Who Owns Gallup?

George Gallup, a journalism and advertising researcher, founded the American Institute of Public Opinion in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1935. His mission was methodological: to measure what the public actually thought using scientific sampling rather than the straw polls that dominated newspaper coverage at the time.

The 1936 presidential election made his reputation. The Literary Digest's massive straw poll predicted Alf Landon would beat Franklin Roosevelt; Gallup's much smaller scientific sample predicted Roosevelt correctly. The upset established probability sampling as the standard for opinion research and made the Gallup Poll a fixture of American journalism.

Through the mid-twentieth century the organization expanded from political polling into market research and, increasingly, management science. George Gallup died in 1984, and leadership passed through his sons George Jr. and Alec. Jim Clifton joined in 1988 and became CEO, steering the company from polling dependence toward workplace analytics and consulting.

Two acquisitions defined the modern company. The purchase of the Gallup Organization's research operations consolidated its polling heritage, while the 1999 acquisition of the StrengthsFinder assessment business brought the tool that became CliftonStrengths, now taken by tens of millions of people. The Q12 employee engagement survey, developed from decades of workplace research, became the industry's standard engagement instrument.

Jon Clifton succeeded his father as CEO in 2022. Under him, the company has pushed further into workplace advisory, organizational culture, and AI-related workforce research, while the Gallup Poll continues as a public service and credibility anchor even though it contributes a minority of revenue. The company moved into The Gallup Building at 901 F Street NW in Washington, DC, which also houses its polling operations and Gallup Press.