Whitney Tilson - Successful Investor and Civic Activist
April 24, 2025 - Marsanne Restaurant 233 8th Avenue (Chelsea)
PLEASE NOTE TIME CHANGE 12.45PM TO 2PM
Whitney Tilson is a successful investor and civic activist.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Tilson grew up in Tanzania and Nicaragua, the child of teachers who met and married in the Peace Corps. After earning his bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard College and an MBA as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School, Tilson has dedicated his career to impactful endeavors.
As a founder of Teach for America and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, Tilson has been a longtime advocate for education reform and minority-owned businesses. And as an investment manager and writer for the past 25 years, he’s always fought for average Americans, warning them about the internet bubble, the housing crisis (on “60 Minutes” in December 2008), and how Lumber Liquidators was poisoning its customers with toxic flooring (again on “60 Minutes” in March 2015).
Tilson is an avid mountaineer, who climbed the Nose of El Capitan in June 2020 and has summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Blanc, the Matterhorn and the Eiger. He also regularly competes in obstacle course races and has run seven 24-hour World’s Toughest Mudders, winning the 50+ age group twice and setting the all-time age-group record of 75 miles. With a history of tackling urgent crises—from helping build and operate a COVID-19 field hospital in Central Park in early 2020 to traveling four times to Ukraine's front lines to deliver aid—Tilson is a problem-solver who prioritizes people over politics. A New Yorker for over three decades, he lives in Manhattan, where he and his wife Susan raised their three daughters.
