Our Mission

The Sohn Conference Foundation is dedicated to the treatment and cure of pediatric cancer and related childhood diseases. We are driven to help children suffering from devastating illness survive, thrive, and find happiness.

The Foundation makes grants to support cutting edge medical research and to support programs that ensure children living with illness are given the highest quality of life and care.

The Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity, and, as such, all donations are deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

William Ackman

WILLIAM  ACKMAN is the CEO and Portfolio Manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P. Pershing Square is a concentrated research-intensive fundamental value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public markets, typically focusing on large-cap and mid-cap companies. Prior to forming Pershing Square, Mr. Ackman co-founded Gotham Partners Management Co. Mr. Ackman began his career in real estate investment banking at Ackman Brothers & Singer, Inc. Mr. Ackman received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Harvard College. Mr. Ackman’s board memberships include Chairman of The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC), J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) and Justice Holdings Limited.



Dwight Anderson

DWIGHT  ANDERSON is the Managing Partner of Ospraie Management. The Ospraie Funds actively invest in various commodity markets and basic industries worldwide based on fundamental, bottom-up research. In 2000, Mr. Anderson founded Ospraie in partnership with Tudor Investment Corporation, where he served as Head of the Basic Industries group. In 2004, he left Tudor to form Ospraie Management, LLC.  Prior to joining Tudor, Mr. Anderson was a Managing Director in charge of the basic industries and commodities group at Tiger Management. Previously, he was an Associate at JP Morgan & Co. Mr. Anderson has been profiled in three books on his investment philosophy – Inside the House of Money by Steven Drobny, Hedge Hunters by Katherine Burton, and More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite by Sebastian Mallaby. Mr. Anderson holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina and an AB in History from Princeton University.



Dan Ariely

DAN  ARIELY is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology & Behavioral Economics at Duke University. In addition to appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the Department of Economics, and the School of Medicine at Duke University, Dan is also a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, and the author of the New York Times bestsellers Predictably Irrational, and The Upside of Irrationality. His new book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, will be released this spring.



David Einhorn

DAVID  EINHORN is president of Greenlight Capital, Inc., which he co-founded in 1996. Greenlight Capital is a value-oriented investment advisor whose goal is to achieve high absolute rates of return while minimizing the risk of capital loss. Greenlight's investment philosophy is to combine the analytical discipline of determining fair value with a practical understanding of markets. David is Chairman of the Board of Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (NASDAQ:GLRE) and a Director of BioFuel Energy Corp. (NASDAQ: BIOF). He is the author of Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story, published in May 2008. David graduated with a B.A. summa cum laude from Cornell University.



Jeffrey Gundlach

JEFFREY  GUNDLACH is the CEO and CIO of DoubleLine Capital, named the “Fastest growing Start-Up Company in 25 years” by Strategic Insight. Mr. Gundlach oversees over $25 billion in assets at the firm and is recognized as a leading expert in mortgage-backed securities and asset allocation. In 2010, Mr. Gundlach was named to the SmartMoney Power 30, one of the seventeen most influential people by The Mutual Fund Wire and “Fund Leader of the Year” by Fund Action. In 2011, he was featured as “The King of Bonds” in Barron’s, named one of “5 Mutual Fund All-Stars” by Fortune Magazine and named “Bond Manager of the Year” by Foundations and Endowments Money Management.  He is a graduate of Dartmouth College summa cum laude holding a BA in Mathematics and Philosophy. He attended Yale University as a PhD candidate in Mathematics.



Jonathan Kolatch

JONATHAN  KOLATCH  founded Redwood Capital in August 2000. Redwood is a SEC-registered investment advisor with approximately $4 billion under management.  Redwood invests primarily in the credit markets with a focus on distressed credit and high yield. Prior to founding Redwood, Mr. Kolatch spent his entire career at Goldman Sachs.  Mr. Kolatch began at Goldman in Corporate Finance and then held various positions in the High Yield Group, including head of high yield trading and head of distressed bond trading. His last position at Goldman was Head of Credit Arbitrage, which was a proprietary trading group within Fixed Income. He became a Partner in 1994.  Mr. Kolatch graduated summa cum laude from Columbia College in 1978. He received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1982.



Philippe Laffont

PHILIPPE LAFFONT is the founder and portfolio manager of Coatue Management, a $5 billion long/short equity hedge fund focused on the global technology, media and telecommunications industries. Mr. Laffont graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991 with a B.S. and M.S.C. in Computer Science. He worked as an analyst in management consulting for McKinsey & Co. from 1992 to 1994 in Madrid, Spain. After working as an independent consultant for several years, Mr. Laffont joined Tiger Management LLC as a research analyst in 1996. He focused on telecommunications stocks while at Tiger until he left to found Coatue in 1999.



John Lykouretzos

JOHN  LYKOURETZOS is the founder and portfolio manager of Hoplite.  Prior to launching Hoplite in 2003, John was an industrials analyst and financial services analyst and portfolio manager at Viking Global Investors, LLC (1999-2003);  Before Viking, he worked as an industrials analyst at Tiger Management Corporation (1998-1999) and began his career as a financial analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in the Investment Banking Division (1995-1997) and Principal Investment Area (1997-1998).  John graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Economics and International Studies (1995).



Steve Mandel

STEVE  MANDEL is the founder of Lone Pine Capital, a global long/short and long-only equity money manager which he started in 1997.  Prior to founding Lone Pine, Mr. Mandel was managing director and consumer analyst at Tiger Management Corporation (1990-1997), mass-market retailing analyst at Goldman Sachs (1984-1990) and consultant at Mars and Company (1982-1984).  Mr. Mandel graduated from Dartmouth College (1978) and Harvard Business School (1982).



John Paulson

JOHN  PAULSON is the President and Portfolio Manager of Paulson & Co. Inc., an SEC-registered investment management company specializing in global merger, event arbitrage and credit strategies.  The firm was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in New York with offices in London and Hong Kong.  Mr. Paulson received his MBA with high distinction, as a Baker Scholar, from Harvard Business School in 1980.  He graduated summa cum laude in Finance from New York University’s College of Business and Public Administration in 1978.  Prior to forming Paulson in 1994, John was a general partner of Gruss Partners and a managing director in mergers and acquisitions at Bear Stearns.



Larry Robbins

LARRY ROBBINS is the Founder, Portfolio Manager and CEO of Glenview Capital Management, a $4 billion hedge fund. Glenview is focused on delivering attractive absolute returns through an intense focus on deep fundamental research and individual security selection.  Prior to founding Glenview, Larry spent six years as an analyst and partner at Omega Advisors on their US equity long/short team.  He joined Omega after three years at Gleacher & Company, a merger and advisory boutique in New York. Larry graduated with honors from the Wharton School and Moore School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, where he received his B.S. in Economics and Engineering. Larry became a CPA in 1991.



Kenneth Rogoff

KENNETH  ROGOFF is Thomas D. Cabot  Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University.  From 2001-2003, Rogoff served as Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund. Rogoff’s treatise Foundations of International Macroeconomics (joint with Maurice Obstfeld) is the standard graduate text in the field worldwide, and his monthly syndicated column on global economic issues is published regularly in over 50 countries.  His recent book with Carmen Reinhart, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly is an international bestseller. He holds the life title of international grandmaster of chess.  He is 2011 winner of the biennial Deutsche Bank Prize awarded by the Center for Financial Economics, as well as the 2011 Adam Smith award. Rogoff is on the Economic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.



John Wilder

JOHN  WILDER is Chairman of Bluescape Resources, a company with investments as well as energy operations in the US and Italy.  He is also the Chairman of Parallel Resource Partners, a partnership with Carlson Capital focused on making control-oriented distressed investments in the North American upstream oil and gas sector.  Mr. Wilder’s prior achievements include spearheading two of the energy industry’s most successful financial and operational turnarounds (TXU and Entergy). Under his leadership, TXU delivered 70% annualized returns to shareholders (7th best in the S&P 500). The Harvard Business Review named Mr. Wilder one of the Best-Performing CEOs in the World. Institutional Investor magazine has ranked Mr. Wilder as one of the ten best CEOs in America, the best CEO in the electric power sector and a top CFO.  He began his career in the energy business 30 years ago with the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, where he rose to the position of CEO at Shell Capital in London.  Mr. Wilder graduated magna cum laude from Southeast Missouri State University with a B.A. in Business Administration and has received the University’s Distinguished Alumni Award.  He earned his MBA from the University of Texas.



Meryl Witmer

MERYL WITMER is a general partner at Eagle Capital Partners. Limiting risk and investing in strong businesses with great free cash flow characteristics, at a significant discount to their intrinsic value is the foundation of Eagle Capital’s investment philosophy.  Meryl began her investing career at Mutual Series Fund, working with Michael Price and Max Heine.  She graduated from McIntire School of Commerce at The University of Virginia, earning a B.S. with a concentration in Finance.