Henry Kravis: Co-founder of KKR

Henry Kravis: Co-founder of KKR

Business Owner · Hedge Funds & Investing

New York City

Henry Kravis co-founded Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and pioneered the leveraged buyout, including the RJR Nabisco deal chronicled in Barbarians at the Gate.

About Henry Kravis: Co-founder of KKR

Henry Roberts Kravis (born January 6, 1944, in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American businessman, investor and philanthropist and a co-founder of the private equity and investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR & Co.). As of 2026 he has a net worth of approximately $12.5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, derived primarily from his stake in KKR. His buyout of RJR Nabisco was portrayed in the 1989 book and 1993 film Barbarians at the Gate, and his lavish lifestyle has been criticized by activists seeking to reform private equity regulation and restrict the leveraged buyouts he pioneered. Kravis was born into a Jewish family, the son of Bessie Roberts and Raymond F. Kravis, a successful Tulsa oil engineer who had been a business partner of Joseph P. Kennedy. He attended Eaglebrook School and then Loomis Chaffee School, where he was elected vice president of the student council in his senior year. At Claremont Men's College, now Claremont McKenna College, he majored in economics, played four years of varsity golf and graduated in 1967, and he received an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1969. He began his career at Bear Stearns. Sources: English Wikipedia (Henry Kravis, accessed September 2026).

Basic Information

Co-founder, KKR & Co.

Company Details

KKR & Co. Inc.

Private Equity, Leveraged Buyouts, Asset Management