Columbia Business School says three prominent alumni will make gifts to the school totaling $45 million. Russell L. Carson and Henry R. Kravis each will donate $10 million, and Arthur J. Samberg will give $25 million.
All three alumni donors are leaders in the investing community. Russell Carson is a founding partner of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, one of the country’s largest private equity firms and a leader in healthcare and information services investing. A legendary private equity investor, Henry Kravis pioneered corporate acquisitions through his firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Arthur Samberg is chairman and chief executive of Pequot Capital Management, one of the world’s leading hedge funds, based in Westport, Connecticut. Carson and Kravis are co-chairs of Columbia Business School’s Board of Overseers and Samberg is a member of the Executive Committee.
These leadership gifts will be used to launch new strategic initiatives in curriculum and faculty development, advancing Columbia Business School’s position as a global business thought leader.
Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia Business School, said in a University Lecture entitled “Business, Knowledge, and Global Growth” that he presented Tuesday at Columbia: “The present challenge for the top business schools, as I see it, is to inspire our researchers to be in close contact with business leaders and to answer practical questions for the rigorous and vigorous scrutiny of real-world application.”
About the donations, the Dean commented, “These alumni have demonstrated a commitment to cultivating ideas that will help business schools shape society and foster growth. Their commitment represents an unprecedented endorsement of Columbia Business School, its teaching approach, faculty, relevance, and future plans.”
“These impressive commitments to Columbia Business School are powerful signals not only of the school’s core importance to the future of the University, but also of the momentum Columbia is now building toward a critical mass of excellence across every field of undergraduate and graduate education,” said President Lee Bollinger. “We are deeply thankful to Russell L. Carson and Henry R. Kravis and Arthur J. Samberg for their generous support and to Glenn Hubbard for his dynamic leadership that is making Columbia Business School one of the most exciting and innovative in the world.”
These gifts launch three areas of Columbia Business School’s new strategy. The largest, the Samberg gift, is a challenge grant designed to build the Columbia Business School faculty. It will endow chairs through a matching grant, helping to recruit faculty in burgeoning subject areas and strengthen Columbia Business School’s existing faculty. The challenge-a one-to-one match-is designed in particular to encourage the next generation of supporters of the School.
A portion of the Carson gift will reinforce the Samberg focus on faculty by supporting new Business Practice Partnerships, allowing faculty to team with corporate leaders through sabbaticals, internships, and research partnerships. The Partnerships reflect one of Columbia’s major advantages-its New York City location-providing a constant interchange between theory and practice as the School takes a leadership role in the business community. This gift will also be used to significantly grow the School’s Social Enterprise Program-another linkage with New York City.
The Kravis gift, which, like the Carson donation, is an unrestricted gift, will underwrite a new center for case study development, advancing the development of a Columbia Business School case model-focused on short cases with strong quantitative and analytical data, modeled on real-time decision making. Columbia students have clamored for additional cases developed along the lines of Columbia’s teaching style. The cases will reflect the imperfect world of decision-making that students will encounter in the business world.
Russell L. Carson is a general partner of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, one of the country’s largest private investment firms, which he co-founded in 1978. Over the past 24 years, WCAS has raised 14 institutionally funded limited partnerships with total capital in excess of $15 billion and has invested in more than 250 companies. The firm has evolved into the leading specialist in the buyout of privately owned companies in the information services and health care industries. Mr. Carson has focused on WCAS’s health care investment activities and is currently a director of four portfolio companies. From 1967 to 1978, Mr. Carson was employed by the Citicorp Venture Capital subsidiary of Citicorp and served as its chairman and chief executive officer from 1974 to 1978. Mr. Carson received his BA degree in economics from Dartmouth College in 1965, where he is currently a trustee, and received his MBA from Columbia Business School in 1967. Active in community affairs, Mr. Carson is chairman of the Rockefeller University Board of Trustees, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, director of the Partnership for New York City and a director of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. He resides in New York City with his wife Judy.
Henry Kravis is Founding Partner of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a merchant banking firm he founded with two partners in 1976. He earned a BA in Economics from Claremont McKenna College, California, and an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1969. While at the Business School, Mr. Kravis was also vice president of Katy Industries, where he designed and implemented its acquisition program. He then joined Bear Stearns & Co., where he became partner, and remained there until he and two colleagues from Bear Stearns founded KKR, a firm that pioneered the development of the management buyout. Mr. Kravis has been involved in the largest and most successful acquisitions via management buyouts, including RJR Nabisco, Beatrice, Duracell, and Owens-Illinois. His firm has completed more than 140 transactions with a total acquisition price of approximately $185 billion. Mr. Kravis has served or is serving on numerous corporate boards, including RJR Nabisco, Safeway, Gillette and Borden. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of the Partnership for New York City, the New York City Investment Fund, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mount Sinai Hospital, Public Television Channel 13/WNET New York, and the Rockefeller University. He and his wife, Marie-Jose, live in New York City.
Arthur J. Samberg is chairman and chief executive of Pequot Capital Management, a leading diversified alternative investment firm. He holds an SB from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he serves as a member of the MIT Corporation and as vice chairman of the MIT Investment Company. He earned his MBA in 1967 from Columbia Business School and an MS from Stanford University. Prior to establishing Pequot Capital, Mr. Samberg served as President of Dawson-Samberg Capital Management, where he established the first Pequot Investment Fund in 1986. Previously he was a partner at Weiss, Peck & Greer and a member of its Management Committee. Mr. Samberg is on the New York-Presbyterian Hospital Board of Trustees and its Executive and Investment Committees. He is also on the Board of Overseers at the Children’s Hospital of New York and the Board of Directors of Historic Hudson Valley. He lives in the New York area with his wife, Rebecca.