Greg Benson

Gregory M. Benson is a co-founder of HGGC, the Palo Alto–based private equity firm he helped establish in 2007 alongside Richard F. Lawson, former NFL quarterback Steve Young, and Robert C. Gay, with early backing from industrialist Jon M. Huntsman. The firm originally operated as Huntsman Gay Capital Partners (later Huntsman Gay Global Capital) before rebranding to HGGC in 2013. Benson today carries the title of Co-Founder and Executive Director; per HGGC's own designation, Executive Directors serve as advisors to the firm rather than as day-to-day employees. He stepped back from daily operations around 2018 but remains associated with the firm's investment committees and legacy board seats.

Before HGGC, Benson was an Executive Vice President and senior member of Bain Capital's team, where (joining in the mid-1990s) he helped launch and build the firm's London-based European private equity business. Earlier, he spent roughly sixteen years at General Electric in a range of senior management roles spanning business startups and finance, culminating as President of GE's Capital Markets Group and CEO of Merchant Banking within GE Financial Services — where he oversaw more than a dozen transactions valued at over $5 billion.

Benson earned his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota. Over his career he has held board positions with numerous portfolio and industrial companies, including Nutraceutical International (NASDAQ: NUTR), ICON Health & Fitness (NordicTrack/ProForm), hybris, Hollander, American Pad & Paper, Grand Isle Shipyard, Turner Bros., Walco International, Medical Edge Healthcare Group, and Pearl Holding (an HGGC Fund II investment on whose board he continues to serve).

• Invests through HGGC's "Advantaged Investing" model — partnering with founders, executives, and sponsors as aligned co-investors rather than passive capital.
• Targets profitable, middle-market companies (typically $10M–$100M EBITDA), not early-stage/seed startups.
• Deploys equity checks in the ~$25M–$150M range with a "full toolkit" approach: full-control, shared-control, and minority structures, in both private and public companies.
• Core sectors: technology, business services, financial services, and consumer, with a strong emphasis on software and tech-enabled services in the firm's more recent funds.
• Strategy blends platform buyouts with an active add-on / buy-and-build acquisition program to scale portfolio companies.