David Rubenstein
David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of
the world’s largest and most successful private investment firms. Mr. Rubenstein co-founded the firm in
1987. Since then, Carlyle has grown into a firm managing $230 billion from 30 offices around the world.
Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts and the Council on Foreign Relations; a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation; a Regent of
the Smithsonian Institution; a Trustee of the National Gallery of Art, the University of Chicago, Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Institute for Advanced Study, the National
Constitution Center, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; a Director of the Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and President of the
Economic Club of Washington.
Mr. Rubenstein is a member of the American Philosophical Society, Business Council, Harvard
Global Advisory Council (Chairman), Madison Council of the Library of Congress (Chairman), Board of
Dean’s Advisors of the Business School at Harvard, Advisory Board of the School of Economics and
Management at Tsinghua University (former Chairman), and Board of the World Economic Forum
Global Shapers Community.
Mr. Rubenstein has served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Duke University and the
Smithsonian Institution, and Co-Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution.
Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge, a significant donor to all of the above-
mentioned non-profit organizations, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, and the
MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards.
Mr. Rubenstein has been a leader in the area of Patriotic Philanthropy, having made
transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Monticello, Montpelier,
Mount Vernon, Arlington House, Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National
Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of African American
History and Culture. Mr. Rubenstein has also provided to the U.S. government long-term loans of his rare
copies of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the
Emancipation Proclamation, the 13 th Amendment, the first map of the U.S. (Abel Buell map), and the first
book printed in the U.S. (Bay Psalm Book).
Mr. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on
Bloomberg TV and PBS, and Leadership Live with David Rubenstein by Bloomberg Media; and the
author of The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians, a book published by Simon &
Schuster in October 2019, and How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders, and
Game Changers, a book published by Simon & Schuster in September 2020.
Mr. Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke University,
where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Following Duke, Mr. Rubenstein graduated in 1973 from the
University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.
From 1973-1975, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton
& Garrison. From 1975-1976, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s
Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. From 1977-1981, during the Carter Administration, Mr.
Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. After his White House service and before co-founding Carlyle, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts &
Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman).
The Carlyle Group
Co-Founder & Co-Executive Chairman