Yale President Richard C. Levin PhD ’74 announced on January 4, 2010,
Yale President Richard C. Levin PhD ’74 announced on January 4, 2010, that Lei Zhang MBA ’02, GRD ’02 has pledged the largest gift ever to the Yale School of Management by a graduate of the school. Zhang’s pledge, made less than 10 years after his graduation from Yale, also represents the largest gift to date from a young Yale University alumnus. Zhang, the founder and managing partner of Hillhouse Capital Management, will give $8,888,888 primarily to help build Yale SOM’s new campus. A portion of the gift will provide scholarship support for Chinese students in the International Relations Program at Yale’s new Jackson Institute of Global Affairs. Other funds will be used to support a variety of China-related activities at the university, such as work undertaken in cooperation with China’s Ministry of Education to train Chinese university presidents.
In announcing the gift, President Levin commented, “This truly extraordinary and auspicious gift reflects the deep commitment to Yale that Lei Zhang shares with so many fellow graduates of the School of Management. Lei’s generosity also represents a significant step toward the realization of SOM’s (School of Management) new campus.”
Zhang, a member of the SOM Board of Advisors and China Board of Advisors, started Hillhouse Capital Management in 2005 and rapidly built the largest independent fund in China. While at SOM, he worked for David Swensen at the Yale Investments Office. He translated Swensen’s Pioneering Portfolio Management into Chinese, a task that required him to create Chinese words for “fiduciary” and “endowment.” When he moved back to China, with an initial investment from the Yale endowment, he opened Hillhouse Capital Management with $30 million under management. Zhang has made impressive returns and attracted numerous new investors; he now has $2.5 billion under management.
Zhang chose to make his gift $8,888,888 because of the significance of the number eight in Chinese culture. Throughout China, eight is considered lucky. The Chinese word for “eight” sounds similar to those for “wealth” and “fortune.”
Zhang, raised in Central China, placed first out of 100,000 students in his province for the national university entrance exam. He studied international finance at the People’s University of China and chose Yale to earn his MBA and a master’s degree in international relations. Zhang has said that Yale changed his life. He named both his company and a foundation for Hillhouse Avenue, the New Haven street that runs through the SOM campus.
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