Paul Cabot (1898-1994) was an innovative mutual fund manager and executive known for his strong character, charismatic personality, and trendsetting financial achievements. Iconoclastic and rebellious, Cabot broke free from the Boston Brahmin trustee mold to pursue new ways of investing and serving investment clients.

Cabot founded one of the first mutual funds--State Street Investment Corporation--in the early 1920s, campaigned against the corrupt practices of certain other funds in the late 1920s, and lobbied on behalf of key New Deal securities legislation in the 1930s. As Harvard...