Mala Gaonkar

Gaonkar was born in November 1969[3] in the U.S. and mostly raised in Bengaluru, India.[4][2] She earned a degree from Harvard College in 1991, then an MBA from Harvard Business School[1] in 1996.[5]

Gaonkar was a founding partner of investment firm Lone Pine Capital, where she worked for 23 years and was a portfolio manager.[2] After graduating from Harvard College, she worked for Boston Consulting Group and completed her MBA at Harvard Business School before Lone Pine's inception in 1998. She is a trustee of Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), and was a founding trustee of Ariadne Labs, The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Technology,[6] as well as Surgo Foundation, which provides data science tools for a smarter public health ecosystem. She also serves as a trustee of RAND and of the Tate.[1] and is a member of Harvard's Global Advisory Council.

She collaborated with David Byrne in 2016 to create a guided immersive theater performance, Neurosociety.[7] In 2022, they co-created another immersive production, based on Byrne's life, "Theater of the Mind".[8]

In 2020, Gaonkar founded Surgo Ventures, a nonprofit organization.[2]

In 2022, she left Lone Pine Capital and started SurgoCap Partners, a hedge fund which was launched on January 3, 2023, managing $1.8 billion. This was the largest-ever debut of a hedge fund run by a woman.[2]

As an author, Mala Gaonkar has published short stories in Catamaran, Carolina Quarterly, and American Short Fiction. Her short story, "The New Maid" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize[9] and received special mention in its 2022 anthology.[10]

Gaonkar is married to fellow private equity manager, businessman Oliver Haarmann.[9] They have two sons, and live in London.[4][11] Gaonkar has taken the Giving Pledge.[2]