The Founder, Chairman and CEO of QXO, Inc. is recognized for building his eighth billion-dollar company from scratch, for assembling it into North America’s largest distributor of insulation and second-largest publicly traded distributor of building products in under two years through three landmark acquisitions, and for a five-decade track record of roll-up dealmaking that has few, if any, parallels in American business.
HG HomeClub has named Brad Jacobs, Founder, Chairman and CEO of QXO, Inc. (NYSE: QXO), to its list of the 25 Most Influential Leaders in Home Improvement, Home Services and Outdoor Living.
The list, published by HG HomeClub, recognizes 25 leaders who are shaping these three industries in the right way. It spans manufacturing, distribution, retail, technology, franchising, contracting, media, capital and the associations that convene the trades. It is presented alphabetically and carries no numerical ranking, because the leaders on it exercise influence in fundamentally different ways, and comparing a keynote stage to a distribution network, or a franchise system to a product platform, would flatten what makes each of them consequential.
Jacobs earns his place on it as the dealmaker behind the fastest, largest consolidation the building products distribution industry has seen. Over roughly 44 years, he has completed approximately 500 M&A transactions and raised more than $60 billion in institutional capital, building eight billion-dollar or multibillion-dollar companies, six of them publicly traded. His latest, QXO, has in less than two years assembled a portfolio that its own securities filings describe as holding the number one position in insulation and waterproofing, and a leading position in roofing and in lumber and building materials across North America, operating in an addressable market of more than $300 billion.
Those are the numbers. The story is in the five decades it took to get fast enough to build them this quickly.
How Did Brad Jacobs Build His First Billion-Dollar Business?
Jacobs was born August 3, 1956, in Providence, Rhode Island, and attended Brown University. He began his career in 1979 at age 23 with his first startup, Amerex Oil Associates, growing it into one of the world’s largest oil brokerage firms, with roughly $4.7 billion in annual gross contract volume and offices on three continents, before serving as its CEO until 1983. In 1984, he founded Hamilton Resources, a global oil trading company, growing its revenue to approximately $1 billion.
In 1989, Jacobs founded United Waste Systems in Greenwich, Connecticut, consolidating small, overlapping rural waste-collection routes into what became the fifth-largest solid waste management company in the U.S., with its stock outperforming the S&P 500 by 5.6 times, before selling the company to USA Waste Services for $2.5 billion in 1997.
What Made United Rentals and XPO Household Names on Wall Street?
Jacobs founded United Rentals in September 1997 and grew it into the world’s largest equipment rental provider in just 13 months; its stock has since become a “300-bagger” for early investors and ranked as the sixth best-performing Fortune 500 stock of the past decade.
He founded XPO Logistics in 2011 and built it into one of the world’s largest freight transportation providers, with its stock becoming a “50-bagger” for 2011 investors and ranking as the seventh best-performing Fortune 500 stock over the following decade, making Jacobs one of a small number of executives to steer two separate companies into the top 10 of that performance ranking in the same decade. XPO subsequently spun off GXO Logistics in 2021, the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider, and RXO in 2022, a tech-enabled, asset-light freight brokerage. Jacobs stepped down from his chairman roles at both XPO and GXO at the end of 2025 to focus his attention on QXO.
How Did QXO Go From a Shell Company to an $800 Billion Industry’s Biggest Consolidator?
Jacobs founded QXO through an unconventional entry point: in June 2024, his family office and co-investors invested $1 billion into SilverSun Technologies, a small-cap software and IT services company, through a private investment in public equity, with $900 million from Jacobs personally and $100 million from co-investors. The renamed company, QXO, set its sights on the fragmented, $800 billion building products distribution industry, with a stated target of reaching $50 billion in annual revenue within about a decade.
QXO’s first major acquisition, Beacon Roofing Supply, closed April 29, 2025, for $124.35 per share in cash, valuing the deal at approximately $11 billion, after a tender offer that began with a 37 percent premium and made QXO the largest publicly traded distributor of roofing, waterproofing and complementary building products in the United States. “Acquiring Beacon is a major step forward in our strategy to make QXO the leading tech-enabled company in the $800 billion building products distribution industry,” Jacobs said when the deal closed.
Less than a year later, QXO closed its acquisition of Kodiak Building Partners on April 1, 2026, for approximately $2.25 billion, adding a distributor of lumber, trusses and other building materials with a strong presence across the Sun Belt. Weeks later, QXO announced its largest deal yet: a $17 billion agreement to acquire TopBuild Corp., North America’s largest distributor and installer of insulation, a transaction that shareholders of both companies overwhelmingly approved on June 29, 2026, with roughly 99 percent of QXO votes and 78 percent of TopBuild votes cast in favor. The deal closed July 1, 2026, making QXO the second-largest publicly traded building products distributor in North America, with combined pro-forma revenue exceeding $18 billion, and giving the company the number one position in insulation and waterproofing in North America and leading positions in roofing and in lumber and building materials.
What Is Brad Jacobs Actually Building Inside These Distributors?
Jacobs has been explicit that QXO’s differentiation is not just scale but technology. Beacon had already invested heavily in its Beacon PRO+ digital ordering and account management platform before the acquisition, and QXO has said it intends to apply automation, AI-driven dynamic pricing, predictive demand tools and optimized delivery routing across its combined network of roofing, lumber and insulation distribution businesses, aiming to lower procurement friction for the contractors, homebuilders and property managers who buy from it.
What Does an Eleventh Trip to the NYSE Podium Look Like?
Few executives mark milestones with quite the same ritual as Jacobs. He has rung the NYSE Opening Bell 11 times across his career, with his first in 1997 and his most recent for QXO in 2025, a frequency that places him among a small group of executives with double-digit bell-ringing appearances. QXO moved its listing from the Nasdaq to the NYSE in January 2025, with Jacobs telling investors, “The public companies I founded prior to QXO and listed on the NYSE have all delivered outsized shareholder value. We intend to replicate that success.”
What Has Brad Jacobs Written About How He Does This?
Jacobs is Managing Partner of Jacobs Private Equity, LLC, the family investment vehicle through which he holds much of his stake across his companies, and is the author of How to Make a Few Billion Dollars, published in 2024, and its sequel, How to Make a Few More Billion Dollars, both of which reached national bestseller status and lay out the dealmaking and operating principles behind his roll-up strategy. Jacobs is also an active member of the Business Roundtable, the association of CEOs of America’s leading companies.
Why Does Brad Jacobs Belong Among the 25 Most Influential Leaders in These Industries?
Influence in these industries takes several forms. Some leaders influence through a keynote stage or a book. Some through a franchise system that creates business owners. Some through a distribution network, a software platform, or the price of a pallet.
Brad Jacobs influences through the sheer scale and speed of consolidation. In under two years, he took a small-cap software shell and turned it into North America’s largest insulation distributor and second-largest publicly traded building products distributor overall, spending roughly $30 billion across three acquisitions to do it. He has now done this, in one form or another, eight separate times across five decades and 500 deals. That combination of scale, repeatability and speed, applied directly to the industry this list covers, is exactly the kind of influence this list was created to recognize.
About HG HomeClub
HG HomeClub is a national media platform serving the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries. Created to champion media back to its original purpose of informed transparency, HG HomeClub curates the top stories, headlines, rankings, videos, podcasts, webinars, events and professional recommendations across the industry and presents them in one consolidated, easily consumable destination, helping both homeowners and professionals make better-informed decisions. More information is available at hghomeclub.com.
About QXO
QXO, Inc. (NYSE: QXO), headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, is North America’s largest distributor and installer of insulation and second-largest publicly traded distributor of building products, with distribution across roofing, waterproofing, lumber and related building materials. Formed in 2023 and led by Founder, Chairman and CEO Brad Jacobs, QXO has grown through the acquisitions of Beacon Roofing Supply, Kodiak Building Partners and TopBuild Corp., and operates in an addressable market of more than $300 billion, targeting $50 billion in annual revenue within roughly a decade. More information is available at qxo.com.
The 25 Most Influential Leaders in Home Improvement, Home Services and Outdoor Living
Presented alphabetically. There is no numerical ranking; each leader is recognized for influence exercised in a distinct way.
- Doug Black — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SiteOne Landscape Supply (Outdoor living)
- AJ Brown — Co-Chief Executive Officer, Apex Service Partners (Platforms)
- Paul Burleson — Senior Account Executive, Westlake Royal Building Products (Home improvement)
- Jenilee Common — Chief Executive Officer, Leaf Home and Erie Home (Home improvement)
- Greg Cummings — Chief Executive Officer, Power100 (Media)
- Bill Darcy — Global President and Chief Executive Officer, NKBA and KBIS (Associations)
- Mike Davis — Chief Executive Officer, Neighborly (Franchising)
- Ted Decker — Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Home Depot (Retail)
- Marvin R. Ellison — Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Lowe’s (Retail)
- Aaron Erter — Chief Executive Officer, James Hardie (Manufacturing)
- Daniel Gluck — Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Renuity (Home improvement)
- Ken Goodrich — Chairman; Founder, Goettl; The Goodrich Organization (Home services)
- Brian Gottlieb — Best-Selling Author and Speaker, Beyond the Hammer (Speaking and authorship)
- Maggie Hardy — Owner, President and Chief Executive Officer, 84 Lumber (Distribution)
- Brad Jacobs — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, QXO (Distribution)
- Kurt Kane — President and Chief Executive Officer, TruGreen (Outdoor living)
- Ara Mahdessian — Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, ServiceTitan (Technology)
- Matt Malone — Founder and Executive Chairman, Groundworks (Home services)
- Tommy Mello — Founder and Chief Executive Officer, A1 Garage Door Service (Home services)
- Heidi G. Petz — Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sherwin-Williams (Manufacturing)
- Asher Raphael — Co-Chief Executive Officer, Power Home Remodeling (Home improvement)
- Dave Regnery — Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Trane Technologies (Manufacturing)
- Marcus Sheridan — Founder, Marcus Sheridan International (Speaking and authorship)
- Dan Tinker — President and Chief Executive Officer, SRS Distribution (Distribution)
- James W. Tobin III — President and Chief Executive Officer, National Association of Home Builders (Associations)
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is HG HomeClub, and what is this list?
HG HomeClub is a national media platform serving the home improvement, home services, and outdoor living industries. It was created to return media to its original purpose of informed transparency, curating the industry’s top stories, headlines, rankings, videos, podcasts, webinars, events and professional recommendations in one place for both homeowners and professionals. The 25 Most Influential Leaders in Home Improvement, Home Services and Outdoor Living is one of HG HomeClub’s editorial rankings, recognizing the people shaping these industries in the right way across manufacturing, distribution, retail, technology, franchising, contracting, media, capital and the associations that convene the trades.
- Is the list ranked from one to 25?
No. The list is presented alphabetically and carries no numerical order. The leaders recognized exercise influence in genuinely different ways, through enterprise scale, growth, product innovation, franchising, capital, authorship, keynote stages, advocacy and media, and HG HomeClub declined to impose a hierarchy on work that is not comparable. Every leader on the list is recognized equally.
- Who is Brad Jacobs?
Brad Jacobs is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of QXO, Inc. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1956, he has founded eight billion-dollar or multibillion-dollar companies over a roughly 44-year career, including United Waste Systems, United Rentals, XPO Logistics and its spin-offs GXO Logistics and RXO, and now QXO. He is also Managing Partner of Jacobs Private Equity and the author of the bestsellers How to Make a Few Billion Dollars and How to Make a Few More Billion Dollars.
- Why was Brad Jacobs selected for this list?
Because he built QXO from a small-cap software shell into North America’s largest distributor and installer of insulation and second-largest publicly traded distributor of building products in under two years, through the acquisitions of Beacon Roofing Supply, Kodiak Building Partners and TopBuild Corp., valued at roughly $30 billion combined, positioning the company to reshape distribution across roofing, insulation, waterproofing and lumber and building materials.
- What is QXO, and how did it start?
QXO is a building products distribution company founded by Brad Jacobs in 2023 through a $1 billion private investment in SilverSun Technologies, a small-cap software company, completed in June 2024. QXO subsequently entered building products distribution and installation, targeting the fragmented $800 billion industry and a long-term goal of $50 billion in annual revenue.
- What are QXO’s major acquisitions?
QXO closed its acquisition of Beacon Roofing Supply for approximately $11 billion on April 29, 2025, making it the largest publicly traded distributor of roofing, waterproofing and complementary building products in the U.S. It closed its acquisition of Kodiak Building Partners for approximately $2.25 billion on April 1, 2026, and completed its $17 billion acquisition of TopBuild Corp., North America’s largest insulation distributor and installer, on July 1, 2026, after shareholders of both companies overwhelmingly approved the deal.
- How large is QXO after the TopBuild acquisition?
Following the close of the TopBuild acquisition, QXO holds the number one position in insulation and waterproofing in North America and leading positions in roofing and in lumber and building materials, with combined pro-forma revenue exceeding $18 billion and an addressable market of more than $300 billion.
- What companies did Brad Jacobs build before QXO?
Before QXO, Jacobs founded United Waste Systems in 1989, growing it into the fifth-largest U.S. solid waste company before selling it for $2.5 billion in 1997; United Rentals in 1997, which became the world’s largest equipment rental provider within 13 months; and XPO Logistics in 2011, which grew into one of the world’s largest freight transportation providers and later spun off GXO Logistics and RXO as separate public companies.
- How many times has Brad Jacobs rung the NYSE Opening Bell?
Jacobs has rung the NYSE Opening Bell 11 times across his career, beginning in 1997 and most recently for QXO in 2025, placing him among a small group of executives with double-digit bell-ringing appearances.
