Early Life
William (Bill) Charles Stone was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana. He was born in 1955, and graduated from Reitz Memorial High School in 1973. In high school, Stone was an athlete and captain of Reitz Memorial's football team.
Rise to Success
After graduating high school, Stone attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he received a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1977. He began his career at KPMG, a financial services consultancy and accounting firm. He eventually became a director at KPMG. In 1986, Stone, at the age of 30, left his job at KPMG to start SS&C Technologies with approximately $20,000 he had saved. The company was initially based out of his garage and launched with four employees. SS&C went public in 1996.
Key Business Strategies
SS&C Technologies provides software and services to the financial services and healthcare industries. Stone led SS&C through its initial public offering in 1996 and a second IPO in 2010. Stone has spearheaded over 60 acquisitions since 1995, including the $5.4 billion acquisition of DST Systems. The company's core value proposition has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise with deep integration into global capital markets infrastructure. SS&C's resilience through the dot-com crash and subsequent reprivatization and relisting underscores Stone's strategic agility.
Philanthropy
Stone has shown community involvement and philanthropy. In 2006, Stone funded the NJ Stone Baseball Field at Evansville Memorial High School, his alma mater. In May 2018, Stone and his wife Mary donated $15 million toward a multi-institutional initiative in downtown Evansville, the Stone Family Center for Health Sciences. In November 2018, Bill and Mary Stone helped fund the Patricia Browning Stone Sensory Playground at St. Vincent's Center for Children in Evansville. In December 2021, Bill and Mary Stone gifted $34.2 million to establish the Mary O'Daniel Stone and Bill Stone Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at IU School of Medicine-Evansville.