2025 Risa K. Lambert Chicago Luncheon

Mr. Rubenstein is a Baltimore native and is the Chairman, CEO, and principal owner of Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles.

 A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Gallery of Art, the Economic Club of Washington, and the University of Chicago; a trustee of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; and a director of Moderna, Inc. and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Rubenstein is a member of the American Philosophical Society, The Business Council, Harvard Global Advisory Council (Chairman), Madison Council of the Library of Congress (Chairman), Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Business School at Harvard, Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University (former Chairman), and Board of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community. 

Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge, a significant donor to all of the above-mentioned nonprofit organizations, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards.

A leader in the area of patriotic philanthropy, Mr. Rubenstein has made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Monticello, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Arlington House, Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Mr. Rubenstein has also provided to the US government long-term loans of his rare copies of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, the first map of the US (Abel Buell map), and the first book printed in the US (Bay Psalm Book).

Mr. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on Bloomberg TV and PBS, Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV, and Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein on PBS. He is also the author of five books published by Simon & Schuster, four of which are New York Times bestsellers: The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians (2019); How to Lead: Wisdom from the World’s Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers (2020); The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream (2021); How to Invest: Masters on the Craft (2022); and The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency (2024).

Mr. Rubenstein has served as Chairman of the Boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Duke University, and the Smithsonian Institution; Co-Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution, as a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation, and as a Director of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the National Constitution Center.

Mr. Rubenstein is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Mr. Rubenstein graduated in 1973 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.

From 1973 to 1975, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975 to 1976, he served as Chief Counsel to the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. From 1977 to 1981, during the Carter Administration, Mr. Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. After his White House service and before co-founding Carlyle, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman).