochester in 1954 from an orphanage. Why didn’t you want your classmates to know your background?

When I came to Rochester, I decided to hide my life. I didn’t want pity. I didn’t want sympathy; I didn’t want to get something I didn’t deserve. It just didn’t do me any good. After the first year at Rochester, I decided I was really going to join campus life as much as I could. I got a crew cut, went down to a store in Rochester and bought a tweed jacket. The whole transition. I wanted to be accepted, so I made those changes, but people didn’t know the story.

For someone who wrote a memoir, you seem keen to look ahead rather than back.

I always tried to look ahead. People say to me, “Why didn’t you look for your mother?” When I was six years old, I realized she wasn’t there. Until I was 60, I thought she was dead. I had enough things to cope with, so actually it was a defense mechanism, in many respects. I didn’t realize what I was doing. In my business life, my magic two words are, “What’s next?” What are we going to do here to stay ahead of our competitors?

What’s next for you?

At the Nantucket Golf Course, we have a foundation that supports 40 to 50 charities on the island and has put 25 kids through college. Our newest effort is vocational scholarships for kids who want to become chefs, welders, carpenters, or pursue occupations that don’t require a four-year college degree. This is one of my new mini crusades since I believe vocational education is one of the solutions to our US employment problem. I may try to take our model to other clubs in communities like ours.

I also have a couple more books that I’m working on. One is focused on what I’ve often described as the importance of defining the “Four P’s” of your life—your passion, your principles, your partner, and your plans—but it’s really about the conversation you need to have with your inner voice. Your inner sense of yourself is one constant you have in your life, and you need to develop ways to keep going back to it and listening to it.

Do you have advice for listening to that inner voice?

Every year you should sit down and review certain characteristics that you have. I do that, and then every three years, I do a deep dive. It isn’t business strategy but personal strategy. Self, family, work, community— reviewing each one of those areas and saying, “Am I doing those things correctly?”

In my business life, I really tried to make sure there was a certain amount of balance. I had a goal of having a family. One of my legacies is having a family. Having three children and eight grandchildren is a pretty good deal. That’s a pretty special experience