Financier, Philanthropist, Author, Historian, Orioles Owner

David M. Rubenstein is an investor, philanthropist, interviewer, author, and historian. He is Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private investment firms. Established in 1987, Carlyle now manages $477 billion from 27 offices around the world.

Mr. Rubenstein is a Baltimore native and is the Chairman, CEO, and principal owner of Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles.

A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Gallery of Art, the Economic Club of Washington, and the University of Chicago; a Trustee of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; an Emeritus Trustee of Johns Hopkins Medicine; and a Director of Moderna, Inc. and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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), 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 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 is a leader in the area of Patriotic Philanthropy, having made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, 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 13th 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, Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV, Longevity with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV, and Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David
Rubenstein on PBS; and the author of five books published by Simon & Schuster, four of which are New
York Times best sellers: The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians (2019), How to Lead:
Wisdom from the World’s Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers (2020), The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream (2021), How to Invest: Masters on the Craft (2022), and The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency (2024).

Mr. Rubenstein has served as Chairman of the Boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Duke University and the Smithsonian Institution, Co-Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution, as a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation, and as a Director of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the National Constitution Center.

Mr. Rubenstein is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. 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).

Documentary filmmaker, director, and producer

Ken Burns has been making documentary films for fifty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; Prohibition; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; The Vietnam War; Country Music; The U.S. and the Holocaust; The American Buffalo; Leonardo da Vinci; and, most recently, The American Revolution.

Future film projects include Emancipation to Exodus, and LBJ & the Great Society, among others.

Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including seventeen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations. In September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In November of 2022, Ken was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.