Josh Farran

Josh Farran is a Principal at Leonard Green & Partners (LGP), one of the largest and most established private equity firms in the United States, founded in 1989 and headquartered in a single Los Angeles office. He joined the firm as an Associate in 2015 and has since risen to Principal, participating in the deal teams that evaluate, execute, and manage LGP's control-oriented investments. Bloomberg and several data providers still list his title as Vice President, reflecting a prior rung; LGP's own team page currently lists him as Principal.

Before LGP, Farran worked at Barclays in the Financial Sponsors and Real Estate groups in Los Angeles, gaining leveraged-finance and M&A experience serving private equity clients — a common pipeline into buyout investing. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Accounting from the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

At LGP, Farran operates within a firm that manages roughly $75–85 billion in assets and has completed more than 95–160 investments since inception across traditional buyouts, going-private transactions, recapitalizations, growth equity, and selective public equity and debt positions. LGP describes its people as "growth coaches" who partner with market-leading companies to help them scale, emphasizing a collaborative, single-office, team-oriented culture rather than a startup/angel model.

*Note: These reflect LGP's firm-level strategy; Farran invests firm capital rather than personal angel checks, so founder-stage/seed pitches are outside the firm's mandate.*

• Invests LGP capital in established, market-leading, growth-oriented companies — not early-stage startups. The firm frames itself as a "partner of choice" and "growth coaches who seek to help our companies scale."
• Deal types: traditional leveraged buyouts, take-privates, recapitalizations, and growth/structured equity, plus selective public equity and debt positions.
• Sector focus: services (consumer, healthcare, business services), distribution, industrials, retail, restaurants, and branded consumer businesses.
• Large equity commitments funded from multi-billion-dollar funds (e.g., Green Equity Investors VII at ~$9.6B; two 2019 funds totaling ~$14.75B; the inaugural Sage Equity Investors long-hold fund at over $3.6B).
• Emphasis on the stakeholder model, job creation, and employee ownership — LGP cites ~429,000 employees across its portfolio (year-end 2023) and a 19% average CAGR in headcount.