Peter G. Peterson

Peter G. Peterson – (Petros Petropoulos)

(June 5, 1926 – March 20, 2018)

He was born in the US in 1926. His father Georgios Petropoulos was born in Vachlia Gortynias (Arcadia) and moved to Nebraska at the age of 17. He changed his name to George Peterson. He married Venetia Papapavlou, who also came from Greece, and they had Peter. Peter Peterson served as Vice President of Lehman Brothers and as Secretary of Commerce under the Nixon administration.

During his tenure, he closed some of the biggest business deals in the world. He co-founded along with Stephen Schwarzman the investment firm the Blackstone Group and served as its President for many years. In 2008, he founded the Peter G. Peterson Foundation committing $1 billion of his own funds to it. In 2006, the Institute for International Economics was renamed Peterson Institute for International Economics in his honor and he took over as President. In 2010, he signed, along with 40 other billionaires, “The Giving Pledge” that encouraged American multimillionaires to give away half of their fortune to charity.

Peterson was married and had 5 children and 9 grandchildren.

Archbishop Demetrios of America and the Leadership 100 Chairman, Constantine G. Caras, honor Peter Peterson with the ‘Archbishop Iakovos Leadership 100 Award for Excellence’.