Leon Levy was an American investor, mutual fund manager, and philanthropist.
10 Facts About Leon Levy
1.
2.
Leon Levy was strongly influenced in his business approach by his father, Jerome Levy, an economist and business executive who emphasized the role corporate profits play in charting the economy's direction.
3.
Inc, then in 1959 Leon Levy co-founded the Oppenheimer mutual funds.
4.
The Leon Levy Institute has established itself as a sponsor of extensive work in Keynesian and post-Keynesian economics.
5.
When he died in his late seventies, Leon Levy was estimated to be worth a billion dollars, though his personal wealth might have been substantially higher were it not for his philanthropic interests.
6.
Leon Levy's philanthropy began in the 1950s, when he established the Jerome Leon Levy Foundation, which still exists, giving grants to human rights and land preservation organizations.
7.
Leon Levy's donations grew steadily, and during his lifetime, Levy and his wife, Shelby White, gave away more than $200 million, becoming well known for their philanthropic efforts.
8.
Leon Levy served as President of the Board of the Institute for Advanced Study, Vice Chairman of the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, and was a director of Bard College, and many other not-for-profit boards.
9.
In spring, 2006, the Leon Levy Foundation pledged $200 million to New York University for the creation of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, a center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education, intended to cultivate cross-cultural study of the ancient world, from the western Mediterranean to China.
10.
In 2002, Leon Levy published a memoir, written with Eugene Linden, called The Mind of Wall Street: A Legendary Financier on the Perils of Greed and the Mysteries of the Market.