Richard Blum
Richard Blum

San Francisco’s Richard Blum B.S. ’58, M.B.A. ‘59, widely known as a private equity financier and philanthropist, also gained considerable visibility as chairman of UC’s Board of Regents, in which role he publicly critiqued the ten-campus system and led an overhaul in the Office of the President. He relinquished the chair in mid-2009, not without relief. (His 12-year regental term runs until March of 2014.)

In April of ’09 he and other dignitaries broke ground for the new $30-million campus home of the Blum Center for Developing Economies. His longtime friend the Dalai Lama spoke at Berkeley in the Greek Theatre two days later, and Blum received a Berkeley Medal on that occasion. In the fall, he received the Haas School of Business’s 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award and was the subject of a cover story in the Haas magazine, CalBusiness.

Blum will give the commencement address for the Haas School’s full-time, evening and weekend, and Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA programs this coming May 14.

In his day job at his Montgomery Street headquarters, Blum is the head and founder of Blum Capital Partners and the nonprofit American Himalayan Foundation. The president and staff director of the latter is another Haas MBA alum, Erica Stone ’87, who for the last 18 years or so has “been trying to keep up with him and the myriad ideas that pour out of him.”