Richard Blum
BS 58,
MBA 59
Richard C. Blum received his BS in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley in 1958 followed by an MBA in 1959. He is well respected for his ability to produce results, from turning around troubled corporations to tackling global poverty.
Mr. Blum is Chairman and CEO of Blum Capital Partners, a private equity firm he founded in 1975. He also is Co-Chairman - Asia of TPG Capital and Co-Founder of Newbridge Capital (now part of TPG Capital and serves as Chairman of the Board of CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. Additionally, his is a director of Fairmont Raffles Holding International, Current Media, L.L.C., and Myer Pty. Ltd.
Mr. Blum is active in a number of nonprofit organizations and is heralded as a philanthropist of great vision. He is Founder and Chairman of the American Himalayan Foundation (AHF), established 25 years ago to help the people and ecology of the Himalaya. In 2006, he provided the seed funding to create the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley. The center implements scalable technologies to improve the well being of poor people, while educating and inspiring students as a new generation of global citizens. Mr. Blum also founded the Global Economy and Development Center at The Brookings Institution and the Brookings Blum Roundtable Conference, to develop policy research strategy and to work on individual projects.
Mr. Blum is former Chairman of the University of California Board of Regents and now serves as a Regent. He has been a member of the Haas Business Board since 1984. He also is a trustee and a member of the executive committee of The Carter Center and on the boards of The Wilderness Society and The California Academy of Sciences.
Mr. Blum is married to United States Senator Dianne Feinstein. He received the Haas School of Business Alumnus of the Year Award in 1994. He was recently honored with the Berkeley Medal by Chancellor Robert Birgenau in front of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.