Kewsong Lee steps down from Carlyle
Curious what happened here, if anyone has any intel? Wasn't he supposed to be the long-term heir apparent, especially after he elbowed out youngkin (according to reports)? Compared to other PE firms that did succession well (KKR, BX), this one feels super botched and the resignation feels abrupt...
I have no intel whatsoever but I bet someone here does - who would they be looking at externally? I don’t see anyone that makes sense there internally - Joe Baratta would seem pretty logical for that role no?
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this mans is literally head of PE at BX and your analysis determines hes not top dawg material wtf.... if he isnt, who the fuck is????
I met him once at the renewal ceremony of Harvard's Lowell House (Harvard calls its undergrad dorms "houses"). Lowell had just finished an extensive renovation/restoration, and this was the "opening ceremony" given to a select number of Lowell House alums who contributed (read: donated) to the project. Kewsong Lee was one of these donors.
Anyways, during the event, Harvard President Bacow was giving a speech and everything was proceeding normally when halfway through a group of 20 or so current undergrads ambushed the event and very loudly started protesting / chanting in unison the Harvard endowment's refusal to divest from fossil fuels or something like that.
All guests in attendance stood there in place quietly and uncomfortably for the 5 or so minutes (it felt much longer) that the kids were protesting until security arrived.
The sole exception was Kewsong Lee, who was very visibly irritated (he was standing right next to me) and less than a minute into the protest said (audibly) "Fuck this shit" and left us to go to the bar area to help himself to a drink.
Obviously, a very brief episode. Too brief to pass judgment... but something tells me Kewsong Lee isn't the easiest person to get along with.
Kewsong about to launch an O&G/Coal Power MF to spite these ESG hippies
On the contrary, he sounds cool as shit based solely on that.
Just cautioning this is how rumors start and reputations get marred... Sometimes for no good reason at all.
Here's a fresh perspective.
Lots of Asian Americans have some sort of resentment based on feeling like a cultural misfit or feeling discriminated growing up and in career. You'll also see among fairly conservative (not necessarily in politics but mannerisms) Asian Americans, there's this distaste (almost disgust) for American "kids" acting "entitled". While other minority groups love to express this vocally, Asian Americans especially older ones like to keep it to themselves.
Even when they do, it's done in very subtle ways that most Americans won't be able to pick up on (Asian cultures emphasize more implicit and often non-verbal communication compared to the rest of the world). To the Americans, this could easily be misinterpreted and perhaps even make them uncomfortable. Regardless, creates room for misunderstanding...
As a first gen immigrant from Asia who moved at a young age by myself, I feel this way quite a bit. Even though I'm young and come from an affluent and "prestigious" family (or whatever the WASP equivalent of Asia is - really defined by the behavior and mannerisms and often correlated with wealth).
I have personal experience of this happening and my resentment towards "uncultured Americans" (just explaining my internal thought process when I got upset) grew and grew. And this made others around me who don't know me too well a bit uncomfortable. I found some consolence from other immigrants of course (Asian and European and actually some Jewish Americans...). But this was really not a good solution.
I'm starting to realize the solution is to be open and honest about how I feel in a calm and respectful way to these "Americans". I found that many of them simply wanted to get to know me and I refused because of my cultural biases. Whenever I see behaviors I don't like, I should calmly but firmly express it.
This to me is the plight of Asian Americans - being culturally misunderstood and just being angry about it without finding a solution. I'm speculating but perhaps Kewsong also feels this way. Perhaps he never got over it despite being so successful. An ideal approach in the above situation IMO would have included 1) directly express his feelings and justify them with clear logic while proposing some solution or 2) let someone in his close circle who can let everyone else know privately about his feelings and intentions.
I wish him the best. Kewsong proved that Asian Americans can become BSDs in industries like PE where it's very much your soft skills that matters.
I mean the guy when to CRH for prep school....I don't know how excluded he was from affluent circles from an early age
Dude, sorry as a fellow Asian but this is a horrible take. Not every Asian on the street came to the US as an awkward international student who chose to drive ridiculous BMWs on campus to compensate for lack of personality then harbored resentment around failing to “integrate” into the “mainstream” well into their adulthood and careers.
It’s weird truculence like this and projecting your own racial insecurities into every situation that reinforces people’s perception of you as not fit for leadership (because people like that aren’t). I can easily see a Mark Cuban or Carl Icahn type being the character in this “fuck this” story at a student ceremony, and yet somehow you concocted a whole critical race theory about repressed Asian anger. Not the way.
I’ve met Kew at a Korean American event briefly and he struck me as another hot shot finance exec type I’ve met a thousand times over whether they were white, jew, indian, or asian (the few black and hispanic moguls I’ve managed to meet in my life were decidedly cooler personalities than all of the above). This seems to me like 99% driven by performance, politics, and greed over comp as happens to individuals of all stripes at this level of power games. You’re doing a disservice to our kind by speculating that somehow the old guard kicked him out because of his culture and race. Sure, there is a lot of plight and injustice in America against Asians and other minorities in many facets of society, but getting pushed out from the CEO post of one of the biggest PE shops in the world ain’t it. He played the game like a champ up to this point, the chips just didn’t fall in his favor this one time. Happens to power players of all stripes/races and even at mere MD/Partner levels all across American finance.
So you saw the CEO of a MF walk off by himself to a bar, knew exactly what he wanted to bitch about, and just stood there?
Have intel from a global head at TCG. Apparently he was forced out. Old guard didn’t love the direction he was taking the firm. Relocation of HQ (culture change), heavily on the analytics that didn’t generate much return, and falling short on fundraising goals. Those were some of the highlights I was given.
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I'm sorry but this is probably one of the worst takes I have ever heard...way too much of an over-generalization
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This is a pretty weak take.. Lee was not one of those bookish Asians trying to ring every last point out of a test; he led Warburg Pincus and Carlyle, two of the biggest and most “white shoe” PE funds out there… the dude was definitely a smooth operator. But as others have alluded to performance was so-so and he probably asked for a giant comp package.
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Do not try and justify your lack of leadership qualities by stereotyping an entire demographic lmao
He is the PE guy Chloe Kardashian was dating.
Their acrimonious relationship breakdown had her threaten to blackball Carlyle and have them blue balled next funding cycle by influencing other LPs via exclusive premium OF content distribution / handies and blowies
Obviously the dude had to go
He seemed like he was doing a great job with raising new funds and setting up Carlyle for the next generation. Clearly missing something from the picture here...
Three decent comments and one great story from a donor celebratory event. Then countless BS about ethnic views that let the trolls fly in. This is why WSO had gotten annoying no one gives a shit what you think of how your college classmates from a race act in connection to how a ceo from that race would. Also no one cares if your gf is hot or not, unless she slept with the CEO in question before it does not impact his 5 year returns.
Why is this thread full of racist shit. Wtf.