F. Warren Hellman (July 25, 1934 – December 18, 2011) was an American

investment banker Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with ...

and

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

investor, the co-founder of

Hellman & Friedman Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments. H&F has focused its efforts ...

, a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. Hellman also co-founded Hellman, Ferri Investment Associates, today known as

Matrix Partners Matrix Partners is a US-based private equity investment firm focusing on venture capital investments. The firm invests in seed and early-stage companies in the United States and India, particularly in the software, communications, semicondu ...

. He started and funded the

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (HSB), originally Strictly Bluegrass, is an annual free and non-commercial music festival held the first weekend of October in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. Conceived and subsidized by San Francisco ...

festival. Hellman died on December 18, 2011, of complications from his treatment for leukemia.

Early life and education

Frederick Warren Hellman was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

familyJewish Weekly: "Warren Hellman: S.F., Jewish community lose an icon" by Dan Pine
December 22, 2011 in New York and spent his early childhood in Manhattan. The son of Ruth (née Koshland)Bay Citizen: "The Billionaire Who Loved Bluegrass – Financier and philanthropist spread around his millions so "good things will grow" by Jane Ganahl
December 18, 2011 and Marco "Mick" Hellman, he was the great-grandson of banker and philanthropist Isaias W. Hellman. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, his family moved to

Vacaville, California Vacaville is a city located in Solano County in Northern California. Sitting approximately from Sacramento and from San Francisco, it is within the Sacramento Valley. As of the 2020 census, Vacaville had a population of 102,386, making it t ...

, where his father served as a Major in the Army and his mother worked as a

Women Airforce Service Pilot The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (also Women's Army Service Pilots or Women's Auxiliary Service Pilots) was a civilian women pilots' organization, whose members were United States federal civil service employees. Members of WASP became t ...

, flying military planes from aircraft factories to bases. After the war, they moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, where he graduated from Lowell High School. In 1951, he enrolled at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

. At Berkeley, he played for the school's water polo team and majored in economics, graduating in 1955. In 1959, he graduated with an M.B.A. from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

Career

After school, he worked in

investment banking Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with ...

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, ...

becoming a partner at age 28, the youngest in the firm's history. In 1973, he was named president and head of investment banking and also head of the Investment Banking Division and Chairman of Lehman Corporation. In 1977, he moved to Boston and co-founded with Paul J. Ferri a venture capital firm, Hellman, Ferri Investment Associates (later renamed

), an early-stage investor in

SanDisk SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquir ...

and

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

. In 1984, he moved back to San Francisco and co-founded the buyout firm,

with Tully Friedman where he served as chairman of the firm as well as a member of the Firm's Investment and Compensation Committees. Hellman & Friedman's strategy was to buy companies heavy on intellectual capital (typically financial services or software companies) and light on physical assets (such as manufacturers) with strong cash flows that needed operational improvements. In 1995, the firm purchased Levi Strauss & Co. from 250 family shareholders and consolidated it among four men including Hellman and then-CEO Robert D. Haas. The company reduced its debt and improved its earnings.

Family history

Though his fortune was largely self-made, Hellman was the great-grandson of Isaias W. Hellman, a prominent early California banker (President of Wells Fargo Bank), philanthropist, and a founding father of the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

., Isaias Hellman's sister-in-law was married to Mayer Lehman, one of the founders of Lehman Brothers. Warren Hellman's mother, the former Ruth Koshland, was the granddaughter of Jesse Koshland, and great grand-daughter of

Simon Koshland Simon Koshland (1825–1896) was a Kingdom of Bavaria-born American businessman, and wool merchant. He is the patriarch of the Koshland and Haas family of San Francisco.The Jews of San Francisco, by Martin A. Meyer, Ph.D., Emanu-El, San Francisc ...

, pioneer wool merchants in San Francisco (a nephew of Jesse Koshland, Daniel E. Koshland Sr., served as the CEO of

Levi Strauss & Co Levi Strauss & Co. () is an American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's () brand of denim jeans. It was founded in May 1853 when German-Jewish immigrant Levi Strauss moved from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California, ...

). Hellman was married to Patricia Christina "Chris" Sander; they had four children: Frances Hellman, Patricia Hellman Gibbs, Marco "Mick" Hellman, and Judith Hellman. His funeral was held at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.

Berkeley

The Hellman family's association with Berkeley dates back to 1888, when Hellman's grandfather, Isaias W. Hellman Jr., matriculated at Berkeley, graduating as a member of the university's twentieth class. His father, an investment banker, graduated from Berkeley in 1927 and from

in 1929. His grandaunts, Clara Hellman Heller and Florence Hellman Ehrman, endowed various Berkeley professorships and research committees; their husbands, Emanuel S. Heller and Sidney M. Ehrman, founders of the international law firm

Heller Ehrman Heller Ehrman LLP was an international law firm of more than 730 attorneys in 15 offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Heller Ehrman was founded in San Francisco in 1890 and had additional offices located in most of the major finan ...

, were also Berkeley alumni. Berkeley's Hellman Tennis Complex is named in honor of his uncle, Isaias W. Hellman III, Class of 1920. Isaias Hellman was president of Wells Fargo and an active benefactor of the university, funding projects ranging from the Bancroft Library to the Alumni House and the former Barrows Hall. Warren and Chris Hellman were also major Berkeley donors, contributing some $50 million either directly or through their charitable foundation. Among their many contributions are a $5 million gift in 1994 to support junior faculty research, a major joint gift in 2005 to support Cal's aquatics teams, and a $20 million endowment gift in 2018 to fund Berkeley's Hellman Fellows Program in perpetuity. From its inception in 1995 until its permanent endowment in 2018, Berkeley's Hellman Fellows Program supported 384 early-stage faculty members with awards of up to $50,000 for each fellow. Their foundation also supported various athletic programs, the Biology Scholars Program, the

Lawrence Hall of Science The Lawrence Hall of Science is a public science center in Berkeley, California that offers hands-on science exhibits, designs curriculum, aids professional development, and offers after school science resources to students of all ages. The Hall ...

, the Magnes Collection, the Blum Center, the

Haas School of Business The Walter A. Haas School of Business, also known as Berkeley Haas, is the business school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It was the first business school at a public universit ...

, and a host of undergraduate, graduate, and faculty initiatives. Hellman's daughter, Frances Hellman, who holds a Ph.D. from

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...

, is professor of physics and Dean Emeritus of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at Berkeley. His daughter, Patricia Hellman Gibbs, M.D., the 2006 recipient of Berkeley's Public Health Heroes Award and a graduate of Williams and

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

, is the co-founder of the San Francisco Free Clinic. Hellman's son, Mick, an investment manager, like his father and grandfather, graduated from Berkeley, where he studied economics (Class of 1983), and from Harvard Business School. His daughter, Judith Hellman, M.D., who studied microbiology at Berkeley (Class of 1984) and medicine at

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

, is the William L. Young Endowed Professor and Vice Chair for Research at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It ...

. Five generations of the Hellman family have attended Berkeley.

Other affiliations

Hellman served in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

from 1955 through 1957. An avid skier, Hellman co-founded Stratton Mountain School in 1972. As a supporter of the then U.S. Ski Educational Foundation, Hellman served both as a trustee and president of the

U.S. Ski Team The U.S. Ski Team, operating under the auspices of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, develops and supports men's and women's athletes in the sports of alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, cross-country, ski jumping, and Nordic combined. Since 1974 the team and ...

from the late ’70s to mid-’80s. Hellman won the national championship in Ride and Tie racing (in his age category) five times and competed in the

western States Endurance Run The Western States Endurance Run, known commonly as the Western States 100, is a 100.2-mile (161 km) ultramarathon that takes place on California's Sierra Nevada Mountains trails each year on the last full weekend of June. The race starts ...

, a 100 mile ultramarathon. Hellman was the Chair of the Board of Trustees for

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it w ...

from 1982–1992, and as a result of protests reversed the college's decision to go co-ed in 1990. Hellman was a Director of D.N.& E. Walter & Co. and Sugar Bowl Corporation. He was also a member of the advisory board of the

at Berkeley. In 1997, he was inducted into the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...

. In 2005, Hellman was inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. Hellman was the primary sponsor and provided funding for the

music festival in

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the developm ...

. In 2011, Speedway Meadow was renamed Hellman Hollow to honor his history of philanthropy and civic involvement in San Francisco. Hellman was a donor and supporter of Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), a nonprofit organization that helps people transform their lives through work. Hellman was the Chairman of the Board of '' The Bay Citizen'', a non-profit news organization focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Citizen was founded with a $5 million contribution from the Hellman Family Foundation. He formerly served as a Director of numerous portfolio companies, including Eller Media Company,

Nasdaq Stock Market The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

and

Young & Rubicam VMLY&R is an American marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting, formed from the merger of VML, founded in 1992, and Young & Rubica ...

References

External links

F. Warren Hellman – Profile
(Hellman & Friedman company website)
Fixing the greed in private equity
Fortune, October 16, 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hellman, Warren 1934 births 2011 deaths American bluegrass musicians American financiers American people of German-Jewish descent Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area Deaths from leukemia Harvard Business School alumni Lehman Brothers people Musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area Private equity and venture capital investors University of California, Berkeley alumni Levi Strauss & Co. people Country musicians from California Koshland family Hellman family