Lenard Tessler

Lenard Tessler is the retired Vice Chairman of Cerberus Capital Management. For nearly two decades, Mr. Tessler, who was the first employee of the firm’s private equity team, helped build Cerberus’ private equity practice into a leading platform which invests across industries and geographies.

At Cerberus, Mr. Tessler led some of the firm’s largest and most significant transactions and served on the board of directors of several portfolio companies, including Albertsons, Ally Financial (formerly GMAC), Chrysler Financial, Keane Group, Inc (now NexTier Oilfield Solutions, an industry leading well completion and production services company) and Avon. Mr. Tessler was also responsible for the acquisition, restructuring, and public offering of the Austrian bank BAWAG, the largest public offering in Austrian history.

Mr. Tessler is a trustee of the New York Presbyterian Hospital and serves on the Investment and Finance Committees. In addition, Mr. Tessler was honored for his philanthropic contributions by the Horatio Alger Association, a non-profit educational organization, and inducted into the Horatio Alger Society in 2017. He holds a B.A. from the University of Miami and an M.B.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University.