Mala Gaonkar

Mala Gaonkar was born in the United States in November 1969 but primarily grew up in Bengaluru, India. She attended Spanish River High School in Florida, graduating in 1987. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1991 and later an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1996. 

Marriage and Personal Life  

Mala Gaonkar was previously married to Oliver Haarmann, a private equity businessman, with whom she has two sons. 

After the divorce from him, she married David Byrne, the musician and a former Talking Heads frontman. Despite her remarkably hectic schedule, Gaonkar manages to balance her family and personal life well.  

Professional Career 

She started her career at Boston Consulting Group, having worked in both Munich and Hong Kong offices. She next worked as an analyst at Chase Capital Partners before becoming a founding partner of Lone Pine Capital in 1998. 

While there, she spent 23 years as a portfolio manager responsible for technology, media, internet, and telecommunications sectors, with additional responsibilities as co-portfolio manager of the firm's long-only funds. In 2022, she left Lone Pine to found SurgoCap Partners, launching it with $1.8 billion under management-the largest debut hedge fund led by a woman. 

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Philanthropy and Public Health 

In 2015, Gaonkar founded the Surgo Foundation with Sema Sgaier and Malcolm Gladwell to apply AI and behavioral insights to solve some of the most intractable problems in global public health, starting with India's sanitation crises. This evolved into Surgo Ventures in 2020 to further amplify its partnerships and impact in global health. 

He is also a founding trustee or board member of the Tate Foundation, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Ariadne Labs, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and the RAND Corporation, among several others. 

Creative and Literary Interests 

Gaonkar worked with musician David Byrne on the immersive theater performance "Theater of the Mind." 

She is also a published short story writer and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, showing her engagement beyond the world of finance and philanthropy.  

Board Memberships and Advisory Positions 

Gaonkar's influence extends through her memberships on advisory boards such as The Economist's, Harvard University's South Asia Initiative, and the Paris Review Foundation, reflecting her broad interests and leadership beyond finance.

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