Brad Pitt and Greg Hayes each spent three decades becoming the central figure of an American industry, and they did it in industries that never touch. Pitt became the defining movie star of his generation and then, through his company Plan B, one of the most successful producers in Hollywood, with two wins at the Academy Awards and the biggest hit of his career arriving in 2025. Hayes became the finance chief who rose to run United Technologies and then merged it with Raytheon to create RTX, the largest aerospace and defence company in the world.
They have no documented connection of any kind: no shared company, board, investment or public appearance. This article gives each man his own complete story, from a Missouri childhood and a Purdue economics degree to the present day, and then answers the connection question plainly.
Quick Facts
| Detail | Brad Pitt | Greg Hayes |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | William Bradley Pitt | Gregory J. Hayes |
| Born | 18 December 1963, Shawnee, Oklahoma | 1960 or 1961, United States |
| Field | Film acting and producing | Aerospace and defence |
| Breakthrough | Thelma & Louise in 1991 | Becoming UTC chief executive in 2014 |
| Signature achievement | Two Academy Awards and Plan B Entertainment | The merger that created RTX in 2020 |
| Biggest recent success | F1, the highest grossing racing film ever made | Lead independent director of Phillips 66 in 2026 |
| Current role | Actor and producer; Plan B chairman | Board director at Phillips 66 and BD |
| Connection to the other | None documented | None documented |
Who Is Brad Pitt?
Brad Pitt is an American actor and producer whose career has outlasted every label attached to it: heartthrob, leading man, character actor in a star’s body, and finally the producer behind some of the most honoured films of the century. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two, once as a producer and once as an actor, and in 2025, past the age of sixty, he headlined the highest grossing film of his career.
Springfield to Los Angeles
He was born on 18 December 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and raised in Springfield, Missouri, where his father William ran a trucking company and his mother Jane was a school counsellor. He studied journalism at the University of Missouri, and in 1985, two weeks short of completing his degree, he left for Los Angeles with acting ambitions and almost no money. He took classes with the coach Roy London, worked whatever jobs paid, and by 1987 was appearing on television, including a short run on Dallas.
The Rise
The breakthrough came in 1991, when his brief appearance as the hitchhiker in Thelma & Louise made him famous almost overnight. A River Runs Through It, Interview with the Vampire and Legends of the Fall followed, and in 1995 he showed the range that would define him: the driven detective of Se7en in one season, and the twitching, unrecognisable Jeffrey Goines of Twelve Monkeys in the next, which brought his first Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe win. Fight Club in 1999 flopped on release and then became one of the most quoted films of its era.
The 2000s made him a fixture: the Ocean’s Eleven trilogy, Troy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Babel, a Venice best actor prize for The Assassination of Jesse James, and an Oscar nomination as the man ageing backwards in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In 2011 he carried Moneyball, playing the baseball executive Billy Beane, and was nominated as both actor and producer. Through all of it, the filmography kept alternating prestige with scale in a way few of his contemporaries managed.
The Producer
In 2001 he co-founded Plan B Entertainment with Brad Grey, Kristin Hahn and Jennifer Aniston. After 2005 he was the company’s sole owner, and under its co-presidents Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner it became the most decorated production company of its generation, producing three Best Picture Oscar winners: The Departed, 12 Years a Slave, in which Pitt also took a small role and won his first Academy Award as a producer, and Moonlight. Selma, The Big Short, Okja and Minari followed, along with television successes. In December 2022 the French group Mediawan took a majority stake in Plan B, with Pitt remaining its chairman and creative centre. His production work turned the movie star into something rarer, a builder of other people’s best films.
Still the Headliner
His own acting peak, by the Academy’s judgement, arrived in 2019, when his turn as the stuntman Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood won him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, his first acting Academy Award. Bullet Train and Babylon followed, then the George Clooney reunion Wolfs for the streaming audience in 2024. Then came F1 in 2025, in which he plays a veteran racing driver making one last comeback: it earned about 631 million dollars worldwide, becoming the highest grossing racing film ever made, the biggest hit of his career in a leading role, and an Apple production that also picked up a Best Picture nomination. His Cliff Booth story continues in a follow-up film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by David Fincher, which premieres in November 2026 before streaming at Christmas. A man who described himself in 2022 as being on his career’s last leg has spent the years since disproving the timetable.
Also Read: Leonardo DiCaprio and Emma Walmsley: The Movie Star and the Pharma Chief
Who Is Greg Hayes?
Greg Hayes is an American executive who ran one of the largest industrial companies on earth and then redesigned it. A finance specialist by training, he rose through United Technologies to become its chief executive, broke the old conglomerate apart, and merged its aerospace heart with Raytheon to create RTX. He has since stepped away from executive life in stages, and in 2026 his public work is board work and education philanthropy.
The Finance Man
Gregory J. Hayes was born in 1960 or 1961 and grew up in Williamsville, New York. After a year at Cornell he transferred to Purdue University, graduating in economics in 1982 as a qualified CPA, and went to work for the Sundstrand Corporation. When United Technologies acquired Sundstrand in 1999, Hayes came with it, and he climbed the finance ladder of one of America’s great conglomerates: chief financial officer from 2008 to 2014, then chief executive from November 2014, and chairman from September 2016. He was, by background, an accountant running an aerospace empire of jet engines, elevators and air conditioners, and he decided the empire made no sense as one company.
The Merger
First he separated the parts that did not belong: Otis, the elevator business, and Carrier, the air conditioning business, were spun off as independent companies. Then, in June 2019, he agreed the deal that defined his career, an all-stock merger of equals between United Technologies and Raytheon Company. It closed on 3 April 2020 and created Raytheon Technologies, renamed RTX in 2023, billed at the time as the world’s largest aerospace and defence company, with about 74 billion dollars in expected annual sales. Inside it sat Pratt & Whitney’s jet engines and Collins Aerospace’s systems alongside Raytheon’s missiles and sensors. Hayes said at the announcement:
“The combination of United Technologies and Raytheon will define the future of aerospace and defense. By joining forces, we will have unsurpassed technology and expanded R&D capabilities that will allow us to invest through business cycles and address our customers’ highest priorities.”
After RTX
His exit was as planned as his merger. He retired as chief executive on 2 May 2024, handing over to Christopher Calio, stayed a further year as executive chairman, left the board in April 2025, and served as a special advisor to the chief executive until that role ended in January 2026, closing his twenty-seven year association with the company. What replaced it is a portfolio life at the top of American business: in May 2026 he became lead independent director of the energy company Phillips 66, whose board he joined in 2022; he sits on the board of the medical technology company BD, which he joined in 2025; he chairs the National Academy Foundation, an education non-profit; and at Purdue he and his wife have funded a leadership coaching institute for business students, the cause his family foundation is built around.
Also Read: Masayoshi Son and Greg Hayes: The Visionary Gambler and the Merger Engineer
The Connection Question
There is no documented connection between Brad Pitt and Greg Hayes. No company links them: Plan B is a film and television studio, majority owned by a French media group, and it has no defence or aerospace business of any kind. Hayes’s documented world is industrial, engines, missiles, energy and medical technology boards, and the two men have no shared board, investment, event, charity or public appearance anywhere in the record. One made his name by being photographed; the other spent a career in an industry that barely photographs its leaders at all. The honest summary is that this pairing exists because readers search the two names together, not because the two lives ever crossed.
Personal Lives
Pitt’s first marriage, to the actress Jennifer Aniston in July 2000, ended in divorce in 2005. The two have appeared on friendly public terms in the years since, and nothing beyond that friendship is documented, whatever the tabloids periodically invent.
He met Angelina Jolie filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and they married on 23 August 2014 at their French estate, Chateau Miraval, with their children taking part in the ceremony. Jolie filed for divorce in September 2016, and the legal process that followed lasted years: the pair were declared legally single in 2019, and a full divorce settlement was finally signed in December 2024, with both waiving future spousal support. A separate dispute over the Miraval winery, after Jolie sold her stake in the wine business in 2021, remained active in the courts into 2026. Of the 2016 private flight that preceded the filing, the documented record is short: child services in Los Angeles closed their inquiry with no finding of abuse, and the FBI closed its review with no charges. Claims made by either side in later civil filings remain claims, and are not established fact.
Together they raised six children: Maddox, Zahara and Pax, adopted from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam, and Shiloh and the twins Knox and Vivienne, born to the couple. All are now adults or nearly so, and it is documented that several have stopped using the Pitt name publicly, Zahara introducing herself as Zahara Marley Jolie at college, Vivienne credited as Vivienne Jolie on Broadway, and Shiloh legally becoming Shiloh Jolie on turning eighteen. Neither parent has explained the children’s choices, and this article does not speculate.
Pitt has spoken candidly about alcohol in his own words: he stopped drinking after the split, spent a year and a half in Alcoholics Anonymous, and told the New York Times, “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges.” In August 2026 he added an update in the same plain style, saying that after seven years sober he had begun drinking again in a more restrained manner. He has also said he believes, without ever being diagnosed, that he has prosopagnosia, the condition known as face blindness, which he says makes him seem aloof at parties. Since 2022 he has been in a relationship with the jewellery executive Ines de Ramon, reported by People magazine to have developed into living together, though the couple themselves keep it private. His mother Jane died in 2025.
Hayes’s family life is documented far more thinly, which is how he has kept it. Corporate biographies do not name his family; the one public record that does is Purdue University, where the donors of the new Hayes Leadership Coaching Institute are named as Greg and Renata Hayes, and where the couple’s foundation is described as existing to ensure the next generation of leaders is prepared. Beyond that first name and that work, his family stays out of the public record.
Side by Side
| Point of comparison | Brad Pitt | Greg Hayes |
|---|---|---|
| Training | Journalism studies left unfinished in 1985 | Purdue economics degree and a CPA qualification |
| Rise built on | A face the camera loved, then range | Finance: CFO of United Technologies for six years |
| Signature deal | Co-founding Plan B in 2001 | The UTC and Raytheon merger closed in 2020 |
| Biggest institutional win | Three Best Picture Oscars for Plan B films | Creating the world’s largest aerospace and defence company |
| Relationship to the spotlight | One of the most photographed men alive | Almost no public photographs in circulation |
| Exit style | None: still headlining films at 62 | Staged over two years, CEO to chairman to advisor |
| Life in 2026 | F1’s success and a Cliff Booth film at Christmas | Lead independent director of Phillips 66; Purdue philanthropy |
| Public manner | Guarded interviews, candid on selected subjects | Boardroom plain speaking, family kept private |
Also Read: Jessica Chastain and Mike Krieger: The Oscar Winner and the Instagram Engineer
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Brad Pitt and Greg Hayes ever work together?
No. There is no documented connection between them of any kind: no shared company, board, investment, event or charity. Pitt’s world is film and television production; Hayes’s is aerospace, defence and corporate boards.
How many Academy Awards has Brad Pitt won?
He has won two, from eight nominations. He won Best Picture as a producer of 12 Years a Slave and Best Supporting Actor for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The eighth nomination arrived in January 2026, for F1 as a Best Picture producer.
Is Greg Hayes still the chief executive of RTX?
No. He retired as RTX chief executive in May 2024 and was succeeded by Christopher Calio. He then served as executive chairman until April 2025 and as a special advisor until January 2026. He has no RTX role now.
What is Greg Hayes doing in 2026?
He is a full time board director and philanthropist: lead independent director of Phillips 66 since May 2026, a director of the medical technology company BD, chairman of the National Academy Foundation, and, with his wife Renata, the funder of a leadership institute at Purdue University.
What is Plan B Entertainment?
It is the production company Pitt co-founded in 2001, which he owned outright from 2005 until the French group Mediawan took a majority stake in 2022. Its films include three Best Picture Oscar winners: The Departed, 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight.
Who is Brad Pitt’s partner?
Since 2022 he has been in a relationship with Ines de Ramon, a jewellery executive. People magazine has reported that the couple live together; they keep the relationship largely private and have made no public statements about marriage.
Conclusion
Brad Pitt and Greg Hayes are a study in two kinds of American power. One is visible to the point of saturation, a face recognised on every continent, who nonetheless built his most durable legacy in the producer’s chair, away from the camera. The other is almost invisible, a name known in boardrooms and defence ministries, who reshaped an entire industry with one merger and then withdrew on schedule, into board seats and a university cause. Nothing connects their stories, and neither story needs the other: the movie star who became a builder, and the accountant who merged an industry, each stand complete on their own record.
