KEITH MEISTER

Meister started in investment banking at Lazard Freres, then moved to NorthStar Capital before joining Carl Icahn's operation in the early 2000s. He rose fast, becoming CEO and Vice Chairman of Icahn Enterprises, where he ran high-profile restructurings and activist campaigns alongside one of the most feared investors alive.

He left in 2010 and founded Corvex Management in 2011 with a huge vote of confidence, a reported $250 million seed investment from George Soros. At Corvex he has taken activist stakes in companies including MGM Resorts and Williams Companies.

He serves on the boards of MGM Resorts International and GeneDx Holdings. Outside investing, he chairs the Harlem Children's Zone, the anti-poverty education nonprofit.

Corvex Management, Icahn Enterprises

Meister hunts for badly undervalued companies where he thinks a nudge, or a shove, can unlock hidden value. That might mean pushing management to sell assets, change strategy, or bring in new leadership.

He absorbed the Icahn approach of buying a big stake and demanding change, but he frames his version as more constructive. His stated preference is to go after good companies with good boards, because they are more likely to actually adopt his ideas and get things done.

He describes activism as a tool, not a strategy, meaning he uses pressure only when a specific situation calls for it rather than as his whole identity.

The launch itself is a kind of win. Getting George Soros to seed your first fund with $250 million in 2011 is a stamp of approval few investors ever receive.

On the campaign side, Corvex's activist positions in large-cap names like Williams Companies and MGM Resorts have showcased his ability to influence big, complex companies. Meister's board seat and long involvement at MGM Resorts is a concrete example of an activist embedding himself to steer a major public company from the inside.

Activism against giant companies does not always work, and Meister has taken swings that did not fully connect. His campaign at Williams Companies unfolded amid a collapsed merger with Energy Transfer in 2016, a chaotic saga that showed how even a well-argued activist thesis can get swamped by industry shocks and boardroom drama outside an investor's control.

The lesson from his career is that betting big on a single corporate outcome means accepting that forces well beyond your spreadsheet can decide it.

Meister believes a public-market investor can and should act like a business owner, using the tools of activism to make companies more valuable rather than just trading their stocks. He sees the future of the field as public investors lending an owner's mindset to companies, not as corporate raiders kicking out bad CEOs.

He also worries that the rise of passive index funds leaves companies with too little accountability, since index funds are not equipped to hold managers' feet to the fire. In his words, activism is not about having fights.

Meister keeps his family life private. His public identity centers on Corvex and his philanthropic work with the Harlem Children's Zone.

Meister earned an A.B. in government, cum laude, from Harvard College in 1995 before beginning his finance career at Lazard Freres.

His real education in activism, though, came on the job under Carl Icahn, widely considered the toughest apprenticeship in the business.