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George Roberts

1970s-2000s · KKR co-founder and buyout architect

Who they were

George Roberts co-founded KKR in 1976 with Jerome Kohlberg Jr. and Henry Kravis and has been one of the firm's most senior partners since. He is widely credited with helping to structure some of the largest leveraged buyouts of the 1980s, including the R.J. Reynolds take-private, and has remained a key figure at KKR through several leadership transitions. Roberts is also known for his public commentary on the institutional-investor case for private assets.

Why it mattered

Roberts is the intellectual architect of the modern leveraged buyout and one of the most senior figures in the history of private equity. His work at KKR during the 1980s and 1990s helped establish the firm as the leading sponsor of the era, and his later commentary on the institutional-investor case for private assets has been influential in shaping how pensions and endowments think about their allocations to alternatives.

The AI angle

Roberts's work on the institutional-investor case for private assets is directly relevant to the AI era, as institutional investors continue to increase their allocations to private markets. AI extends Roberts's framework by giving investors the tools to model the expected returns of a private-asset allocation, track performance in real time, and stress-test the assumptions behind the allocation.

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