Starring in ET GBS 2020: Billionaire Blackstone boss, Steve Schwarzman

New Delhi: He’s worth $18 billion. He founded a private equity firm that has over half-a-trillion dollars worth of assets under management and is also the world’s largest property owner. And he will, naturally, be one of the big stars of the Global Business Summit, presented by the Economic Times and Yes Bank.

Steve Schwarzman set up Blackstone in 1985, and the PE firm has grown and grown, never mind business cycles. Blackstone has $15 billion invested in India.

In what will make Schwarzman’s GBS appearance even more special, the billionaire investor will be in conversation with a leading Indian business leader on how to create winning businesses.


The Blackstone boss’ personal story is itself a great business lesson: From folding handkerchiefs in his father’s dry goods shop in Philadelphia to a stint in Lehman Brothers, to taking the entrepreneurial leap with founding Blackstone. Not to mention his role as an informal adviser in USChina trade talks and his charity donations of more than a billion dollars.

Schwarzman is not the only global business leader on the March 6-7 GBS speakers list. There are the likes of Mohamed Alabbar, the billionaire founder and chairman of Emaar Properties, and BCG’s chief executive Rich Lesser.