A. Alfred Taubman

Sotheby's
Taubman bought the ailing British auction house Sotheby's in 1983 acting as a white knight when the company was threatened by a hostile and unwanted takeover by Marshall Cogan and Stephen Swid of General Felt. He has the best eye I've ever seen in my life. Taubman chose upscale areas for lavish shopping centers offering fountains and prestigious anchor stores like Neiman Marcus.

He built shopping mall developer Taubman Centers into a retailing powerhouse. Adolph Alfred Taubman (born January 31 1924) is an American real estate developer and philanthropist from Michigan. He wrote Threshold Resistance: The Extraordinary Career of a Luxury Retailing Pioneer in 2007.