C. V. Starr

Cornelius Vander Starr
Born	October 15, 1892 Ft. Bragg, California
Died	December 20, 1968
Nationality	American
Other names	Neil Starr, C. V. Starr
Occupation	Businessman
Known for	Founder of American International Group

Cornelius Vander Starr also known as Neil Starr or C. V. Starr (October 15, 1892 – December 20, 1968) was an American businessman and operative of the Office of Strategic Services who was best known for founding the American International Group (AIG), a major corporation in the 21st century.

Starr was born to parents of English and Dutch ancestry. His father was a railroad engineer. After dropping out of college at the University of California, Berkeley, C.V. Starr returned to his hometown of Ft. Bragg, CA, where he began his first business venture, selling ice cream, at the age of nineteen.

He joined the U.S. Army in 1918 but was never deployed overseas because World War I had ended. Unable to resist a strong urge to travel and understand the world, he joined the Pacific Mail Steamship Company as a clerk in Yokohama, Japan. Later that year, he traveled to Shanghai where he worked for several insurance businesses.

In 1919 he founded what was then known as American Asiatic Underwriters (later American International Underwriters) in Shanghai, China. He had long been aware of the described and looming "Chinese Century." It has been reported that he worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II while in China. After the war, he hired O.S.S. captain Duncan Lee, a lawyer, who was the long-term general counsel of AIG. AIG left China in early 1949, as Mao Zedong led the advance of the Communist People's Liberation Army on Shanghai, and Starr moved the company headquarters to its current home in New York City. AIG was once the world's largest insurance company.

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