James Coulter (born December 1, 1959) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder of

private equity firm A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including lev ...

TPG Capital TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American investment company based in Fort Worth, Texas. The private equity firm is focused on leveraged buyouts and growth capital. TPG manages investment funds in growth c ...

, originally known as the

Texas Pacific Group TPG Inc., previously known as Texas Pacific Group and TPG Capital, is an American investment company based in Fort Worth, Texas. The private equity firm is focused on leveraged buyouts and growth capital. TPG manages investment funds in growth ...

Early life and education

Coulter was born on December 1, 1959, and raised in a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

family, the son of Shirley (née Nagler) and James W. Coulter. His father was a chemical salesman for Chevron. He is a graduate of Shawnee High School in

Medford, New Jersey Medford is a Township (New Jersey), township in Burlington County, New Jersey, Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, the township's population was 24,497, an increase of 1,464 ...

. He graduated summa cum laude from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

, where he was also a member of

Alpha Chi Alpha Alpha Chi Alpha () is a fraternity at the American Ivy League university of Dartmouth College. Alpha Chi Alpha is a member of Dartmouth's Greek system, which currently has fourteen fraternities, nine sororities and three co-ed undergraduate houses ...

. He subsequently earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1986, where he was named an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Career

In 1992, Coulter co-founded the Fort Worth and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

-based private equity firm TPG along with David Bonderman. With 14 offices in 10 countries, the firm is one of the largest globally with approximately $50 billion of assets under management. Prior to co-founding TPG in 1992, Coulter and the other co-founders worked for Robert M. Bass. Coulter joined the Robert M. Bass Group from Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb. Coulter has been involved in some of the largest

leveraged buyout A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money ( leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loa ...

transactions on record including TPG's marquee transaction, the takeover of Continental Airlines in 1993. He has been involved with TPG's investments in

America West Airlines America West Airlines was a major American airline, founded in 1981, with service commencing in 1983, and having reached US$1 billion in annual revenue in 1989, headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. At the time of its acquisition of US Airways, Americ ...

, Burger King,

Del Monte Foods Del Monte Foods, Inc (trading as Del Monte Foods) is an American food production and distribution company headquartered in Walnut Creek, California. Del Monte Foods is one of the country's largest producers, distributors and marketer of br ...

J. Crew J.Crew Group, Inc., is an American multi-brand, multi-channel, specialty retailer. The company offers an assortment of women's, men's, and children's apparel and accessories, including swimwear, outerwear, lounge-wear, bags, sweaters, denim, dr ...

Ducati Motor Holding Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. () is the motorcycle-manufacturing division of Italian company Ducati (company), Ducati, headquartered in Bologna, Italy. The company is directly owned by Italian automotive manufacturer Lamborghini, whose German par ...

Gemplus International Gemalto was an international digital security company providing software applications, secure personal devices such as smart cards and tokens, and managed services. It was formed in June 2006 by the merger of two companies, Axalto and Gemplus In ...

, MEMC,

ON Semiconductor onsemi (stylized in lowercase; legally ON Semiconductor Corporation; formerly ON Semiconductor until August 5, 2021) is an American semiconductor supplier company, based in Phoenix, Arizona and ranked #483 on the 2022 ''Fortune'' 500 based on it ...

Oxford Health Plans Oxford Health Plans is an American health care company that sells various benefit plans, primarily in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. As of 2004, it is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, the largest healthcare company in the world, cla ...

Petco Petco Health and Wellness Company, Inc. is an American pet retailer with corporate offices in San Diego and San Antonio. Petco sells pet food, products, and services, as well as certain types of live small animals. Founded in 1965 as a mail-ord ...

and Seagate Technology. He is the founder of the ''Coulter IDEApitch'' at New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (often referred to as NOEW). Winners of ''Coulter IDEApitch'' competition receive a $100,000 investment towards their next round of funding. Winners include Acrew, a video interviewing HR tech product (2017 winner), and AxoSim, a pharmaceutical research company (2018 winner). In 2020, Forbes ranked him No. 359 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America.

Memberships

Coulter serves as a member on numerous boards: *

Creative Artists Agency Creative Artists Agency LLC (CAA) is an American talent and sports agency based in Los Angeles, California. It is regarded as an influential company in the talent agency business and manages numerous clients. In March 2016, CAA had 1,800 emplo ...

IMS Health IMS Health was an American company that provided information, services and technology for the healthcare industry. IMS stood for Intercontinental Medical Statistics. It was the largest vendor of U.S. physician prescribing data. IMS Health was fo ...

* Vincraft Group *

Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College The Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College is the governing body of Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. , the Board includes twenty-three people. The current Chair of the Board is Stephen Ma ...

* Stanford University board of trustees *

Common Sense Media Common Sense Media (CSM) is an organization that reviews and provides ratings for media and technology with the goal of providing information on their suitability for children.

San Francisco University High School San Francisco University High School is a private college preparatory high school located in San Francisco, California. The school was opened in 1975. Facilities and campus The school is made up of four buildings, commonly referred to as Upper, ...

America West Holdings America West Holdings Corporation was an Arizona-based company whose primary holding was America West Airlines. On May 19, 2005, America West Holdings Corporation announced it would acquire the Arlington, Virginia-based US Airways Group. The mer ...

Northwest Airlines Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) was a major American airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines, Inc. by a merger. The merger, approved on October 29, 2008, made Delta the largest airline in the world until the American Airlines ...

* Oxford Health Plans Inc. * Genesis Health Ventures Inc. *

Virata Corporation Virata Corporation is an inactive acquired company that was a major contributor to the "Cambridge Phenomenon" or Silicon Fen high-tech cluster in the United Kingdom. Case studies and research papers have been created to illustrate the role of s ...

* San Francisco Zoological Society * Bay Area Discovery Museum * San Francisco Day School

Personal life

Coulter is married to Penny Saer from New Orleans. They have three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coulter, James 1959 births Living people 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American billionaires American chief executives of financial services companies American financial company founders American financiers Businesspeople from Buffalo, New York Businesspeople from San Francisco Dartmouth College alumni People from Burlington County, New Jersey Private equity and venture capital investors Shawnee High School (New Jersey) alumni Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Stanford University trustees TPG Capital people