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spotlightgala@home<br />
toby and leon cooperman<br />
& the cooperman family<br />
building a legacy<br />
OF GENEROSITY<br />
Top<br />
LEON COOPERMAN — founder and chairman of Omega<br />
Advisors, and former Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset<br />
Management — is a financier par excellence, an executive, an<br />
extraordinary philanthropist and a fighter for what he believes is<br />
right. He’s also a father and a grandfather, the founder of a clan<br />
raised to work hard and, most importantly, to give back.<br />
father was a plumber. As a child,<br />
Lee attended public schools; as<br />
a teen, he took jobs ranging from<br />
fixing tires to serving as a movie<br />
theater usher. Lee attended Hunter<br />
College in New York, becoming the<br />
first in his family to get a degree. He<br />
met his wife of more than 50 years,<br />
Toby, at Hunter, in French class.<br />
After graduating, he attended<br />
Columbia Business School, where<br />
he discovered the value-investing<br />
strategy that would guide him<br />
through the rest of his career. He<br />
graduated in 1967, and, with student<br />
debt and responsibility for a young<br />
family heavy on his shoulders,<br />
he started at Goldman Sachs the<br />
next day. In less than ten years,<br />
he was named partner in charge<br />
of research. For the decade after<br />
that, he was named to Institutional<br />
Investor’s All-America Research<br />
Team for portfolio strategy. He rose<br />
to become CEO at Goldman Sachs<br />
Asset Management.<br />
Left: The Cooperman Family —<br />
including, from left, Wayne and<br />
Jodi Cooperman, Toby and Leon<br />
Cooperman, and Wayne and<br />
Jodi’s children Kyra and<br />
Courtney — visit the NJPAC<br />
campus. Top: NJPAC President<br />
and CEO John Schreiber with<br />
Toby and Leon. Middle: Toby and<br />
Leon Cooperman at home during<br />
the <strong>Spotlight</strong> <strong>Gala</strong> @ <strong>Home</strong><br />
filming. Below: Leon Cooperman<br />
takes the stage for a conversation<br />
at the Arts Center.<br />
In so many ways, Leon, know to<br />
his friends as Lee, embodies the<br />
American dream, and works to<br />
make that dream come true for<br />
others. Lee, his wife Toby and<br />
all his family have long been<br />
supporters of the Arts Center,<br />
and we honor them tonight for<br />
that history of support, and for<br />
their foundational gift toward an<br />
exciting expansion of NJPAC’s<br />
campus, the new Cooperman<br />
Family Arts Education and<br />
Community Center, which will<br />
open across Center Street from<br />
the Arts Center’s theaters in 2024.<br />
The son of Polish immigrants,<br />
Lee grew up in a one-bedroom<br />
apartment in the South Bronx. His<br />
24 njpac.org/gala<br />
njpac.org/gala 25
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