J A M E S   J.   M U R R E N  .  ' 8 3

From the liberal arts to Las Vegas

In 1998, James Murren was a top-ranked equity research analyst who had been a Wall Street professional for 14 years. He’d held a number of senior management positions and could have counted on a successful future in his division of the Deutsche Bank. But instead of that route, Murren changed paths and took a gamble. He accepted a job with MGM Grand, Inc., a major entertainment, hotel, and gaming company based in Las Vegas, and soon became one of its top executives. This summer, when MGM Grand acquired Mirage Resorts, Inc., Murren became the president and CFO of the new MGM MIRAGE, the largest gaming company in the world.

Day-to-day, Murren enjoys developing new casinos and working on consolidation projects, raising capital and maintaining ties to Wall Street, and playing a hands-on role in financial operations. Says Murren, “I have one of the best jobs in the world.” As a financial expert, he takes pride in the fact that his company boasts $4.4 billion in revenues, holds only the highest-quality assets, and is reputed to be the best in the industry. Its 18 casino/hotel/resorts around the world include the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mirage, New York New York, and Treasure Island on Las Vegas’s famous “Strip.”

A proponent of the liberal arts
Murren, who grew up in Connecticut’s Fairfield County, admits with a laugh that Las Vegas is “probably the last place” he expected to end up. It seems rather improbable to find a Trinity art history and urban studies major heading up a casino empire, but Murren believes he routinely uses skills he developed at Trinity. “I’m a big proponent of a liberal arts education,” he says. “The ability to think strategically, creatively, and laterally is extremely important in the business world.” What’s more, as the leader of a company that employs 49,000 people worldwide, he values the communication skills he gained from his Trinity experience.

Murren spent the fall of his junior year at Trinity’s Rome campus and calls that semester “the most enriching experience I had at Trinity.” In Rome, he matured by being immersed in a different culture, by learning to communicate in a different language, by looking at America and Americans from the perspective of other nations and cultures, and by learning more about the world. Says Murren, "“I grew up more in that semester than I did the rest of my three and a half years in Hartford.” Recently, Murren was thrilled to reconnect with his Rome experience when he joined the board of the Barbieri Foundation, which supports a wide array of programs at Trinity that foster awareness and understanding of Italian culture.

Internships as catalysts
While many experiences at Trinity helped him learn academically and grow personally, it was Murren’s internships that set him on his career trajectory. Murren says that internships in the equity research departments of Hartford-area banks “gave me my first taste of Wall Street and sparked my capitalist nature.” His first job after graduation was with a small, specialized brokerage firm. As an equity analyst there, he learned about the food, beverage, and restaurant industries. Later in his career, he branched out, gaining expertise and experience in raising capital for hotels and casinos, which prepared him for the leap to Las Vegas. Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor Alden R. Gordon was Murren’s adviser at Trinity and remembers him well. “I’m not a bit surprised at his success,” says Gordon. “I knew him from the day he entered Trinity, and he proved to have a very sharp and analytical mind. He also became one of our most reliable teaching assistants in the introductory art history courses.”

Gordon notes that throughout his career at Trinity, Murren married economics and art history, exploring Old World culture and modern urban situations, and is thus perhaps uniquely suited for a position that involves creating aesthetically appealing urban destinations. “What will the enduring symbols of 20th-century America be?” muses Gorden. “They’ll be Disneyland and Las Vegas. If you think about it, Jim Murren is in a position to positively affect the creation of those architectural icons. It’s a great responsibility.”

An east coast native in the west
Murren says that like many other east coast natives, he had many preconceived notions about Las Vegas. “When people think of Las Vegas, they think of The Strip,” and the glamour and glitter of the major casinos, he says. But as an executive of a company with community relations projects in the city and as a resident of the area, Murren knows that Las Vegas is much more than that. It’s a place, he says, where people go to church and the synagogue, and where the huge tourism industry helps fund excellent schools and beautiful public parks. Such things are important to Murren, who is married and has two young boys. He says, “Las Vegas is a great location to raise a family.” Murren says it is sometimes difficult to be so far away from friends and family back in Connecticut. Fortunately, he notes, it isn’t hard to entice people to Las Vegas. He quips, “Relatives I didn’t know I had want to come and visit.” 

- Leslie Virostek