Yum! Brands' Former CEO Donates $21 Million To Journalism School

The University of Missouri-Columbia is having a pretty great week, because David Novak, the co-founder of Yum! Brands, just donated $21 million to his alma mater, the Mizzou journalism school.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, David Novak recently retired as CEO of Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut. Novak was unusual among Fortune 500 CEOs because he did not have a business degree. He graduated from Mizzou's journalism school in 1974, and he credits his journalism training with developing his interests in marketing and advertising.

Novak's $21 million donation is the sixth largest gift in Mizzou's history. It will be used to create the Novak Leadership Institute within the journalism school. The institute will focus on developing leadership and entrepreneurship skills, and the donation will fund undergraduate and graduate-level classes, an online master's degree program, lecture series, symposiums, and "mobile boot camps."

"There is a tremendous void in leadership education in our country and we must teach our students the skills needed to make them great leaders and equip them to work with others to get the very best results," Novak said in a statement.

Novak was one of the 50 most powerful people in food. He was chief executive of Yum! Brands from 1999 until he retired in May, 2016.