Kewsong Lee (; born August 12, 1965) is a

Korean-American Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian Americans ...

businessman who is the former

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

(CEO) of private equity firm

The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and pri ...

Early life and education

Lee was born in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

on August 12, 1965. His father, Lee Hak-jong, was a professor at

Yonsei University Yonsei University (; ) is a private research university in Seoul, South Korea. As a member of the "SKY" universities, Yonsei University is deemed one of the three most prestigious institutions in the country. It is particularly respected in the ...

. Due to his father's role as a college professor and involvement in the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

, Lee would spend his early years in South Korea and Singapore. He then attended boarding school at

Choate Rosemary Hall Choate Rosemary Hall (often known as Choate; ) is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States. Choate is currently ranked as the second best boarding school and third best private high ...

Wallingford, Connecticut Wallingford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, centrally located between New Haven and Hartford, and Boston and New York City. The population was 44,396 at the 2020 census. The community was named after Wallingford, in En ...

where he graduated in 1982. Lee attended

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

where he received an

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in Applied Mathematics in Economics, graduating in 1986. He would later return to Harvard where he received his

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

in 1990.

Career

Lee's first job after graduation from Harvard was at consulting firm,

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

. He spent two years there before leaving in 1988 to attend Harvard Business School. Lee did a summer internship at

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...

in 1989 but ultimately decided to return to McKinsey & Company in 1990 after graduating from Harvard Business School. In 1992, Lee joined private equity firm,

Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over ...

. He would spend 21 years at the firm where he became a Partner as well as a member of the Executive Management Group. While at Warburg, Lee was involved in transactions that included companies such as

Neiman Marcus Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. is an American integrated luxury retailer headquartered in Dallas, Texas, which owns Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, and Last Call. Since September 2021, NMG has been owned by a group of investment compani ...

Aramark Aramark Corporation, known commonly as Aramark, is an American food service, facilities, and uniform services provider to clients in areas including education, healthcare, business, prisons, and leisure. It operates in North America (United St ...

TransDigm TransDigm Group is a publicly traded aerospace manufacturing company headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. TransDigm develops and manufactures engineered aerospace components. It was founded in 1993, when four industrial aerospace companies were comb ...

and

MBIA MBIA Inc. is an American financial services company. It was founded in 1973 as the Municipal Bond Insurance Association. It is headquartered in Purchase, New York, and as of January 1, 2015 had approximately 180 employees. MBIA is the largest bo ...

. From 2009 to 2017, Lee was a lead director at

Arch Capital Group } Arch Capital Group Ltd. (Arch Capital or ACGL) is an American Bermuda-based public limited liability company which writes insurance, reinsurance and mortgage insurance on a worldwide basis, with a focus on specialty lines, the segment of the in ...

as well as a board member for other firms such as Transdigm and Aramark.

The Carlyle Group

In 2013, Lee joined

as deputy chief investment officer for corporate private equity. In 2016, Lee also assumed the role of leading the global credit unit. In October 2017, the firm announced that its founders would remain executive chairmen on the board of directors but would step down as the day-to-day leaders of the firm. They named Lee and

Glenn Youngkin Glenn Allen Youngkin (born December 9, 1966) is an American businessman and politician, currently serving as the 74th governor of Virginia since January 15, 2022. A member of the Republican Party, Youngkin defeated former Democratic governor T ...

to succeed them as co-chief executive officers, effective January 1, 2018. As co-chief executive officers, Lee oversaw the firm's corporate private equity and global credit businesses and Youngkin oversaw Carlyle's real estate, energy, infrastructure businesses, and investment solutions businesses. Lee and Youngkin also joined the firm's board of directors when they became co-chief executive officers. During Lee and Youngkin's tenure as co-chief executive officers, they oversaw the firm's transition from a

publicly traded partnership In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

into a

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

. There was an alleged power struggle between Lee and Youngkin during their time together at Carlyle where Lee eventually won out. This was largely due to Lee being given control of the corporate private equity and global credit units at the onset, which were bigger and more profitable than the others. In July 2020, Youngkin stepped down from his role at Carlyle, making Lee the sole chief executive officer of the firm. On August 8, 2022 Lee stepped down from his role as CEO due to a dispute in negotiations regarding his contract renewal. Lee proposed a $300 million pay package. Co-founder

William E. Conway Jr. William E. "Bill" Conway Jr. (born August 27, 1949) is an American billionaire businessman, investor and philanthropist. Conway serves as Co-Executive Chairman of the Board, Founder of the The Carlyle Group, Carlyle Group. He also serves as Ch ...

was announced to act as interim leader of the Carlyle Group while the firm searched for a new CEO.

Personal life

Lee is married to Zita Ezpeleta and they have two children. Lee and Ezpeleta met in

Lowell House Lowell House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University, located at 10 Holyoke Place facing Mount Auburn Street between Harvard Yard and the Charles River. Officially, it is named for the Lowell family, but an orna ...

at Harvard College when they were undergraduates. Ezpeleta is an attorney who previously practiced at

Sidley Austin Sidley Austin LLP is an American multinational law firm with approximately 2,000 lawyers in 20 offices worldwide. The firm's headquarters is at One South Dearborn in Chicago's Loop. The firm specializes in a variety of areas in both litigation ...

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Kewsong 1965 births Living people 20th-century businesspeople 21st-century businesspeople American chief executives of financial services companies Businesspeople from Albany, New York Harvard College alumni Harvard Business School alumni McKinsey & Company people Warburg Pincus people The Carlyle Group people American people of South Korean descent Choate Rosemary Hall alumni