Joshua S. Friedman

Friedman grew up near Boston. His father was a mechanical engineer who served during World War II before he finished college. His mother was a public-school teacher.[2]

He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1976, where he studied physics. In 1978 he went to the University of Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship where he received a master's degree in politics and economics, graduating with honors. He then returned to Harvard as a Baker Scholar, earning an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School in 1980.[3] He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was the recipient of the 1982 Sears Prize.[4][5]

After completing his studies at Harvard, Friedman was employed at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he worked in their M&A group.[6] In 1983 Friedman joined Drexel Burnham Lambert and later became director of capital markets for high yield and private placements.[7]

In 1990, Friedman and Mitchell Julis co-founded Canyon Partners,[8] an employee-owned[9] alternative asset management company[10] that is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.[6]

Friedman is a recipient of Institutional Investor's "Lifetime Achievement" award in 2014, he's considered a pioneer in the hedge fund industry.[11] In 2019, Friedman and his wife were recipients of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.[12]

Friedman is a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard Management Company,[13] the Harvard Business School Board of Dean's Advisors[14] and the Harvard University Task Force on Science and Engineering.[15] Friedman serves as a Trustee for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,[16] the California Institute of Technology (Caltech),[17] the Los Angeles Philharmonic,[10] and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).[18] He is a member of the Investment Committees for the Broad Foundation,[19] the J. Paul Getty Trust[16] and chair of the LACMA Finance Committee.[19] He also serves on the Boards of Advisors of the UCLA Hospital Department of Neurosurgery[20] and the UCLA Anderson School of Management.[21]