Julie Macklowe

Julie Macklowe is an American beauty entrepreneur and businesswoman. She is founder and spokesperson of vbeauté, a luxury skincare line offering affordable Swiss botanical skincare products to all women helping them to feel confident and beautiful. She is also an investor, former hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and socialite.

Macklowe was born in Aspen and raised in Arizona, the daughter of Frank Lerner who took over her grandfather's T-shirt company and turned it into a women’s sportswear company. She completed her B.A. in Economics and B.S. in Commerce with concentrations in Finance and MIS at the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce in 1999. During her time at UVA, she held internships at Goldman Sachs and Neuberger Berman.

In 2000, Macklowe worked with Chase Capital Management (now JPMorgan Partners) in Seoul and Hong Kong where she helped structure leverage buyouts. Between 2003 and 2006, Macklowe was the Managing Director of Metropolitan Capital Management, and in 2006, she joined the investment firm SAC, where she managed investment portfolios for Sigma Capital Management.

In 2009, backed by Millenium Partners, Macklowe opened her own $250 million hedge fund, Macklowe Asset Management. In October 2010, Macklowe closed the fund to pursue her own investments in fashion businesses.

In an interview the following year discussing her twelve years in finance, she said, "I haven’t looked at a stock since the day I left.”

After leaving a career in hedge funds and finance, Macklowe turned to the fashion industry leveraging her prior business experience, understanding of the mechanics of the industry thanks to her family's clothing business, and her innate feel for style to search the fashion industry for good investments.

In December 2010 Macklowe’s first fashion industry investment, BaubleBar, launched with help from Accel Partners. The online startup, founded by two Harvard business graduates with backgrounds in finance, sells jewelry direct from suppliers and designers which normally work with retailers. Macklowe helped the company in its initial efforts, raising over $1 million and she currently sits on the company’s board.

Macklowe was the muse for Zang Toi, whom she met two years earlier, for his Spring 2013 collection and debuted on the runway show September 9, 2012.

...
Wikipedia