JP Conte: american exceptionalism
About JP
J-P Conte was born and raised in Brooklyn and the New York area to immigrant parents. His father, Pierre A. Conte, who grew up during the Nazi occupation of France, worked as a tailor and clothing salesman on Wall Street.
A graduate of Colgate University and Harvard Business School, J-P joined Genstar Capital in 1995, and within three years he was leading the firm. As of April 2023, Genstar currently has approximately $49 billion of assets under management and targets investments in financial services, healthcare, industrials, and software industries.
Since late 2022, Conte also serves on the board of Eagle Football Holdings LLC, investing in various clubs including Olympique Lyonnais in Lyon (Ligue 1), Botafogo in Rio de Janeiro (Series A), and Crystal Palace, London (Premier League).
J-P lives with his children in San Francisco. He enjoys cycling, skiing, surfing and travelling with his family.
philanthropy
Investing in a better future for all
Much of J-P’s philanthropic work is conducted through the J-P Conte Family Foundation, which focuses on three areas – educational equity for young people, protecting the environment, and upholding freedom.
J-P is passionate about giving young people from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to succeed and gain educational opportunities despite the challenges they might face, and he supports organizations which help children from immigrant families. He has also committed to helping underprivileged high school students pursue college degrees. He is active in several organizations that help on this front, and sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO Scholars) and 10,000 Degrees in San Francisco, California.
He established the Conte First Generation Fund to assist first generation students pursue degrees at 11 major universities – including his alma maters, Colgate University, and Harvard University – in honor of his own parents, Pierre and Isabel Conte, who emigrated respectively from France and Cuba to pursue a better life in the United States. He also founded the Conte Task Force on Comprehensive Immigration Reform at the Hoover Institution in 2011, and was recently appointed to the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
J-P cares deeply about environmental conservation, and works closely with Pepperwood Preserve, an ecological research institute which educates communities, governments and young people on environmental challenges in Northern California. He serves on a number of other charitable and academic boards, including the board of trustees for Colgate University, from which he graduated, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF). He also sits on the foundation board of CPMC hospital in San Francisco.
