Henry Kravis

KKR: leveraged buyout category creation

Co-founder and Co-Executive Chairman of KKR, the global investment firm he helped establish in 1976. Kravis built KKR into one of the world's largest alternative asset managers by systematising the leveraged buyout, most famously exemplified by the 1988 acquisition of RJR Nabisco. His model of using debt-financed takeovers to restructure and exit portfolio companies defined modern private equity strategy.