David Mark Rubenstein (born August 11, 1949) is an American financier and philanthropist best known as the co-founder and co-chief executive officer of The Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment company based in Washington, D.C. He also currently serves as chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, chairman of the Smithsonian Institution, chairman of the Brookings Institution, and President of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. According to the Forbes ranking of the wealthiest people in America, Rubenstein has a net worth of $2.9 billion.
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Early life and education
Rubenstein grew up an only child in a Jewish family in a Jewish neighborhood in Baltimore. His beginnings were modest. His father was employed by the United States Postal Service and his mother was a homemaker.
He graduated from the college preparatory high school Baltimore City College, at the time an all-male school, and then from Duke University Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in 1970. He earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1973, where he was an editor of The Law Review.
Business career
Early law career
From 1973 to 1975, Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975 to 1976, he served as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. Prior to starting Carlyle in 1987 with William E. Conway, Jr. and Daniel A. D'Aniello, Rubenstein was a deputy domestic policy advisor to President Jimmy Carter and worked in private practice in Washington, D.C.
In private equity
Rubenstein is the Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of The Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset manager with $174 billion of assets under management. Carlyle invests across four segments - Corporate Private Equity, Real Assets, Global Market Strategies and Investment Solutions. Carlyle employs more than 1,550 people in 31 offices across six continents.
According to A Pursuit of Wealth by Sicelo P. Nkambule, David Rubenstein expressed fear that the private equity boom would end in January 2006 stating: "This has been a golden age for our industry, but nothing continues to be golden forever". One month later, he stated: "Right now we're operating as if the music's not going to stop playing and the music is going to stop. I am more concerned about this than any other issue". According to Nkambule: "These concerns proved to be right as at the end of 2007 the buyout market collapsed...As leveraged loan activity came to an abrupt stop, private equity firms were unable to secure financing for their transactions."
In May 2008 David Rubenstein stated: "But once this period is over, once the debt on the books of the banks is sold and new lending starts, I think you'll see the private equity industry coming back in what I call the Platinum Age - better than it's ever been before. I do think that the private equity industry has a great future and that the greatest period for private equity is probably ahead of us."
Rubenstein has stated that he was once offered the opportunity to meet Mark Zuckerberg before he dropped out of Harvard but decided against it. This is his single greatest investment regret.
Personal life
David Rubenstein lives in Bethesda, Maryland, and was married to Alice Rubenstein (née Alice Nicole Rogoff), founder of the Alaska House New York and the Alaska Native Arts Foundation and former owner of Alaska Dispatch News. They met while Rubenstein was working for the Carter Administration and were married on May 21, 1983.
The couple divorced on December 8, 2017.
Philanthropy
Rubenstein was among the initial forty individuals who have pledged to donate more than half of their wealth to philanthropic causes or charities as part of The Giving Pledge.
He has made large gifts to Duke University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago Law School, and the National Park Service Foundation.
In December 2007 Rubenstein purchased the last privately-owned copy of the Magna Carta at Sotheby's auction house in New York for $21.3 million. He has lent it to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. In 2011, Rubenstein gave $13.5 million to the National Archives for a new gallery and visitor's center. He has purchased rare so-called Stone copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, and the Constitution and has lent these documents to the State Department, the National Archives, the National Constitution Center, the Smithsonian and Mount Vernon.
Rubenstein was elected Chairman of the Board of the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC, starting in May 2010. He was Vice Chairman of the Board of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, and chairman of its fundraising drive. A new atrium was named for him. He is Chairman of the board of regents of the Smithsonian Institution.
In December 2011, Rubenstein donated $4.5 million to the National Zoo for its giant panda reproduction program. The panda complex was then named the David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat for the next five years and conservation biologists in the U.S. and China who are awarded National Zoo fellowships for their work to save pandas would be named "David M. Rubenstein Fellows." Another $4.5 million was donated in September 2015, about four weeks after a male giant panda cub was born. He also donated $10 million to the National Gallery of Art in support of refurbishment and expansion of the East Building of the National Gallery, work that was completed in September 2016. He is on the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery.
In 2012, he donated $7.5 million towards the repair of the Washington Monument.
In 2013, he donated $50 million to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which is being used for 65,000 square foot addition.
In April 2013 and 2015, he donated a total of $20 million to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which will be used to rebuild at least two buildings in the enslaved community on Mulberry Row at Monticello. The funds will also be used to restore Jefferson's original road scheme, restore the second and third stories of Jefferson's home which are currently mostly empty, and replace infrastructure.
In November 2013, he bought a copy of the Bay Psalm Book for $14.1 million, the highest price ever paid for a printed book, and pledged to lend it to public collections and exhibitions around the world.
In 2014, he donated $10 million to Montpelier, to support the renovation of the home of James Madison.
In November 2015, he donated $20 million for the New Commons Building at the Institute for Advanced Study. The building will be named Rubenstein Commons and will feature conference space, meeting rooms, a cafe, and office space.
On February 15, 2016, Presidents' Day, Rubenstein presented a gift of $18.5 million to the National Park Foundation to expand educational resources, foster public access, and repair and restore the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The Park Service plans to create 15,000 square feet of visitor space beneath the memorial. This gift, presented during National Park Service's centennial year, was Rubenstein's fourth gift to benefit US national parks. Most recently, on December 2, 2016, Rubenstein in conjunction with the National Parks Foundation, has agreed to cover the eventual cost of elevator upgrades to the Washington Monument.
In October 2016, he donated $15 million to the Department Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at the John Hopkins School of Medicine to create a hearing center focused on restoring functional hearing loss.
Duke University
Rubenstein served as chairman of the board of trustees of Duke University from 2013 to 2017. Rubenstein has made several gifts to Duke University. He donated $5 million to Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy in 2002, after which Rubenstein Hall was named for him. In 2009, he donated an additional $5.75 million to the school. In 2011, he also donated $13.6 million to the Duke University Libraries in support of renovating the university's special collections library, which was named the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. In 2012, he donated $15 million to support the university's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative. That same year, he gave another $10 million to support Duke Athletics. In 2013, Rubenstein donated $10 million to fund graduate fellowships and undergraduate internships at the Sanford School of Public Policy. In 2014, Rubenstein donated $1.9 million to Jewish Life at Duke to expand programming, fund building renovations and enhance the college experience for Jewish students. In 2015, Rubenstein gave $25 million towards the new $50 million, 71,000-square foot Arts Center, set to be inaugurated in 2017. In 2017, he gave Duke another $20 million to endow a scholarship for first generation, low income students.
University of Chicago
Rubenstein was elected to the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago on May 31, 2007.
In 2010, 2013 and 2016, he provided a total of $33 million to the Law School for scholarships. The gifts will fund up to 60 full-tuition scholarships in three consecutive Law School graduating classes. Approximately 10 percent of all students from the Classes of 2017, 2018, and 2019 will be Rubenstein Scholars.
In 2014, he provided the lead funding for a Forum to serve as the University's principal conference center.
Affiliations
- Brookings Institution - Member of the Board
- The Carlyle Group - Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer
- Council on Foreign Relations - Chairman
- Economic Club of Washington D.C. - President
- Harvard Global Advisory Council - Chairman
- Harvard University - Harvard President Drew Faust named David Rubinstein a Fellow of Harvard College on May 25, 2016, the evening before their 2016 Commencement. He started his term in July 2017.
- Harvard Corporation - Member
- Institute for Advanced Study - Trustee
- Johns Hopkins Medicine - Trustee
- Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts - Chairman
- Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts - Director
- Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center - Trustee
- National Gallery of Art - Trustee
- National Park Foundation - Major donor
- Smithsonian Institution - Chairman
- University of Chicago - Trustee, alumnus
- World Economic Forum - International Business Council
- Library of Congress - Madison Council (Chairman)
- Bloomberg Television - The David Rubenstein Show
Quotes
- "The only game in Washington is the Fed."
(at the Aspen Institute, 2013) - "When history is written and people talk about the great protests, I don't think that this will be in that category."
(comparing what in his view were the great civil disobedience efforts of Gandhi and Martin Luther King to the protests by the Working Families Party concerning the tax treatment of private equity firms) - "I analogize private equity to sex ... You realize there were certain things you shouldn't do, but the urge is there and you can't resist."
(speaking at Harvard Business School about the buyout bubble) - "I think it's important to tell people the good and the bad of American history, not only the things that we might like to hear."
(referring to his wanting to put a face on slavery using his donation to rebuild slave quarters at Monticello)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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