If money talks, then Joshua Harris and Marc Rowan are screaming.
Harris is a private equity investor and philanthropist and co-founder of Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s largest alternative investment funds, which manages over $350 billion in assets on behalf of pension funds for teachers and public servants, insurance companies, and others.
Harris co-founded Apollo in 1990 with Rowan and Leon Black. Both Harris and Rowan are among the wealthiest individuals in the United States. Bloomberg (August 2021) estimates Harris’s net worth at $7.27b. and Rowan’s at $5.74b.
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In February 2021, Rowan was announced as the chief executive designate to replace CEO Leon Black, who agreed to step down in the wake of a report that he had paid the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, $158 million for advice on tax and estate planning and related services between 2012 and 2017. Black himself was cleared of any wrongdoing. Harris, who was passed over for the top position at Apollo in favor of Rowan, relinquished his day-to-day responsibilities at the firm in May.
In addition to his financial activities, Harris is also the principal owner and managing partner of the New Jersey Devils hockey team in the National Hockey League, the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team of the National Basketball Association, and is a general partner in Crystal Palace Football Club of the English Premier League. Harris is one of a growing number of Jewish owners of sports teams.
Harris founded his charitable organization, Harris Philanthropies, in 2014, which develops leadership skills and strengthens communities. One of the organization’s projects, ‘The 48ers’, promotes the successful integration of Ethiopian youth within Israeli society through basketball training, tournaments and educational activities.
Marc Rowan is a member of the board of directors of the National Jewish Outreach Program and serves on the board of trustees of the University of Pennsylvania and the board of advisers of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In October 2018, he donated $50m. to the Wharton School, the largest single gift in Wharton history. In 2013, Rowan gave a $1m. donation to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which maintains and provides education about the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Rowan is a founding member and chairman of Youth Renewal Fund and vice-chairman of Darca, Israel’s top educational network operating 40 schools with over 22,000 students throughout Israel’s most diverse and under-served communities. He also serves on the board of OpenDor Media, a digital media company centered on engaging Jewish and Israeli content.