Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman Hosts 10th Reunion for Schwarzman Scholars Program in Beijing

BEIJING (Substrate) -- In late April, Steve Schwarzman, CEO and Chairman of Blackstone, hosted 1,300 alumni at the 10th reunion celebration for the Schwarzman Scholars program in the New Tsinghua Xuetan auditorium at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The circular, brick-hued auditorium resembles a totem from another age, drawing scholars back to the campus known as the MIT of China.

At 79, Schwarzman was approached by many scholars for selfies during the event.

'Everyone wanted to take selfies with me. ' he said. -China ties. -China relations were at their height in terms of cooperation,' Schwarzman said. 'I knew we’d go through cycles that would be tense. ' @FortuneMagazine reported these remarks as Schwarzman emphasized the need for direct engagement with China amid rising geopolitical frictions.

Inspired by the Rhodes Scholar program, the Schwarzman Scholars initiative brings students aged 22 to 28 from across the globe to spend a year at Tsinghua University immersed in understanding China. , 20% from China, and 40% from around the world. Around half have just graduated from college, while the balance have worked for up to five years, often seeking leadership in government, non-profits, international aid organizations, and entrepreneurship.

Examples include a dentist from Ireland aiming to reform public health in his nation and a Harvard graduate who launched a VC-backed biotech startup in California. 'Our goal is to choose the leaders of tomorrow, whether it’s in business, law, medicine, politics, non-profits or another field,' Schwarzman said. 5% acceptance rate for candidates picked outside China.

5%. 5%,' Schwarzman said. The curriculum rests on three pillars: leadership, global affairs, and China.

Students take classes in lecture halls at Schwarzman College, a separate campus at Tsinghua modeled on venues at Harvard and Oxford, and can choose courses at the broader university. Schwarzman College encompasses 200,000 square feet of buildings designed by architect Robert A. M.

U.K. aristocratic academies. Each course runs four to eight weeks, taught by visiting professors from institutions including Stanford, Harvard, Sciences Po in France, and the University of Singapore.

A required full-year 'China Core' course focuses on China's role in the global economy, historical and political transformation, and foreign relations, including mandatory Mandarin instruction for non-natives. The program includes deep dive trips to different cities in China, where students meet business heads and local officials, with a full-time contacts person arranging meetings with business, political, and non-profit elite.

It offers fifteen such trips per class to metros outside Beijing, such as Wuxi, a tech capital with pioneering players in bio and medtech, and Shenzhen, known as China's Silicon Valley.

At the end of the ten-month program, students write and defend a pass-fail Capstone thesis before a jury of professors and receive a Master's in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University, considered one of the ten best universities in the world. The Schwarzman Scholars program is the largest internationally-funded philanthropic program in China.

Schwarzman first became interested in China when a Chinese sovereign wealth fund proposed purchasing a $3 billion stake in Blackstone's 2007 IPO, leading to an expansion of the offering to $7 billion.

That experience prompted him to join an international advisory board at Tsinghua University, pioneered by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Schwarzman contributed $100 million initially to start the fundraising campaign, which has raised around $600 million to date. Donors include Ray Dalio of Bridgewater and philanthropic arms of British Petroleum, GE, and Volkswagen.

The initiative aims to build a global network of tomorrow's leaders who have experienced China up close. Alumni stories illustrate the program's impact. Jay Li, a Chinese national who attended the University of Rochester and worked for the NBA in New York, joined the first Schwarzman Scholars class in 2017.

On a deep dive trip, Li visited Suzhou in eastern China near Shanghai, where he was born but had not returned in 20 years. 'The city had this great industrial heritage. I was born there, but it was my first time in the city in 20 years.

You got the look and feel of how industrial the city had become, the huge industrial parks everywhere, it was amazing to back to where I was born and almost not knowing where I was,' Li said. His group also visited Hong Kong and received a briefing from Neil Shen, chief of Sequoia in China and known as the most famous venture capitalist in Asia.

After completing the program, Li worked as chief of staff to Yao Ming, who was Commissioner of the Chinese Basketball Association.

He later built the Asian University Basketball League, with teams from China, South Korea, Mongolia, and others competing in playoffs; Joe Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets, is an investor in the league. 'Schwarzman Scholars gives you the mindset to be constantly challenging yourself, and striving to change the world.

Or indeed sold a figure of Tsai’s stature on a sporting venture that’s a first in Asia,' Li said.

Wassa Cisse, from Ivory Coast where she worked in climate management, joined the 2024 cohort. 'It’s a very green city. It features water parks and mountains and sustainable farming.

It’s unusual in having much more ecotourism and farming and less industry. It’s also green in manufacturing. I learned about their innovative use of cotton materials that creates eco-friendly high-performance textiles via blending with silk or cashmere,' Cisse said.

Sophia Lugo, a member of the 2018 cohort who was pre-med studying microbiology at Harvard, visited BGI headquarters in Shenzhen on a deep dive trip. She secured an internship at BGI through contacts made at a conference. S.

'You’d be forced to have these conversations and debates at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was under intense pressure to be incredibly caught up on political and current affairs. It made me feel awake all the time.

It was the most intellectually intense program I did in my education,' Lugo said. After the program, she obtained an MBA from Stanford and is now CEO of biotech company Radar Therapeutics, developing genetic medicines. The oldest Schwarzman Scholars graduates are in their mid-30s, with the average age under 30.

'We’ll need to wait until they reach middle age to see what they end up creating. They haven’t hit their stride unless they’re in AI,' Schwarzman said.