Gilbert Klemann

Gilbert H. Klemann is the founder and Managing Partner of GHK Capital Partners, a Greenwich, Connecticut–based private equity firm he launched in 2018 to make control investments in middle-market industrial companies across North America. The firm has scaled quickly on the strength of an oversubscribed inaugural fund ($410M) and a second fund that closed oversubscribed at approximately $870 million.

Before founding GHK, Klemann spent roughly seventeen years at Goldman Sachs in its Principal Investment Area / Merchant Banking Division, investing in control private equity transactions across Industrials, Financial Services, Consumer Retail, and Media. Most recently at the firm, he led the private equity investing efforts across General and Diversified Industrials for West Street Capital Partners VII, a ~$7 billion Goldman Sachs–managed private equity fund. That long institutional grounding in industrials underpins GHK's tightly focused sector strategy.

Klemann earned an AB in Economics from Princeton University and an MBA in Finance and Accounting from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Beyond his investing role, he takes an active, board-level ownership posture: he has served as Chairman of the boards of GHK portfolio companies including Hasa, Inc., Dura Supreme Cabinetry, and Brown & Settle, among others.

• Invests in industrials — specialty manufacturing and distribution, building products, packaging, logistics, and engineering/construction services.
• Pursues control (majority) buyouts, not minority, seed, or angel-stage checks.
• Targets businesses with roughly $15M–$40M of EBITDA and attractive free cash flow, where GHK can identify "multiple avenues for growth."
• Emphasizes hands-on ownership and value creation, with Klemann and partners frequently taking board chairman/director roles at portfolio companies.
• Buy-and-build orientation: several platforms (e.g., cabinetry, water-treatment chemicals) are used as bases for follow-on acquisitions.