Find out more about Thomas H. Lee’s wife Ann Tenenbaum as the businessman sadly dies aged 78.
The investor was one of the early pioneers in private equity and his firm Thomas H Lee Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms in the world.
He was found dead at his Manhattan office on Fifth Avenue on Thursday morning (February 23) from what is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
However, his official cause of death has not been revealed yet. Friend Michael Sitrick said the family is “extremely saddened” by Thomas H Lee’s death.
The finance mogul leaves behind his wife of 27 years Ann, who he met through his love of art…
Who is Thomas H. Lee’s wife Ann Tenenbaum?
Ann is known in the art world and is on the Board of Trustees at the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The 61-year-old previously served on the Visiting Committee of the Department of Photographs there, Prabook reveals.
Born in Savannah, Georgia, she was also vice chairman of the Dia Art Foundation from 1994 to 2006 and co-president of the Film Society Lincoln Center for Performing Arts.
She is one of the founding members of the Bard College Center Curatorial Studies too and has served on the board of directors for many other groups.
This includes Sarah Lawrence College, which she attended, Studio Museum, Second Stage Theatre and Guild Hall in East Hampton.
They have three children together
The pair wed 27 years ago, in 1996, and went on to have three children together, sons Jesse and Nathan and a daughter called Rosalie.
He also has two children from his first marriage to a woman called Barbara Fish Lee. They are both sons, Zach and Robbie.
In an interview with Forbes in 1997, shortly after they wed, the finance mogul denied that she was his trophy wife and said: “She is my partner.”
At the time, she was a member of the photography acquisition committee at The Met and served on the Advisory Council for the Center for Media Communications at Harvard’s School of Public Health.
In 2020, in honor of The Met’s 150th anniversary, the pair gifted 62 masterpieces of photography from the last 100 years to the museum.
Thomas had a staggering net worth of approximately $2 billion at the time of his death, but that’s nothing compared to Elon Musk.
The Tesla founder turned Twitter CEO makes an estimated $375 per second.
Meet the businessman’s first wife
From 1968 to 1995, the billionaire was married to American philanthropist Barbara F. Lee.
She founded the Barbara Lee Family Foundation and the Barbara Lee Political Office and donates lots of money to Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art.
The 77-year-old also publically and financially supported Hillary Clinton’s 2016 US presidential campaign and is a good friend of hers.
Like her ex-husband and his new wife Ann Tenenbaum, she is also a keen art collector and one of the top 200 in the United States.
