David M. Rubenstein T’70

David M. Rubenstein is co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms.  Mr. Rubenstein co-founded the firm in 1987.  Since then, Carlyle has grown into a firm managing more than $85.5 billion from 28 offices around the world.

Mr. Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke, 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 1973-75, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.  From 1975-76, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments.  From 1977-81, 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).   

Mr. Rubenstein is a regent of the Smithsonian Institution and on the Board of Directors or Trustees at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (Vice Chairman), the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the National Museum of American History and the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Asia Society, the American Academy in Berlin, American Council on Germany, and Ford’s Theatre.

Mr. Rubenstein is President of the Economic Club of Washington, and also a member of The Business Council, Visiting Committee of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors, the Dean’s Council at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, the Advisory Board of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution, Advisory Board of School of Economics and Management Tsinghua University, the Trustees’ Council of the National Gallery of Art, the Madison Council of the Library of Congress, the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, and the Council of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Elected to the Duke University Board of Trustees in 2003, he serves on the Business and Finance Committee and previously served on the Academic Affairs Committee.

Mr. Rubenstein is married to Alice Rogoff Rubenstein, and they have three children.

July 2009