About Us // Investment Committee
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About Us

Investment Committee - A Record of Success

With over 150 years of combined investment experience, all members of our Investment Committee have created and managed substantial personal wealth with integrity, acumen and consistently remarkable results. NYPBT ensures accountability, transparency and oversight of all investment opportunities. Members of our Investment Committee include: Howard Milstein, Richard Elden, Barry Friedberg, and James Gordon.

Howard P. Milstein

Howard Milstein is Chairman and CEO of the family's business operations, including New York Private Bank & Trust Corporation (the holding Company for Emigrant Savings Bank), Milstein Properties, and various Milstein Brothers operations in real estate development and management in New York and Chicago. Mr. Milstein is a founding Partner of FriedbergMilstein, an alternative asset investment manager.

Mr. Milstein served as a member of the Investment Committee for Cornell University's $4 billion endowment for more than 10 years, and chaired its Real Estate Sub-Committee for more than 20 years, achieving top quartile returns throughout the period and frequently achieving the #1 rating in its endowment universe. He has also guided the investments of the New York Blood Center's $300 million endowment as Chairman of the Board.

Mr. Milstein's other civic and philanthropic efforts include: Chairman of the American Skin Association; Trustee Emeritus and Presidential Counselor, Cornell University; and Overseer, Cornell Medical College. He is a member of the Harvard Law School Visiting Committee and of the Executive Committee of the HLS Dean's Advisory Board.

In Washington, D.C., he serves on the National Board of the Smithsonian Institution and on the Board of the Shakespeare Theater.

Mr. Milstein earned a B.A in Economics, summa cum laude, from Cornell in 1973 and earned JD/MBA degrees from Harvard in 1977.

Richard Elden

Richard Elden is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Grosvenor Capital Management L.P. Established in 1971, Grosvenor managed the first fund of hedge funds in the United States. Using non-traditional investment managers, Grosvenor diversifies across investment strategies worldwide. The firm currently manages more than $14.5 billion.

Prior to founding Grosvenor, Mr. Elden was a reporter for the International News Service, the City News Bureau of Chicago and The Chicago Sun-Times. In addition, he was a financial analyst with Science Research Associates and a securities analyst with AG Becker & Co., Inc.

Mr. Elden is Vice Chairman of the University of Chicago Investment Committee. He also sits on the Investment Committees at the Field Museum of Chicago and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.

Mr. Elden is a graduate of Northwestern University (B.A., 1956), the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (M.B.A.,1966) and the Harvard Business School's Owner-President Management Program (1997).

Barry S. Friedberg

Barry Friedberg is the President and Co-Founder of FriedbergMilstein, an asset management firm that has responsibility for investing more than $900 million in leveraged finance assets. FriedbergMilstein was founded in 2003.

Prior to forming FriedbergMilstein, Mr. Friedberg was Executive Vice President and member of the Executive Committee at Merrill Lynch for more than 10 years. From 1985 through 1993, Mr. Friedberg was head of the Global Investment Banking Division of Merrill Lynch. In 1985, when Mr. Friedberg assumed these responsibilities, Merrill Lynch was ranked 6th or lower in the debt, equity, and M&A league tables. By the end of Mr. Friedberg's period of leadership, Merrill Lynch was #1 in the league tables for all of these products. Mr. Friedberg's responsibilities also included oversight of the investment activities of Merrill Lynch which included approximately $1 billion of private equity investments and approximately $1.5 billion of leveraged financing for middle market companies. He also, in 1985, initiated the first private placement effort at a Wall Street firm to place limited partnership interests on behalf of financial sponsor clients and was involved in assessing the management teams that Merrill Lynch represented in that marketplace.

Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, Mr. Friedberg was head of the Merger & Acquisition Group of AG Becker which Merrill Lynch acquired in 1984.

Mr. Friedberg is Chairman of the Board of the New York City Ballet and a member of its Investment Committee.

He is also a member of the Investment Committee of Boys & Girls Harbor. Mr. Friedberg is a graduate of Princeton University (BA, 1962).

James A. Gordon

James Gordon is the President and Founder of the Edgewater Private Equity Funds. Mr. Gordon founded Edgewater in 1992. Mr. Gordon has been active in the private equity markets since 1982, and has completed more than 100 transactions.

Mr. Gordon also serves on the Board and is co-founder of Envestnet which has over $20 billion in assets and also co-founded Icahn Partners, a $3 billion hedge fund.

Mr. Gordon has served on the boards of directors of numerous public and private companies. Mr. Gordon also has served on the board of Grinnel College as head of the Investment Committee, where he increased assets from $125 million to over $1 billion and was #1 in the 1, 3, 5, and 10 year NACUBO index. He also serves on the Investment Committees of the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and Northwestern Memorial Hospital.