Pierpont
Private Capital.
Purpose at the Center.
Pierpont is the private family office of Dr. Terry LaPier and his family. It was founded in 1996, while Dr. LaPier was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, as a private equity and strategic advisory firm. It has grown into the single roof under which the family holds its direct investments, its operating companies, its advisory commitments, and its philanthropy.
The founding was not a departure from the classroom. It was an extension of it. From 1996 onward, the work of Pierpont and the work at Wharton ran together: the chief executives who came into the lecture hall as guests became partners in ventures; the students who built their first platforms in the course came back years later as founders with a transaction to structure. Pierpont was built out of those relationships, and it is still built out of them.
Pierpont is not a fund. We do not raise on a cycle, and we are under no obligation to deploy or exit on anyone else’s calendar. Pierpont commits its own capital first. Where a strategic acquisition or growth opportunity warrants greater scale, we accept external funding alongside it — selectively, by relationship, and always on the same terms and the same horizon as our own.
Pierpont invests its own capital first, and welcomes aligned external funding for strategic acquisitions and growth.
Purpose-centered is not a description of what Pierpont believes. It is a description of how the day is measured.
Every enterprise has a scorecard. Most of them count the same things — revenue, multiple, spread, exit. Those are real and Pierpont keeps them honestly. But they are the second scorecard. The first one is three questions, asked at the close of the day, of every engagement, every board seat, every classroom hour, and every gift:
- I.What value did we create today?
- II.Who did we help today?
- III.How can we help others more?
Thirty years in, the questions have not been revised. They have simply been asked more often.
Pierpont was founded on a conviction that has not changed in thirty years: entrepreneurs and principled executives are unique leaders whose vision and energy are the true core assets of any enterprise.
We work through constructive, confidential partnerships with founders, corporate leaders, institutions, and — where appropriate — government entities. Our involvement is deliberately unobtrusive. We provide judgment, network, and, in the right situations, timely capital to expand a business or acquire a target.
We take the long view because we can. A family office measures in decades and generations, not in fund life. That patience is our principal competitive advantage, and we treat it as one.
Capital follows purpose and leadership, not the reverse.
Own capital, invested directly in growth-oriented private companies. We hold for as long as the business rewards holding.
Participation is by relationship and invitation. The family invests on the same terms as its partners.
Healthcare, healthcare education, and workforce development. These are not passive positions. Where we own, we build.
Selective engagements with founders, chief executives, boards, and institutions — accepted where the relationship, not the fee, is the reason.
- Operational experience
- Real P&L accountability inside companies and divisions of large companies across several industries.
- An expert network
- Chief executives, investors, and leading business minds, built over three decades of teaching, investing, and board service.
- Analytics-based judgment
- A disciplined, evidence-led approach to strategy, treating data and analytics as a strategic capability rather than a technology purchase.
- A standing advisory bench
- Assembled by focal area rather than drawn from a fixed roster. The team that arrives is the team the situation calls for.
- Aligned capital
- Because the capital is our own, our interests are permanently aligned with the businesses and institutions we support.
- Purpose at the center
- The three questions are asked every day, of every engagement. They set the floor under what the office will take on.
The distinguishing feature of the program was not its syllabus. It was who was in the room.
The Wharton Years“What a mindset shift! This is the way to think about having the proper ethics and value creation. My eight years of lecturing and mentoring with Terry at Wharton proved to me America has an outstanding future.”
Co-founder of Carlyle Group
“I worked with Terry LaPier for over ten years as a CEO mentor and lecturer in his Wharton classes. It continued to amaze me to see the cutting-edge business development and growth strategies he comes up with — and the level of innovation thinking that he inspires.”
Co-founder of Nextel
“LaPier’s energy, creative ideas for corporate innovation, and ability to actually implement new ventures into organizations are proven qualities — demonstrated over and over again with great success.”
former President of Associated Press and former President & Publisher of USA Today
“Pierpont & Terry’s team approach and creativity is unparalleled for creating entrepreneurial value! My years of lecturing with Terry at Wharton opened my eyes to even more outstanding business concepts and greatness!”
Co-founder of Outback Steakhouse and present Partner with PDQ
Bechtel The Carlyle Group Morgan Stanley Goldman Sachs Shell DuPont Merck GlaxoSmithKline Nextel webMethods CarrAmerica the Associated Press USA Today Dragados of Spain Birmann of Brazil Turner Brazil Cambridge Health Wellington Services Wellington Investors Pegasus
Dr. Terrence W. LaPier
Dr. Terrence W. LaPier founded Pierpont in 1996 while on the faculty of the Wharton School, where he taught entrepreneurial value creation for seventeen years and received the school’s Fifteen-Year Outstanding Entrepreneurship Teaching Award. He is Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Health and has been a principal in or adviser to more than one hundred transactions. He holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, completed Wharton’s Advanced Management Program, and is a graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School.
Boards, fellowships, and servicePierpont exists in service of a stated intention: to create significant wealth and to give it away with the same discipline used to build it.
The family’s giving is concentrated in Catholic higher education, healthcare, nursing, and the formation of young leaders, expressed through trusteeship, board service, teaching, and direct support.
