Richard Sarnoff
Chairman of Media, Americas Private Equity
KKR
Richard Sarnoff is the Chairman of Media for KKR’s Private Equity platform in the Americas in 2022. From 2014 through 2021, he served first as Managing Director and then as Partner and Head of the Media and Communications industry group, leading investments in the Media, Telecom, Information Services, Digital Media and Education sectors in the US. From 2011 to 2014, Mr. Sarnoff was a Senior Adviser to KKR. Mr. Sarnoff currently serves on the Board of Directors of Simon & Schuster, OverDrive, Teaching Strategies, Chegg, AST SpaceMobile and Lightcast, as well as numerous not-for-profit organizations. Until 2011, Mr. Sarnoff was a longstanding senior executive at Bertelsmann AG, Europe’s largest media company, where he served in the early 2000’s as EVP and Chief Financial Officer of Bertelsmann’s book publishing division, Random House, during which time he also Chaired the Association of American Publishers (AAP.) In 2006, Mr. Sarnoff established Bertelsmann's digital media arm, BDMI, and as President oversaw the corporation’s global investment activities in digital media. In 2008, Mr. Sarnoff was named Co-Chairman of Bertelsmann’s US holding company, Bertelsmann Inc., and served on the Supervisory Board of Bertelsmann AG for six years. Mr. Sarnoff holds a BA from Princeton University in Art History and an MBA from Harvard University.