Auto industry · born 1961Mary Barraautomotive executive, engineerMetro Detroit native who rose from a GM co-op student to chair and CEO of General Motors in 2014, the first woman to lead a Big Three automaker.DETROIT / A living lexicon / ¼
Famous Detroiters
People who were born here, moved here or built their careers in Detroit: musicians, carmakers, athletes, writers, inventors, civil-rights leaders and a few notorious names. With their dates, their Detroit story and the places where they lived, worked and played, closed ones included.
- 1,940 famous people
- 366 Detroit places
- 20 fields
Hungarian ties 22 Detroiters with Hungarian ties →
Field
Connection
Born in
A–Z (family name)
13 people
Clear filtersAuto industry · born 1961Mary Barraautomotive executive, engineerMetro Detroit native who rose from a GM co-op student to chair and CEO of General Motors in 2014, the first woman to lead a Big Three automaker.
Sports · born 1963Joe Dumarsbasketball player and executiveHall of Fame Pistons guard who won two championships as a "Bad Boy" and a third as team president, and stayed in Detroit for decades running local businesses.
Science & invention · born 1969Tony Fadellengineer, designer, entrepreneurEngineer known as the 'father of the iPod', co-creator of the iPhone and founder of Nest Labs; he grew up in the Detroit area and graduated from Grosse Pointe South High School.
Business & brands · born 1963Dick Costolotechnology executive, former CEO of TwitterRoyal Oak–born University of Michigan graduate who co-founded FeedBurner and ran Twitter as CEO from 2010 to 2015.
Business & brands · born 1962Dan Gilbertbusinessman, founder of Rocket Mortgage and BedrockDetroit-born mortgage billionaire who moved Quicken Loans downtown in 2010 and bought and rebuilt dozens of city landmarks through Bedrock.
Music · born 1964Kevin SaundersonDJ, record producer, label ownerOne of the Belleville Three who invented Detroit techno; his Inner City hits carried the city's sound onto pop charts worldwide.
Film & TV · born 1961Byron Allencomedian, television host, media executiveDetroit-born comedian who debuted on The Tonight Show at 18 and built Allen Media Group, one of the largest Black-owned media companies in the United States.
Music · born 1963John AcquavivaDJ, producer, label founder, music entrepreneurCanadian DJ who started out in Detroit's clubs, co-founded Plus 8 Records with Richie Hawtin and later helped launch Beatport.The lexicon keeps growing. Every entry lists its sources at the bottom. Dates were checked against Wikidata and Wikipedia. The texts are our own. Famous people's places among the sights ↗