Marc Mezvinsky is the husband of Chelsea Clinton is a managing director at TPG based in Fort Worth. Prior to joining TPG Mezvinsky was a private equity financier with 3G Capital, and prior to that was an analyst at Goldman Sachs. 

Steven Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs partner and became the 77th U.S. Treasury Secretary under U.S. President Donald Trump. Mnuchin with  George Soros, J.C. Flowers, Michael Dell, and John Paulson took over the government bailout of IndyMac bank in a sweetheart deal, rebranded and renamed it OneWest Bank. OneWest was subsequently sold  to C.I.T. Financial, another Wall St. bank which was bailed out by the taxpayers in 2009 after it went bankrupt. CIT Bank was sold again in 2022 to another banking consortium, First Citizens. Mnuchin was a private equity financier on the board of Sears, and ESL Investments, who acquired Sears in a leveraged buyout. Sears later filed bankruptcy in 2018, dumping its pension obligations on the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Mnuchin has also owned private equity firm Dune Capital. In 2021, the former Treasury secretary raised a new $2.5 billion private equity fund, much form Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

Joe Montana, the former NFL star, is a founder and managing partner of Liquid 2 Ventures, one of the most active celebrity venture funds.

Mario Monti the former Prime Minister of Italy and EU commissioner has been a former Goldman Sachs advisor and involved in private equity.

Mullin, Mullin the retired former CEO of Delta Airline Airlines, consultant to Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs. He was on the board of directors of Educational Management Corporation, a leveraged buyout of a major for profit school which filed bankruptcy in 2018.

Brian Mulroney was the eighteenth  Prime Minister of Canada. In 2014 he was appointed to the board of Directors of The Blackstone Group.

Ken Murata who has been working for Goldman Sachs, in September 2025 is joining KKR & Co. in Japan to focus the on the private credit sector in Japan.

AJ Murphy was the head of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch capital-markets division, and one of the most senior women on Wall St. In May 2018, Murphy  became an executive at Silver Lake.

Lord Myners (Paul Myners), the former UK Financial Services Secretary has worked with CVC Capital Partners and GLG Partners and served on multiple PE boards.

Robert Nardelli was formerly  top executive at General Electric who had also been the CEO of Home Depot. Nardelli was named one of the worst American CEOs of all time for extracting roughly $200 million out of Home Deport while stock went nowhere. Nardelli worked as a private equity financier at Cerberus Capital Management, running the leveraged buyouts of Chrysler Motors, NewPage, and The Freedom Group/Remington Outdoor, which all eventually went bankrupt under private equity ownership. 

Marty Nesbitt is Co-CEO of the Vistria Group, a Chicago based  private equity firm. After working for GMAC and getting an MBA from the University of Chicago, Nesbitt went to work for billionaire private equity financiers. The Pritzker family, where Nesbitt teamed up with Penny Pritzker to found The Parking Sport, which offers airport parking primarily to business travelers. In 2008 Nesbitt was the treasurer of Barack Obama’s U.S. presidential campaign and was on the planning board for Barack Obama Presidential Library and Museum. Nesbitt founded the Vistria Group in 2014 with financier Kip Kirkpatrick in 2014.

Don Nickles the former U.S. Republican Senator from Oklahoma, is a partner in Pine Island Capital Partners, the private equity firm specializing in defense contracting founded by former Goldman Sachs partner John Thain. 

Tom Nides is another career politician who served as Chief of Staff to Mickey Kantor during the Clinton administration. He later became Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources in the Obama administration. A seasoned banker, Nides worked for Morgan Stanley,  and Credit Suisse. Under President Joe Biden, Nides became the ambassador of Israel from December 2021 to July 2023. On January 29, 2024, Nides joined Blackstone as Vice Chairman, Strategy & Client Relations. In October 2025, Blackstone announced that Nides will head up Blackstone’s new unit  that will seek to capture assets from retirement savers 401(k)s. 

Bill Neville joined LoanLogics, as CEO in the digital mortgage company which was selected as the technology provider behind Freddie Mac’s FAST (Freddie Automated Servicing Transfer), a major coup. In 2021, Sun Capital Partners, the Boca Raton based private equity firm acquired LoanLogics for an undisclosed amount. A billionaire and major Democratic donor, in December 2022 according to the White House, President Biden, first Lady Jill, daughter Ashley, husband Howard, Natalie and Hunter Jr. stayed at Bill and Connie Neville’s St. Croix Virgin Island luxury home.

Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of PepsiCo, is a senior advisor and board member to several private equity owned companies, working in consumer brands.

Par Nuder the former Swedish finance minister (2004-2006) is a senior counselor advising EQT AB, one of Europe’s largest private equity firms. 

Scott C. Nutall a Wharton graduate who began his private equity career at Blackstone Group and now a senior executive at KKR & Co. 

Barack Hussein Obama. It did not take long for the former U.S. President to cash in on the ex-government official gravy train of Wall St and the private equity industry. In addition to the $60 million book advance he received. Obama, who criticized others on Wall St., in 2017 has received $400 thousand speaking fees from A&E Networks, Cantor Fitzgerald, asset manager Northern Trust Company and The Carlyle Group.

Michelle Obama. Former first lady Michelle Obama received 700,000 euros ($741,000) as the headline speaker of the Bits and Pretzels Founders event in Munich, Germany in 2013. That is a massive fee for a one-hour talk. Ms. Obama co-founded Plezi Nutrition, a public benefit health company focused on healthy food and drink products for children. Plezi Nutrition is backed by Juggernaut Capital Partners, a Washington, D.C. based private equity firm. 

Shaquille O’Neill, the former basketball great has specialized in partnerships  with Authentic Brands (BlackRock), Five Guys, Papa John’s, car washes, and real estate.

George Osborne the former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, is a special advisor to BlackRock’s private equity arm.

Peter Orszag is the consummate private equity executive, who graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, Princeton and received a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. Orszag was director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Barack Obama in 2008 and then became an investment banker at Citigroup. In 2016, Orszag joined Lazard, the private equity firm and investment bank. In 2023 Orszag became CEO of Lazard, who owns the Chicago based private equity firm, Edgewater Funds. 

George Osborne the former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer became an advisor to BlackRock.

Joseph Otting was the former CEO of OneWest Bank, the former failed IndyMac Bancorp under private equity ownership by George Soros, J.C. Flowers, Steven Mnuchin, and others. Otting  was appointed as the new Comptroller of the Currency in June 2017, the regulator that actually oversees banks such as OneWest bank. During Otting’s tenure at OneWest, the bank participated in numerous foreclosure controversies, and paid a $89 million fine for its role in selling reverse mortgages.

James Owens was the former head of Caterpillar, Inc.  and has been a senior advisor to private equity giant KKR & Co.

Leon Panetta was formerly the U.S. Secretary of Defense and has been an advisor to Cerberus Capital Management.

William Parrett was the former CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatusu and  has been on the board of Directors of Blackstone Group.

Richard Parsons is the former CEO of Time Warner and Chairman of Citigroup. Parsons became a senior advisor to private equity firm Providence Equity Partners in 2009 and became a member of Barack Obama’s Job Council Group in 2012.

George E. Pataki is the former Governor of New York. In  2008 Pataki  joined the executive board of MidOcean Partners, the private equity firm spun out of Deutsche Bank in 2003. 

Deval Patrick, a Harvard law graduate, is an ally of President Barack Obama and former two-term Massachusetts governor. In April 2015, Patrick joined Bain Capital as a managing director. In 2024, Patrick joined Vistria a private equity firm based in Chicago founded by Kip Kirkpatrick and Marty Nesbitt.

Vivek Paul former vice chairman of Wipro Technologies has been a special advisor to TPG.

Henry Paulson the former CEO of Goldman Sachs became the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President George W. Bush. In January 2021, Paulson agreed to lead a new private equity fund at TPG Capital known as TPG Rise Climate fund, another wolf-in sheep’s clothing fund brought to you by private equity. According to Pitchbook, Paulson was recruited by U2 singer Bono.

Norman Pearlstine is the former editor-in-chief of Time, Inc. and  has been a special partner to Carlyle Group. 

Michael Pedroni from 2013 to 2016 Pedroni worked for the U.S. Treasury in Europe, and has also worked at The Federal Reserve, as well as an executive to the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund lobbying entity. In 2025, he owns Highland Global Advisors, an advisory firm which specializes in promoting crypto currencies, artificial intelligence private equity, private credit, and other illiquid opaque assets.

Peter Peterson was Secretary of Commerce during the Nixon administration and went on to co-found the private equity giant the Blackstone Group with Steven Schwarzman. Today Blackstone is the largest private equity firm in the world.

David Petraeus is the former four-star general, and chief of the CIA. In 2013, Petraeus went to work for KKR & Co. after resigning because of his extra-marital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Petraeus met Broadwell while she was a graduate student at Harvard working on a dissertation about Petraeus, where she helped publish his biography “All In” in January 2012. Petraeus, who holds a degree from Princeton, became Chairman of the KKR Global Institute. In March 2015, Petraeus pled guilty for mishandling classified documents which he shared with his former mistress and was fined $100 thousand dollars and placed on two years’ probation before heading back to work as a private equity financier. 

Mitch Petrick  spent 21 years at Morgan Stanley. In 2010, Petrick joined The Carlyle Group and was  responsible for trading operations. 

Craig S. Phillips has been appointed special counselor to Steven Mnuchin and is advising President Trump on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Phillips ran the mortgage desk at Morgan Stanley in the peak mania mortgage years of 2004-2005 and his key client during those years was New Century Financial, which packaged subprime mortgage bundles, pooled them, and sold them to unsuspecting investors. At its peak in 2004, Morgan Stanley was offering New Century a $3 billion line of credit to purchase subprime mortgages, up from $400 million in 2001.Phillips has worked for Credit Suisse First Boston, and most recently the giant asset manager BlackRock. 

Mike Pompeo the former U.S. Secretary of State under Donald Trump from 2018 to 2021, as well as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2017-2018, in 2024 formed a new private equity firm Niobrara Capital Partners based in New York focusing in on technology firms. 

Natalie Portman has her own private equity firm which specializes in technology, and women-founded startups as an angel or venture capital investor.

Colin Powell was a four-star general in the U.S. Army and the 65th Secretary of State in 2001. Powell has been Chairman of the Advisory Board of Leeds Equity Partners.

Jerome Powell spent most of his earlier career working at the investment bank Dillon Reed & Co. and  finished his banking career at the private equity giant, The Carlyle Group. Powell is the Fed board’s wealthiest member, revealing on disclosures that he had assets valued between $21.3 and $72.2 million. 

Paul Pressler is the former CEO of The Gap, Inc., and a former senior executive of Walt Disney, is a partner at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. Pressler became chairman of David’s Bridal, a wedding retailer and portfolio company which filed bankruptcy twice, first in 2018, and a second time in 2023. 

Reince Priebus, who served as chief of staff during the first Trump administration and has been chairman of the Republican National Committee. An officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, Priebus joined Centerview Partners, based in New York which is an investment banking firm that caters much of its business to private equity.

J.B. Pritzker, of the billionaire Pritzker family which made their billions with the Hyatt Hotel empire. Pritzker’s have their own family private equity firm and family offices that invest heavily in private equity. A big supporter of the Democratic party, Pritzker became Governor of Illinois in 2019.

Penny Pritzker another billionaire of the Pritzker family and served as the 38th U.S. Secretary of Commerce under the Obama administration. On the board of Microsoft, Pritzker is a founding partner of private equity firms PSP Partners, PSP Capital Partners, Pritzker Realty Group, and co-founder of Artemis Real Estate and Inspired Capital.

Michael Pyle is a lawyer, was the chief investment strategist and managing director for BlackRock. Under the U.S. President Joseph Biden administration, Pyle became Deputy National Security Advisor of the White House.

Randal Quarles is a Carlyle Group alum, former Republican Treasury official and managing director of Cynosure Group, a Utah investment firm. In 2017, Quarles was appointed by President Donald Trump  to be The Federal Reserve’s top official in charge of regulating big banks like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup.

Roberto Quarta joined the New York based private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in 2001, and became chairman of CD&R in Europe. Prior to joining CD&R, he was CEO of the BBA Group. Born it Italy, Quarta graduated from Holy Cross, in his cost cutting days in corporate finance, Quarta had the nickname of “Bob the Knife” and “Spare No Quarta.” Quarta has also served as CEO of the U.K. advertising giant WPP plc in April 2018.

Dan Quayle is a former U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator from Indiana, and George H.W. Bush’s former Vice President. In 1999, Quayle joined the multibillion private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management where he served as chair of the company’s Global Investments division. 

Allen Questrom, the former CEO of J.C. Penney, Barneys and Neiman Marcus became an advisor to Lee Equity Partners.

Paul D. Quinlan a former Bank of America Merrill Lynch banker focused on mergers &  acquisitions, joined Blackstone in 2010 and became CFO of several affiliated real estate, debt, and mortgage strategies at Blackstone. In October 2025, Blackstone announced that Quinlan will lead Blackstone into the U.S. defined contribution unit—which is going after retail savers 401(k)s.

Dominic Raab,  the former Deputy Prime Minister (2022-2023) of the U.K. is a strategic adviser for Appian Capital,  a London based private equity firm.

Gina Raimondo is a lawyer, career politician, and former Democratic governor of Rhode Island. Before entering politics, Raimondo founded the private equity firm Point Judith Capital with an initial $5 million investment from the Rhode Island pension fund. In 2021, Raimondo became U.S. Secretary of Commerce under the Biden administration and was sworn into office by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Bruce Rauner made his fortune in private equity as partner of GTCR of Chicago. In March 2014, Rauner became the Republican governor of Illinois. 

Ryan Reynolds has been involved in a number of private equity ventures such as Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile and has sold ventures to Diageo and T-Mobile and has partnered with TPG and others in the company Maximum Effort. 

Condoleezza Rice has been a career politician as a fellow of the Council of Foreign Relations, and worked for two U.S. President’s George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. A neo con, Rice was a proponent of the 2003 Iraq war. In 2012, Vinod Khosla, of Khosla Ventures hired Rice and her consulting firm to partner as strategic advisors for his private equity firm.

Tom Ridge was the first U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and has been a senior advisor to Deloitte and various private equity backed firms. 

Rihanna the singer has been involved in Fenty, a luxury beauty brand and has partnered with LVMH in private equity-like structure. 

Richard Riley was Secretary of Education under the Clinton administration and  has served stints in the South Carolina House of Representatives. Riley has been an advisor to Leeds Equity Partners

Bill Ryan joined the Carlyle Group in January 2026 to head up The Carlyle Groups invasion into the defined contribution 401(k) area. Previously Ryan had worked at the Boston retirement consulting firm NEPC, Aon Plc and for the University of California Office of the Chief Investment Officer.

Kevin Rollins, the former CEO of Dell Computers has been a special advisor to TPG, Inc. 

Willard Mitt Romney is a politician, businessman and lawyer and U.S. Senator from Utah who co-founded Boston’s Bain Capital private equity firm in 1984. Romney became governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and tried several times to become president of the United States. In 2018, Romney became the U.S. Senator from the state of Utah. 

Manuel Rocha a former American diplomat who served at the US ambassador to Bolivia spent over two decades as a US diplomat. Rocha worked as a private equity financier for a private equity firm in Argentina. A graduate of Yale, with a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard, Rocha is on the board of Clover Leaf Capital Corp., a SPAC shell company NASDAQ: CLOE based in Miami, Florida. In December 2023, Rocha, aged 73 was arrested in Miami by the FBI, on a criminal complaint that he had been secretly serving as an agent of Cuba’s government. 

Alex Rodriquez, the famous baseball player has his own private equity firm A-Rod Corp, and is involved in private equity firms, real estate funds.

Taggart Romney prior to founding the Boston based private equity firm Solamere Capital, Romney, son of Mitt Romney was the chief marketing officer of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team now owned by private equity moguls Mark Walter and Todd Boehly. 

Charles Rossotti, the former head of the IRS, has been a special partner to The Carlyle Group.

Wilbur Ross became the Secretary of Commerce under Donald Trump. Ross has served under U.S. President Bill Clinton  on the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund  and later, under New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the Mayor's privatization advisor. Ross owns his own private equity firm WL Ross & Associates.

Robert Rubin is a former Goldman Sachs executive who was the 70th U.S. Treasury Secretary. After Treasury, went to work for Citigroup, making $126 million. Rubin is an advisor for Centerview  Partners, a New York investment bank that has been an advisor to enormous leveraged buyouts such as the $28 billion leveraged buyout of  H.J. Heinz, the $25 billion leveraged buyout of Dell Computer, Del Monte, ResCap—the bankrupt co remains Ally Bank and Culligan International and the failed LBO of Clayton Dubilier & Rice. Rubin has also worked for U.K. private equity firm BC Partners.

David M. Rubinstein worked in U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s administration as a domestic policy advisor. In 1987, Rubenstein left government and founded The Carlyle Group in Washington, D.C. Rubenstein acquired the Baltimore Orioles with other private equity financiers in 2024.

Gabriel Rubenstein is daughter of David Rubenstein. She has her own private equity firm Manna Tree Partners.  Rubenstein served on the board of Alaska’s Permanent Fund but resigned in July 2024. 

Paul Ryan is the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2021, Ryan joined Solamere Capital and is a partner and chair of the Executive Partner Group. Solamere Capital is the Boston based  private equity firm  founded by Taggart Romney, son of U.S. Senator Mitt Romney from Utah.

Arun Sarin, the former CEO of Vodafone from 2003-2008 has been a senior advisor to KKR since around 2009, specializing in telecom.

Nicholas Sarkozy the former President of France has served as an advisor to KKR & Co. and spoke at various private equity forums. 

Olivier Sarkozy is the half-brother of France’s former president Nicholas Sarkozy. Olivier Sarkozy runs The Carlyle Group global-financial services group at Carlyle. Sarkozy joined Carlyle in 2008. 

Peter K. Scaturro, the ex-CEO of Citigroup Global Private Bank and former Goldman Sachs partner, joined Star Mountain Capital in September 2024 focusing on wealth and banking strategy.

Joseph Schenk joined The Carlyle Group as an operating executive in the firm’s global financial services group in 2012. He previously was CEO of First New York Securities and before that, was CFO of Jefferies Group.

Eric Scheuerman is an attorney who worked at Latham & Watkins where he represented The Carlyle Group, The Blackstone Group and others. He is a co-founder of Solamere Capital, the private equity firm started by Taggart Romney, son of U.S. Senator Mitt Romney.

Paul C. Schorr IV (“Chip”), a graduate of Georgetown and Harvard Business School, spent almost three decades in private equity with CVC Capital Partners, Blackstone, and One Equity Partners. In 2024 he formed a new private equity firm Niobrara Partners based in New York, founded by former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Larry Schloss was the city of New York’s chief investment officer and left in 2013 to become president of Angelo, Gordon & Co. a major New York based private equity firm.

Manfred Schneider is the former chairman of the supervisory board at Bayer AG and in 2012  joined Clayton, Dubilier & Rice as an advisor.

Allen Schwartz the former CEO of Bear Stearns, the major investment bank which collapsed in 2008 and was absorbed by JPMorgan Chase. Fifteen months after Bear Stears collapsed, Schwartz joined the private equity giant Guggenheim Partners in June 2009 as Executive Chairman.

Harvey Schwartz is the CEO of The Carlyle Group. A former Citigroup banker who worked in derivatives, Schwartz previously worked at Goldman Sachs between 1997 and 2018.

Rick Scott, who made his hundreds of millions with the leveraged buyout of Columbia/HCA, was the former governor of Florida, has $76 million in private equity investments according to Mother Jones. In 2018, Scott became a U.S. Senator for the State of Florida. 

Charles E. Schumer is a career politician and a Democratic senator from the State of New York. An apostle for private equity, Schumer’s top contributor was the Blackstone Group between 2019-2024 for $292,900, and KKR & Co. for $159,500. A big friend of Wall Street, lawyers and real estate tycoons. Between 2019-2024 securities and investment firms gave Schumer $4,851,335, lawyers $3,240,768 and real estate $2,641,077 in donations.

H. Lee Scott is the former CEO of Wal-Mart and left the company in 2009  to became an operating partner of Solamere Capital—the private equity firm of Mitt Romney’s son Taggart Romney. 

Stephen A. Schwarzman is one of the wealthiest men in the world and CEO of Blackstone Group. In 2020, U.S. President Donald J. Trump appointed Schwarzman as chairman of the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam the former Singapore Deputy Prime Minister and central banker has been an advisor to GIC, KKR and The Carlyle Group.

Alok Sharma, a former UK MP for Reading West, in March 2024, joined EQT, the giant Swedish private equity firm as a senior advisor. 

Wendy Sherman is a career diplomat and has served under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry  and been the fourth ranking official as Deputy of Secretary of State. Sherman has worked under Biden administration and partnered with Albright Stonebridge Group/Denton Global Advisors as a private equity advisor. 

David Simmons, a former executive at Pfizer, Inc. became the CEO of Pharmaceutical Product Development LLC, a contract research organization owned by The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman. 

William Edward Simon was the 63rd U.S. Treasury Secretary of the United States under Richard M. Nixon. After leaving the Treasury, Simon founded Wesray Capital Corp. a leveraged buyout firm in 1981. In 1982, Wesray invested approximately $1 million in equity capital (with Mr. Simon contributing $330,000) and borrowed another $79 million to take private a Cincinnati-based greeting card company, Gibson Greetings, for $80 million. Eighteen months later, the company was taken public again, with a value of $290 million. Mr. Simon's $330,000 investment was worth $66 million. Still spoken about till this day, the leveraged buyout of Gibson Greetings awakened Wall Street of the enormous profits in highly leveraged finance. In 1990 Simon would partner with Catterton Partners, a  private equity firm located in Greenwich, Conn. Today it is known as L Catterton.

Kyrsten Sinema, the U.S. Senator from Arizona categorized as an independent, became a champion for the private industry sacred “carried interest,” she has stood fast to defend the carried interest provision for private equity and real estate financier. According to Sludge, Sinema received donations from both Democratic and Republican parties which included Montgomery Capital, First Atlantic, Crescent Capital, TPG Capital, Blackstone ($274,500), The Carlyle Group ($253,600), KKR & Co. ($103,700), Francisco Partners, Nelson Peltz and others. Sinema won the hearts of the private equity industry when she voted down the requirement that investments would have to be held for five years to qualify for the carried interest deduction. After leaving the Senate in January 2025, Sinema joined the global law firm of Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C. as an advocate for private equity firms.

Will Smith the actor and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith has been involved with the private equity firm, Westbrook, Inc which in turn has partnered with Clearlake Capital Group, the private equity giant based in Santa Monica, California.

John Snow was the 73rd U.S. Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush. After Snow left the Treasury in June 2006, he became chairman of private equity group Cerberus Capital Management. 

Kunal Soni a former managing director of private credit at Morgan Stanley left the investment bank in July 2025 to work for private equity firm Thoma Bravo.

Alicia Sontag, formerly with  Johnson & Johnson is a managing director of Prelude Growth Partners, a private equity firm started in 2017 focused on consumer brands.

Arlen Specter the long-standing U.S. Senator has been a senior advisor to private equity firms and law firms. 

Marc Spilker in 2010, Spilker left Goldman Sachs  after working there for 20 years in asset management and private wealth management and became President of Apollo Global Management where he was there until stepping down in 2014.

Ronald P. Spogli  was the former United States Ambassador to Italy and San Marino. A graduate of Stanford with an MBA from Harvard where he was roommates with future President George W. Bush. Spogli is a co-founder of Freeman Spogli & Co. Before that, Spogli was a Managing Director in the Investment Banking Division of Dean Witter Reynolds.

James Stavridis served as the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, with responsibility for Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the Balkans, counter-piracy off Africa, the Arctic  and cybersecurity. A member of the Rockefeller Foundation, a Bloomberg opinion columnist and an analyst for NBC News, as well as a regular on CNN,  Stavridis joined The Carlyle Group as a global strategist in 2018. 

Warren Stephens is the Arkansas private equity billionaire who is worth $3.4 billion in 2025, according to Forbes. Stephen’s father and uncle made a fortune bringing Walmart public in 1970 and used funds to buy and sell companies with Stephens Inc. private equity firm. In 2025, Stephens was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. 

David Stockman, a former congressman from Michigan, and Ronald Reagan’s budget director. Stockman joined the private equity firm The Blackstone Group and eventually founded his own private equity firm Heartland Industrial Partners.

John Stomber was the former treasurer of Merrill Lynch and in 2006 became the CEO of Carlyle Capital Corporation (CCC), an extremely leveraged hedge fund which collapsed during the 2008 financial and lost more than $600 million of its investors’ money. To goose returns Carlyle used billions of debt and remained in litigation for years.

Thomas Storch, a former deputy director of international economics under U.S. President Donald Trump first presidency, in 2025 works for the Miami based private equity firm Affinity Partners, run by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Larry Summers has been a career academic, economist, media talking head, president of Harvard and was chief economist of the World Bank. He was the 71st U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under U.S. President Barack Obama and also worked in the Clinton administration under political mentor Robert Rubin. A deregulator, Summers help repeal Glass Steagall Act in 1999. In 2011, Summers joined private equity firm Andreessen Horowitz as an advisor.

Rishi Sunak the former U.K. Prime Minister and Chancellor, rejoined Goldman Sachs as senior advisor in July 2025. Sunak worked early in his career at Goldman Sachs from 2001-2004.

Chris  Sununu, the former Governor of New Hampshire from 2017-2025 joined Scope Labs Capital the New York based venture capital firm in May 2025.

Muneya Taniguchi is a former Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. banker, who is the major shareholder of Morgan Stanley. He  was hired by Blackstone, Inc. in June 2025 to develop business in Japan.

John Thain, the former Goldman Sachs banker educated at MIT and Harvard Business School and former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange. Thain became CEO of Merrill Lynch before its merger with Bank of America in 2009. In 2007 when he joined Merrill Lynch, his $83 million pay package consisted of a base salary of $750 thousand, cash bonus of $15 million, stock grant of $33 million and options grant of $35 million. Thain later went on to run the bailed-out CIT Financial after it lost $3 billion in TARP funding. Thain went on to found Pine Island Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Washington, D.C.

Lars Thunell  was the CEO of the International Financial Corporation, the financing arm of the World Bank. In 2013, Thunell was appointed a director of Fisterra Energy, a Blackstone company. Summers has been a managing partner of  hedge fund D.E. Shaw, and was a frequent speaker to banks such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers.

Pat Toomey the former Republican Senator from Pennsylvania for years fought in the U.S. Senate to have private equity financiers have income taxed lightly at capital gains/carried interest rates. For his loyalty to the industry, in February 2023, Toomey was rewarded with  a seat on the board of private equity giant, Apollo Global Management.  

Ted Torbeck was a 20 year-veteran of General Electric. In 2009, Torbeck was appointed to run Cerberus Capital Management portfolio company, the gun cartel known as The Freedom Group, which was later rebranded Remington Arms, which filed bankruptcy twice, in 2018 and 2020.

Clyde Tuggle, a former executive for Coca-Coal, Tuggle is an executive and founder of Pine Island Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Washington, D.C. founded with Goldman Sachs banker John Thain. 

Martin Turnbull the former Prime Minister of Australia, has been a special advisor to KKR & Co. 

Christopher W. Ullman was a managing director and Director of Global Communications for The Carlyle Group. Ullman joined The Carlyle Group in 2001. Prior to joining Carlyle, Ullman was Director of Communications at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the Public Affairs Director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Director of Communications for the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee.

Ben van Beurden-the ex-Shell CEO Dutchman who led Shell into biofuels, hydrogen and renewable power, joined KKR & Co. in January 2025 as a senior advisor for energy investments. 

Phil Venables, who formerly worked at Goldman Sachs and at Google, became a senior advisor at Warburg Pincus specializing in cybersecurity in May 2025.

Luis Videgaray, a former Mexican foreign minister, in 2025 works for Affinity Partners, the private equity firm run by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump. 

Tom Vilsack is a lawyer,  career politician who has been the governor of Iowa and also been the national co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In 2008, Vilsack  became the 30th U.S. Secretary of the Agriculture under Barack Obama, and in 2021 became the 32nd U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under U.S. President Joe Biden. In 2018, Vilsack joined private equity firm Ridge-Lane Limited Partners.

Vincent Viola is an army veteran and founder of high frequency trading firm Virtu Financial. Viola, a billionaire, bought the Florida Panthers National League hockey franchise in 2013, along with Virtu Financial CEO Douglas Cifu. In 2011, private equity giant Silver Lake invested in Virtu and helped merged it with Madison Tyler based in Santa Monica, California. A high-frequency trading Goliath, Virtu operates on more than 235 exchanges, markets, and pools in 36 countries. Viola was nominated by former U.S. President Donald  Trump to become Secretary of the Army.

Paul Volker the 87-year-old former Federal Reserve Chairman in 2014 joined a group of private equity investors, including Tim Collins at Ripplewood Advisors to purchase Latvia’s Citadele Bank which required the Latvian government bailout in 2009. Volker was also involved in the troubled takeover of Japanese bank Shinsei by Ripplewood and J.C. Flowers. 

Heather von Zuben is another Wall Street lawyer  who became a Goldman Sachs partner in 2020 after joining the Wall Street firm in 2007.  Von Zuben joined Blackstone in 2022  as a Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Perpetual Fund Solutions for Blackstone Credit & Insurance, documenting Blackstone’s invasion of life insurance space.  Von Zuben, according to Blackstone in October 2025, will be leading Blackstone’s new unit in retirement solutions where private equity will go after 401(k)s.

Sen. Mark Warner is the third richest U.S. Senator worth more than $94 million who founded the venture capital firm Columbia Capital. A Democrat, Warner opposes closing  the “carried interest” rule.

Eric Webster a former Senior Vice President of Sales for Salesforce, joined the Boston based venture capital/private equity firm Silversmith Capital Partners in April 2025.

Antonio Weiss formerly a counselor to the U.S. Treasury under the Obama administration works as a managing partner  at Lazard, the investment bank.

Jack Welch is the former CEO of General Electric who made hundreds of millions while at GE. Welch received a reported retirement package from GE of $9 million a year. Welch was a special advisor and  partner to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and joined the firm several months after his GE retirement in 2001. 

William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, went to work for Leeds Equity Partners in 2000, where the name of the firm was changed to Leeds, Weld & Co. In 2005, Weld launched an ill-fated attempt to become governor of New York. 

J. Scott White, the former head of a $4 billion dollar unit at Abbott Laboratories, became the CEO of New Avon Products, a major beauty products company controlled by Cerberus Capital Management LP. Avon Products filed bankruptcy in August 2024 over its talc liabilities. 

Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and HP has been an advisor and investor in Revolution Ventures and been on boards of various private equity companies.

Dan Wieder, a Morgan Stanley banker involved in private equity secondary sales, left the bank in July 2025 to join Miami, FL based H.I.G. Capital.

Pharrell Williams the musician has been involved in fashion ventures, consumer technology and so on.

Serena Williams, the tennis superstar, has been an active in her own venture capital firm Serena Ventures.

Jon Winkelried is the former president of Goldman Sachs who spent 27 years at that investment bank. In October 2015, Winkelried was appointed co-chief executive by TPG (Texas Pacific Group). Henry Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs joined TPG in January 2021.

Reese Witherspoon has been involved in private equity backed ventures such as Hello Sunshine and Candle Media which was sold to Blackstone.

Andrew Woeber, a former partner of Centerview Partners LLC an investment bank that serves private equity, exited and joined Barclays Plc in April 2025 as global head of mergers and acquisitions.

James Wolfensohn is he former World Bank President with an MBA from Harvard is another investor in Citadele, the Latvian bank. 

Janet Yellen is an American economist who served as the 78th U.S. Treasury Secretary and also as chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2014-2018. An Ivy league who graduated from Brown, with a Ph.D. in economics from Yale, she has taught at Harvard, London School of Economics. Truly beholden to banks and asset managers, Yellen has received millions in fees from Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Citadel, City National Bank, Structured Finance, ING, UBS, Standard Chartered, BNP Paribas and others.                                                 

Glenn Youngkin is the former Co-Chief Executive of The Carlyle Group where he spent 25 years of his career. Youngkin first worked at Credit Suisse First Boston, then went to work at Carlyle after getting his MBA from Harvard. In November 2021, the 54-year-old Republican became the 74th  governor of Virginia.

Matt Zames was the former JPMorgan Chase chief operating officer and another heir apparent for Jamie Dimon. Zames started his career in finance with the collapsed hedge fund Long Term Capital Management which imploded in 1998. After that, Zames became a trader at Morgan Stanley, then joined Credit Suisse as a trader. Oversaw the acquisition of Bear Stearns when in imploded in 2008, and the implosion of the JPMorgan Chase “London Whale” trade, where JPMorgan lost more than $6 billion. Zames became the president of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management in April 2018. 

Jim Zelter, a graduate of Duke, began his career as a high yield (junk) bond trade at Goldman Sachs, and then went on to become Chief Investment Officer of Alternative Investments at Citigroup.  In 2006, Zelter joined Apollo Global Management where is President and also on the company’s board of directors.

Jeff Zucker, a Harvard graduate, was the former President of CNN Worldwide from 2013-2022. Zucker is also the former CEO of NBC Universal where he spent more than two decades.  In December 2022, Zucker joined RedBird EMI, a private equity company backed by New York based Red Bird Capital Partners, which is also backed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President of the United Arab Emirates. 

Spencer Zwick has previously worked on the National Finance Chairman to Mitt Romney’s U.S. presidential campaign and served as National Finance Chairman for U.S. House of Representatives former speaker Paul Ryan. Zwick is a co-founder and manager of Solamere Capital, the private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney’s son, Tag Romney.