Blackstone Private Equity Strategies Fund (BXPE)

Stephen A. Schwarzman is Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Blackstone, one of the world’s leading investment firms with $1.2 trillion Assets Under Management (as of September 30, 2025). Mr. Schwarzman has been involved in all phases of Blackstone’s development since its founding in 1985. The firm has established leading investing businesses across asset classes, including private equity, where it is a global leader in traditional buyout, growth equity, special situations and secondary investing; real estate, where it is currently the largest owner of commercial property in the world; hedge fund solutions, where it is the world’s largest discretionary hedge fund investor; and credit, where it is a global leader and major provider of credit for small, middle-market and other companies. Blackstone also has major businesses dedicated to infrastructure and life sciences investing, as well as delivering the firm’s investment management expertise and products to insurance companies.

Mr. Schwarzman is an active philanthropist with a history of supporting education, as well as culture and the arts, among other things. In 2020, he signed The Giving Pledge, committing to give the majority of his wealth to philanthropic causes. In both business and philanthropy, Mr. Schwarzman has dedicated himself to tackling big problems with transformative solutions. In June 2019, he donated £150 million to the University of Oxford to help redefine the study of the humanities for the 21st century. His gift – the largest single donation to Oxford since the renaissance – will create a new Centre for the Humanities which unites all humanities faculties under one roof for the first time in Oxford’s history, and will offer new performing arts and exhibition venues as well as a new Institute for Ethics in AI. In October 2018, he announced a foundational $350 million gift to establish the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, an interdisciplinary hub which will reorient MIT to address the opportunities and challenges presented by the rise of artificial intelligence, including critical ethical and policy considerations to ensure that the technologies are employed for the common good. In 2015, Mr. Schwarzman donated $150 million to Yale University to establish the Schwarzman Center, a first-of-its-kind campus center in Yale’s historic “Commons” building, and also gave a founding gift of $40 million to the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, which provides tuition assistance to underprivileged children attending Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York. In 2013, he founded an international scholarship program, “Schwarzman Scholars,” at Tsinghua University in Beijing to educate future leaders about China. At over $575 million, the program is modeled on the Rhodes Scholarship and is the single largest philanthropic effort in China’s history coming largely from international donors. Mr. Schwarzman is Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of Schwarzman Scholars. In 2007, Mr. Schwarzman donated $100 million to the New York Public Library on whose board he serves.

In 2019, Schwarzman published his first book What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence, a New York Times Best Seller which draws from his experiences in business, philanthropy and public service.

Mr. Schwarzman is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, The Business Council, The Business Roundtable, and The International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. He is a former co-chair of the Partnership for New York City and serves on the boards of The Asia Society and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, as well as on The Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is a Trustee of The Frick Collection in New York City and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 2007, Mr. Schwarzman was included in TIME’s “100 Most Influential People.” In 2016, he topped Forbes Magazine’s list of the most influential people in finance and in 2018 was ranked in the Top 50 on Forbes’ list of the “World’s Most Powerful People.” The Republic of France has awarded Mr. Schwarzman both the Légion d’Honneur and the Ordre des Arts et des Letters at the Commandeur level. Mr. Schwarzman is one of the only Americans to receive both awards recognizing significant contributions to France. He was also awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle, Mexico’s highest honor for foreigners, for his work on behalf of the U.S. in support of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2018. Also, at the University of Oxford, Mr. Schwarzman was elected a Wykeham Fellow at New College in 2021 and a Waynflete Fellow at Magdalen College in 2023.

Mr. Schwarzman holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He has served as an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Management and on the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors.

Follow Mr. Schwarzman on LinkedIn.

Jonathan (“Jon”) Gray is President & Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone and is a member of the Board of Directors. He sits on the firm’s Management Committee and nearly all of its investment committees.

Mr. Gray was appointed to his current role in 2018. Since that time, Blackstone’s assets under management have more than doubled to over $1.2 trillion, as the firm has greatly expanded the breadth of clients it serves, including insurance companies and individual investors. He has also emphasized a thematic approach to investing across Blackstone’s businesses to drive performance.

Mr. Gray previously led Blackstone’s Real Estate business, which he helped build into the largest commercial real estate platform in the world. He joined Blackstone in 1992 in the M&A and Private Equity areas.

Mr. Gray has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hilton Worldwide since 2007, and is also on the board of XRG.

He and his wife, Mindy, established the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2012 focused on the prevention and treatment of BRCA-related cancers. They have also established numerous programs for low-income children in New York, including creating NYC Kids Rise, a college savings initiative provided to every NYC public school kindergartner. The Grays have been named to The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of the largest donors in the U.S.

Mr. Gray received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School, as well as a BA in English from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

Follow him on LinkedIn.

Lionel Assant is the Global Co-Chief Investment Officer of Blackstone. As Co-CIO, he works in conjunction with business unit CIOs and Group Heads to provide additional firm-level investment oversight across Blackstone’s Private Equity (PE) complex, including Corporate PE, Infrastructure, Tactical Opportunities, Growth, and Life Sciences. Mr. Assant also serves as Blackstone’s European Head of Private Equity. He joined Blackstone in 2003 and has run the European PE business since 2012. Mr. Assant currently serves as a Director of Clarion Events, CIRSA, BME (formerly CRH Building Materials Distribution), Bourne Leisure, VFS and Adevinta. He previously served on the boards of Gerresheimer, Klockner Pentaplast, Mivisa, United Biscuits, Alliance Automotive Group, Tangerine, Intertrust, Armacell, Cerdia, Schenck Process and the National Exhibition Centre. Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Assant was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in the Mergers & Acquisitions, Asset Management and Private Equity divisions. Mr. Assant graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique with a Master’s in Economics. He is also involved with Impetus, a charitable foundation which provides resources to improve the lives of children and young people living in poverty.

Joseph Baratta is Global Head of Private Equity Strategies at Blackstone and a member of Blackstone’s board of directors. Mr. Baratta joined Blackstone’s board of directors in March 2020 and has served as Blackstone’s Global Head of Private Equity since July 2012. He also sits on the firm’s Management Committee. Mr. Baratta joined Blackstone in 1998, and in 2001 he moved to London to help establish Blackstone’s corporate private equity business in Europe. Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Baratta was with Tinicum Incorporated and McCown De Leeuw & Company. Mr. Baratta also worked at Morgan Stanley in its mergers and acquisitions department. Mr. Baratta has served on the boards of a number of Blackstone portfolio companies and currently serves as a member or observer on the boards of directors of First Eagle Investment Management, Refinitiv, SESAC, Ancestry, Candle Media and Merlin Entertainments Group. He is a trustee of the Tate Foundation and serves on the board of Year Up, an organization focused on youth employment. Mr. Baratta graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University.

David Blitzer has served as a member of the Board of Directors since May 2022. Mr. Blitzer is also a Senior Managing Director at Blackstone, the Chairman of Blackstone’s Tactical Opportunities group (“Tac Opps”) and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. He is also a member of the Tac Opps and BXPE Investment Committees. Tac Opps is Blackstone’s opportunistic investment business which invests globally across asset classes and industries and seeks to identify and execute on attractive, differentiated investment opportunities. Prior to launching Tac Opps, Mr. Blitzer had been involved in the execution of Blackstone investments across a variety of asset classes, including establishing and leading Blackstone’s European private equity business. He joined the firm in 1991. Mr. Blitzer currently serves on the Boards of Dream, a youth development organization servicing over 2,200 inner city children, and the Riverdale Country School, the Advisory Board of the Mount Sinai Surgical Department, the Board of Overseers at the Wharton School and the Board of Trustees at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Blitzer is based in New York and graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Blitzer is a valuable member of the Board of Directors because of his extensive private equity and investing experience, his history with Blackstone and his leadership within Tac Opps and Blackstone’s private equity strategies.

Nicholas Galakatos is the Global Head of Life Sciences and is the Chairman of its Investment Committee, having joined Blackstone as part of its acquisition of Clarus in December 2018. Prior to joining Blackstone, Dr. Galakatos was a co-Founder and Managing Director of Clarus since the firm’s inception in 2005. Dr. Galakatos has over 30 years of industry and investment experience in the healthcare sector and has led investments in biotechnology, pharmaceutical company partnerships, and diagnostics, from startups to commercial-stage companies. Before Clarus, Dr. Galakatos was a General Partner at MPM Capital, a healthcare venture capital firm. From 1997 to 2000 he was Vice President of New Business at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (presently Takeda) and a member of the Management Team. He is a founder of Millennium Predictive Medicine and TransForm Pharmaceuticals, where he was the Chairman and founding CEO. Dr. Galakatos is the Chairman of Anthos Therapeutics and a member of the Board of Directors of Talaris, Inc (NASDAQ:  TALS) and BioMed Realty. He is a member of the Director’s Council of the Koch Institute at MIT and a member of the Board of Trustees at Reed College. Dr. Galakatos earned his PhD in Organic Chemistry from MIT and performed his post-doctoral studies at Harvard Medical School. He earned his undergraduate degree at Reed College.

Jon Korngold is the Global Co-Head of Technology Investing and Head of Blackstone Growth (BXG), which is focused on providing capital to companies seeking to manage the execution risks associated with high-growth environments. Jon is a member of both the BXG and Tactical Opportunities Investment Committees. Prior to joining Blackstone in 2019, Jon was head of General Atlantic’s Global Financial Services and Healthcare sectors, Chairman of the firm’s Portfolio Committee, and was a member of the firm’s Management and Investment Committees. Jon also previously worked at Goldman Sachs in the Principal Investment Area and in the Mergers & Acquisitions groups in London and New York, respectively. Jon has spent extensive time in China, where he studied Mandarin Chinese at Peking University and did pro bono work for the U.S. Embassy’s Foreign Commercial Service in Beijing. Jon is active with Harvard University, where he is a member of the Harvard College Fund’s Executive Committee and where he Co-Chairs fundraising for his College class. In addition, he is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, a member of the Rockefeller University Council, a member of the New York Weill Cornell Council, a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a Commissioned Kentucky Colonel, and a member of the American Museum of Natural History’s Advisory Council. Jon has also served as a Trustee of the Cleveland Clinic, of The Dalton School, of The Central Park Conservancy and of the 92nd Street Y, among other institutions. Jon has also been recognized for his efforts in the financial services sector, including having been ranked #1 in Institutional Investor’s list of global Financial Technology dealmakers on multiple occasions. He received an AB in Economics from Harvard College, graduating with Honors, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Verdun S. Perry is the Global Head of Blackstone Strategic Partners (“Strategic Partners”), having joined the business in 2000, the year it was founded. Mr. Perry chairs the Investment Committee for each of the Strategic Partners funds and is currently an advisory board member of multiple third-party funds. Prior to joining Strategic Partners, Mr. Perry worked at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (“DLJ”), as an Associate in the Investment Banking Division. Prior to joining DLJ, he worked in the strategic acquisitions group at Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon and Eckhardt, Inc. and in the Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley & Co. as a Financial Analyst. In 2013, Mr. Perry joined the board of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), which is an organization focused on narrowing the opportunity gap for minority high school and college students, as well as increasing diversity in the financial services industry. Mr. Perry founded Blackstone’s Diverse Professionals Network (“DPN”) in 2014 and chaired the network for its first 6 years. Mr. Perry serves on the boards of Morehouse College and the Blackstone Charitable Foundation. Mr. Perry was a member of the David Rockefeller Fellows Class of 2016. In 2021, Mr. Perry was selected as a Fellow of the fifth class of the Finance Leaders Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Mr. Perry received a B.A. magna cum laude in Business Administration from Morehouse College in 1994, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 2000, where he was a Robert Toigo Foundation Fellow.

Gilles Dellaert is the Global Head of Blackstone Credit and Insurance.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Dellaert served as the Global Head of Blackstone Insurance Solutions where he was involved in the new partnerships with Corebridge, Everlake and Resolution Life. Before joining Blackstone in April 2020, Mr. Dellaert served as Co-President and Chief Investment Officer of Global Atlantic Financial Group. He previously worked at Goldman Sachs in its Reinsurance Group which became Global Atlantic upon its separation in 2013. Prior to that he was with Goldman Sachs in its Credit Trading business and with JP Morgan.

Mr. Dellaert holds a bachelor’s degree from Ghent University in Belgium.