Raymond J. Harbert is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Harbert Management Corporation, one of the largest alternative asset investment management firms in the Southeast. Harbert’s lifelong entrepreneurial pursuits began early in life at age 15 when he founded Penbryn Hill Catering, which he ran throughout his high school years.
After graduating from Auburn University with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Management, Harbert went to work for Harbert International, Inc., the construction subsidiary of Harbert Corporation, and the company his father, John Harbert, had founded and built over a span of four decades. In 1990, at the age of 31, Harbert was promoted to president and CEO of Harbert Corporation, which was a multi-billion-dollar diversified conglomerate. In 1993, Harbert launched Harbert Management Corporation, the first multi alternative asset investment management firm in Alabama. Today, HMC manages ten different investment strategies from eight U.S. and four European offices with over $8 billion of assets under management.
Harbert serves on the boards and executive committees of the Robert Meyer Foundation, Children’s of Alabama, Birmingham Business Alliance and is chairman of the Newcomen Society of Alabama. He is also a Trustee Emeritus of Auburn University, where the College of Business is named for him. He previously served on the board of the Alabama Trust Fund and is a past member of Leadership Alabama. In 2006, Harbert was awarded the regional Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Financial Services, and he was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor in 2015.
Raymond and Kathryn Harbert are active philanthropists, having made significant gifts both in time and capital to numerous organizations including Auburn University, Red Mountain Theatre, Children’s of Alabama, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and United Way of Central Alabama, where they were awarded the United Way Tocqueville Society Award in 2018. They have three children and nine grandchildren and live in Birmingham, Alabama.
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