Starwood Capital Founder Barry Sternlicht to Receive Business Award

Greenwich Library will honor Barry S. Sternlicht, founder, chairman and CEO of the global private investment firm Starwood Capital Group, as the 10th recipient of the Peterson Business Award.

Alan Schwartz, executive chairman of Guggenheim Partners, will present the award to Sternlicht at the 10th Anniversary Peterson Business Award Dinner, to be held at 7 p.m. March 2, at the Greenwich Hyatt Regency Hotel. Library Trustees Dan Daniels and Robert Marks are serving as co-chairs of the event. The dinner is held every other year and is the library’s only major fundraiser.

The Peterson Business Award was established in 1997 by the Greenwich Library and the Peterson Foundation to “recognize and honor an individual whose innovative thinking, leadership, and sustained record of achievement has had a profound impact on the national and global economy, and whose words and deeds have demonstrated a commitment to intellectual freedom and open access to information.”

President of the Greenwich Library Board of Trustees Haley Elmlinger said in a statement, “We are pleased to present the 10th Peterson Business Award to such a distinguished honoree. Barry Sternlicht embodies all the attributes of this accolade, which celebrates leaders who have made significant contributions to both business and society.”

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The Peterson Business Award is named in honor of Clementine Lockwood Peterson, whose $25 million bequest in 1992 funded a new 32,000 square-foot wing at the Greenwich Library. Designed by architect Cesar Pelli, this wing contains expanded business and music collections. Peterson’s gift was made in memory of her son, Jonathan, and her husband, J. Whitney Peterson. The Peterson Business Award was conceived in order to celebrate Mrs. Peterson’s generosity and to recognize outstanding business leadership.

Previous Peterson Business Award winners have included some of the country’s most prominent corporate leaders. They include: Louis V. Gerstner Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM; Sanford Weill, Chairman of Citigroup; William B. Harrison Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JP Morgan Chase; Dr. Henry A. McKinnell, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer Inc.; Thomas J. Neff, Chairman of Spencer Stuart; Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo; Peter T. Grauer, Chairman of Bloomberg L.P.; Robert K. Steel, New York City Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, and Robert Goergen, Founder and Executive Chairman of Blyth, Inc.

For additional information or tickets, contact Greenwich Library Development Director Nancy Klein at 203-622-7957 or nklein@greenwichlibrary.org. Tickets start at $375.

Contributed photo: Barry Sternlicht.