Henry Kravis

Henry Kravis studied economics at Claremont McKenna College and earned an MBA from Columbia Business School. He co-founded Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) in 1976 with his cousin George Roberts and their mentor Jerome Kohlberg, after leaving Bear Stearns where they had pioneered the leveraged buyout concept. KKR's fundamental insight was that companies could be acquired primarily using debt, with the acquired company's cash flows servicing that debt while management and investors profited from operational improvements and the tax shield of leverage. KKR executed a series of landmark LBOs through the 1980s, transforming the private equity industry and raising fears about the effects of corporate debt levels. The firm's 1988 acquisition of RJR Nabisco for $31.1 billion was the largest LBO in history and became the subject of the bestselling book "Barbarians at the Gate" by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar — a vivid account of the bidding war that entered popular culture as a symbol of 1980s corporate excess. KKR went public in 2010 and has grown to manage over $530 billion in assets across private equity, infrastructure, credit, real estate, and hedge fund strategies. Kravis has been a significant philanthropist, donating hundreds of millions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other cultural institutions.