Background
Schwarzman was raised in a Jewish family in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, the son of Arline and Joseph Schwarzman. His father owned Schwarzman's, a former dry-goods store in Philadelphia.
Schwarzman was raised in a Jewish family in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, the son of Arline and Joseph Schwarzman. His father owned Schwarzman's, a former dry-goods store in Philadelphia.
Schwarzman attended the Abington School District in suburban Philadelphia and graduated from Abington Senior High School in 1965.He attended Yale University during the same period as George W. Bush, one year behind him (both were in the Skull and Bones society) and graduated in 1969. He then went on to Harvard Business School and graduated in 1972.
Schwarzman's first job in financial services was with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, a now defunct investment bank. After business school, Schwarzman started working at the investment bank Lehman Brothers, where he reached the rank of managing director at age 31. He eventually became the head of Lehman Brothers' global mergers and acquisitions team. In 1985, Schwarzman and his boss Peter Peterson started Blackstone, which originally focused on mergers and acquisitions.
When Blackstone went public in June 2007, it revealed in a securities filing that Schwarzman had earned about $398.3 million in fiscal 2006. He ultimately received $684 million selling part of his Blackstone stake in the IPO, keeping a stake then worth $9.1 billion.
On April 21, 2013, Schwarzman announced a $100 million personal gift to establish and endow a scholarship program in China, Schwarzman Scholars, modeled after the Rhodes Scholarship program. Schwarzman simultaneously announced a fundraising campaign with a goal of $200 million. The Schwarzman Scholars program will be housed at Tsinghua University, one of China's most prestigious universities. The first class of 100 students is slated for 2016, upon completion of Schwarzman College, designed by Robert A. M. Stern, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture.[29] In January 2016, Schwarzman was on the cover of the Shanghai Business Review to share his vision about the Chinese economy against the backdrop of his scholarship. The story was supported by Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia and on the International Advisory Board of Schwarzman Scholars.
Schwarzman met his first wife, Ellen Philips, during his second year at Harvard Business School, where she worked as a researcher and helped grade essays. She was the daughter of Jesse Philips, a wealthy Ohio industrialist. They were married in 1971 and divorced in 1990. They had two children.
In 1995, Schwarzman married Christine Hearst, an intellectual-property lawyer who grew up on Long Island.
