WASHINGTON (JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump named Stephen Schwarzman, a leading money manager and a contributor to Jewish and Catholic causes, as chairman of a group of leading businessmen who will advise him on economic policy.
Schwarzman, a billionaire who founded the Blackstone Group, an equity management firm, will lead a 16-person “strategic and policy forum” that will advise Trump on “how government policy impacts economic growth, job creation, and productivity,” a release Friday from Trump’s transition team said.
Schwarzman is known to joke about his interfaith marriage with Christine Hearst, a Roman Catholic. He has fundraised for the Archdiocese of New York, as well as for the American Jewish Committee and an array of charities.
He is one of at least six members of the 16-member board who are Jewish or who have Jewish ties. Others include Daniel Yergin, an authority on the role energy plays in international affairs; Mark Weinberger, the chairman of Ernst and Young, the tax accounting giant, who was honored with the 2012 Anti-Defamation League Achievement Award; Larry Fink, who helms BlackRock, an investment management firm; Robert Iger, the Disney CEO; and Kevin Warsh, a former governor of the Federal Reserve who is married to Jane Lauder, an heiress to the Lauder cosmetics fortune.
