Global douchebag circuit: Aspen Institute, Ellen Pao, and Buddy Fletcher

In sifting through all of the press coverage around Ellen Pao’s attempt to get $176 million out of Kleiner Perkins, I missed one salient feature: Pao met her husband, the then-gay Buddy Fletcher, at the Aspen Institute (Pao’s profile on the organization’s “Global Leadership Network” section; see also Fletcher’s page).

In case the various investor lawsuits against Fletcher motivate the Aspen folks to edit their site, I am cutting and pasting the most important parts here:

Alphonse pursues an uncommon investment strategy combining traditional investment management, corporate finance, quantitative methods, and social responsibility. Since 1991, Fletcher Asset Management has invested more than $1 billion in dozens of promising companies. In 1996, the company had about 25 employees, and there were days when Fletcher, this tiny company (by Wall Street standards), accounted for more than five percent of the New York Stock Exchange’s trading volume. Alphonse started working in the investment arena after graduating from Harvard in 1987. He first joined the Wall Street investment firm of Bear, Stearns & Co. and in 1989 was lured away by GE’s Kidder, Peabody & Co., a giant in the Wall Street-based investment industry. Alphonse soon became an active philanthropist. The recipients of his generosity have been the NAACP, Harvard University, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, New School for Social Research, and the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival. In collaboration with other groups, Alphonse has launched a $50 million multi-year initiative in education which includes a fellowship program providing $50,000 fellowships to educators, lawyers, scientists, artists, economists, and others who work toward equality. Alphonse was named “Entrepreneur of the Year 1999” by Ernst & Young. He has an A.B. from Harvard University and a Masters degree from the Yale Environment School. Alphonse is a member of the 2007 class of Henry Crown Fellows and the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute.

I guess we should give the Aspen folks credit for realizing that Fletcher had “an uncommon investment strategy.”

Can readers think of another love story that would be more consistent with going from Harvard to the global douchebag circuit? Here’s my personal entry: “We met at the Aspen Institute and then fell in love at dinner seated between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu at Davos.”

[And separately, if these two are representative of America’s contribution to the current global elite is it any wonder that our economic growth is anemic?]

Related:

2 thoughts on “Global douchebag circuit: Aspen Institute, Ellen Pao, and Buddy Fletcher

  1. Wow, that Ellen Pao must have some sexy dragon lady moves that must not be evident just from looking at her (Kitty Carlisle said that her mother used to call girls who were deficient in the looks dept. “not exactly an oil painting”). She was able to straighten out (sexually, not ethically) the up until then openly gay Buddy. This despite the fact that “scientists” tell us that it is not possible for gay people to change their orientation.

    Truth is stranger than fiction – if Tom Wolfe had put that line about the Dalai Lama and Tutu in to one of his books (say Bonfire of the Vanities), critics would accused him of being over the top.

  2. Considering how much Fletcher and Pao have been in the news, it is remarkable that no one has a picture of the two of them together.

Comments are closed.