Biography

Jacobs began his career in 1979 at age 23 with his first start-up, Amerex Oil Associates. He led the team that grew Amerex from a concept into one of the world's largest oil brokerage firms, with approximately $4.7 billion of annual gross contract volume and offices on three continents. Jacobs served as chief executive officer from 1979 until 1983.

In 1984, Jacobs founded Hamilton Resources, a worldwide oil trading company, and grew its revenue to approximately $1 billion, primarily through the execution of large contracts with major oil companies and oil-producing countries. Jacobs served as executive chairman from 1984 until 1989.

In 1989, Jacobs founded United Waste Systems. During his eight years as chairman and chief executive officer, he grew the company into the fifth largest solid waste management business in North America, with an integrated network of landfills, collection companies, transfer stations, and recycling locations. United Waste’s stock outperformed the S&P 500 by 5.6 times and delivered a 55% compound annual rate of return from the company’s IPO until its sale in 1997.

In 1997, Jacobs founded United Rentals and grew the company into the world's largest construction equipment rental provider within 13 months. In the 10 years that Jacobs led United Rentals, the company completed approximately 250 acquisitions and its stock outperformed the S&P 500 Index by 2.2 times. By 2007, Jacobs and his team had built United Rentals into the 536th largest public corporation in America, as ranked by Fortune magazine. United Rentals was the sixth best-performing Fortune 500 stock of the last decade, and became a “200-bagger” — the share price at inception was $3.50, and its stock now trades at more than 200 times that price.

In 2010, he formed Jacobs Private Equity to make a substantial equity investment in a single company with the potential for superlative value creation and, in 2011, he identified the transportation and logistics industry as being large, fragmented, and ripe for consolidation, with the right attributes to leverage scale and technology. Jacobs created XPO Logistics with a $150 million PIPE investment in Express-1 Expedited Solutions, Inc., a publicly traded supply chain service provider. He led XPO as chairman and chief executive officer until 2022.

In 2012, Jacobs announced his intention to grow XPO’s revenue from $175 million to $5 billion within five years, primarily through M&A. Instead, he grew revenue to $15 billion in just over four years. By 2021, Jacobs and his management team had built XPO into a top 10 global provider of transportation and logistics services, with a market capitalization of $16.8 billion. XPO was the seventh best-performing stock of the last decade in the Fortune 500 and became a “50-bagger” by the end of 2024 — meaning initial investors in XPO made more than 50 times their money.

Jacobs subsequently led the $7 billion spin-off of GXO Logistics in 2021 and the $5 billion spin-off of RXO in 2022, creating two new public companies in about 15 months. GXO is the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider, with more than 1,000 facilities totaling approximately 200 million square feet. RXO is a leading brokered transportation platform in North America, with a proprietary digital ecosystem that connects approximately 10,000 customers with more than 100,000 independent carriers.

Jacobs was ranked the Best CEO in Transportation in Institutional Investor's 2022 All-America Executive Team awards. In 2018, he was ranked 10th on Barron's list of the World's Best CEOs and was named a Top CEO by Glassdoor in France and the UK. He is a member of The Business Council in Washington, D.C. and The Economic Club of New York.

Jacobs was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He attended Bennington College and Brown University. He and his wife live in Greenwich, Connecticut.