Glenn Youngkin

Glenn Allen Youngkin (born December 9, 1966) is an American businessman and politician serving as the 74th governor of Virginia since 2022.

Glenn Allen Youngkin was born in Richmond, Virginia, on December 9, 1966.

He is the son of Ellis ( Quinn) and Carroll Wayne Youngkin.

His father played basketball for Duke University and worked in accounting and finance.

Youngkin's mother was a doctorally prepared nurse practitioner who specialized in women's health; she was also a professor of nursing, and an associate dean for graduate studies at Florida Atlantic University.

When Youngkin was a teenager, the family moved from Richmond to Virginia Beach.

He attended the private Norfolk Academy in Norfolk, Virginia, graduating in 1985.

He received numerous high school basketball honors.

Youngkin attended Rice University in Houston, Texas, on a basketball scholarship.

He played four seasons for the Owls in the Southwest Conference, and he totaled 82 points and 67 rebounds in his career.

In 1990, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in managerial studies and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering.

After graduating from Rice in 1990, Youngkin joined the investment bank First Boston, where he worked on mergers and acquisitions and capital market financing.

The company was bought out by Credit Suisse and became Credit Suisse First Boston; Youngkin left in 1992 to pursue an MBA.

He attended Harvard Business School and earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in 1994.

In 1994, after receiving his MBA, he joined the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

In August 1995, Youngkin joined the Washington, D.C. private-equity firm The Carlyle Group, initially working as a member of the US buyout team.

In 1999, he was named a partner and managing director of Carlyle.

He managed the firm's United Kingdom buyout team (2000–2005) and its global industrial sector investment team (2005–2008), dividing his time between London and Washington.

In April 2008, Carlyle's founders asked Youngkin to step back from deal-making to focus on the firm's broader strategy.

In 2009, the founders created a seven-person operating committee, chaired by Youngkin, which oversaw the non-deal, day-to-day operations of Carlyle.

Also in 2009, Youngkin and Daniel Akerson joined the firm's executive committee, which had previously consisted solely of the three founders.

When Carlyle's chief financial officer Peter Nachtwey left the firm suddenly in late 2010, Youngkin became interim CFO until Adena Friedman was hired as CFO late March 2011.

In 2010, Youngkin joined the firm's management committee.

Youngkin was chief operating officer of the Carlyle Group from March 2011 until June 2014.

Youngkin played a major role in taking Carlyle public, supervising the initial public offering.

In June 2014, Youngkin and Michael J. Cavanagh became the firm's co-presidents and co-chief operating officers.

Together, they helped develop and implement the firm's growth initiatives and managed the firm's operations on a day-to-day basis.

Cavanagh left the firm in May 2015 to become CFO of Comcast, leaving Youngkin as president and COO of Carlyle.

In October 2017, the Carlyle Group announced that its founders would remain executive chairmen on the board of directors but step down as the day-to-day leaders of the firm.

A member of the Republican Party, he spent 25 years at the private-equity firm The Carlyle Group, where he became co-CEO in 2018.

The firm named Youngkin and Kewsong Lee as co-CEOs effective January 1, 2018.

Youngkin oversaw Carlyle's real estate, energy, infrastructure businesses, and investment solutions businesses, while Lee oversaw the firm's corporate private equity and global credit businesses.

Youngkin and Lee also joined the firm's board of directors when they became co-CEOs.

During Youngkin and Lee's tenure as co-CEOs, they oversaw the firm's transition from a publicly traded partnership into a corporation.

Bloomberg News described the co-CEO relationship as "awkward ... and increasingly acrimonious".

The publication later wrote that Lee "quickly established dominance, diminishing Youngkin's clout".

He resigned from the position in 2020 to run for governor.

Youngkin won the 2021 Republican primary for Governor of Virginia and defeated former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe in the general election, becoming the state's first Republican governor since Bob McDonnell in 2009.

Youngkin supported COVID-19 vaccination efforts against the disease but opposed mandates for the vaccine, and banned mask mandates in Virginia public schools; this ban was partially rescinded following legal challenges.

During his first year in office, Youngkin signed a bipartisan state budget that paired increased education spending with expansive tax cuts.