2008 Private Equity Conference - Sold out every year! This conference creates an open, interactive forum for students, alumni and principal investment professionals to discuss trends and lessons learned, as well as debate current hot topics in the private equity industry.

Past speakers include: Thomas H. Lee (Founder of Thomas H. Lee Partners) and John Canning (Chairman and CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners), Prakash Melwani (Senior Managing Director at Blackstone’s Private Equity Group).

Speaker Series - Distinguished leaders from the private equity community visit Kellogg to provide students with insight into their fund’s investment focus, transactions, as well as advice on careers in the private equity industry including sector specific experts in energy, technology, healthcare, and real estate .

Recent speakers have included: Richard Friedman, (Co-Head of the Merchant Banking Division and Head of the Principal Investment Area at Goldman, Sachs & Co.), Sam Zell (Chairman of Equity International), current adjunct professor Harry Kraemer KSM ’79 (former Chairman and CEO of $30 billion healthcare company Baxter International and current Executive Partner at Madison Dearborn Partners).

Treks – This year PEEK will host an East Coast, West Coast and Chicago Trek exposing our students to as many firms as we can. Many students also undertake individual treks around the world. As testament to the global reach of the Kellogg network, our students have been placed with summer internship at private equity firm or a private equity-backed portfolio company in locations such as India, Spain, Russia, United Kingdom, Brazil, China, and Ukraine. The Fall 2007 trek to New York is meeting with leading firms including KKR, Blackstone, TPG, Cerberus, Carlyle, DLJ Merchant Banking and 3i.

Kellogg Private Equity Connection (KPEC) - KPEC is a short term, project-based internship program designed to help Kellogg students gain direct exposure to private equity and venture capital careers during the school year. KPEC also provides an opportunity for firms to learn about and collaborate with talented Kellogg students.

Academic Focus - Private equity is a serious focus on the academic front at Kellogg. With over 40 courses that are relevant in developing the unique private equity investor skill set, Kellogg thrives to develop students to be well-rounded business leaders. For example:

Financial Decisions Course: prepares students to evaluate challenging strategic capital structure dilemmas that are faced by many firms. Focuses on from valuation principles to financial innovation, from leverage buyouts to venture capital, and from IPOs to hostile takeovers.

Corporate Restructuring Course: exposes students to bankruptcy law, asset restructuring, debt contract restructuring, as well as the restructuring of equity, ownership and control of assets.

Strategy and Organizations Course: prepares students to handle complex issues linking organizational structure and strategy and alignment of interest between employees and shareholders is a core focus of the course.

For complete list of recommended courses and Kellogg’s Private Equity Concentration, click here.

Warren Buffet Trip – Every year, Kellogg students visit Warren Buffet in Omaha, Nebraska at the corporate headquarters of Berkshire Hathaway. Kellogg students meet privately with Mr. Buffet and spend the day visiting one of his portfolio companies and dining at his favorite restaurant.