IMPACT Team

Impact is built and driven by leaders who feel a responsibility and duty to improve our civic life and discourse. They come from various backgrounds with differing views and perspectives but all share the common bond that objective analysis, open minds, and hard work are the key ingredients to progress.

Gregory Elek

Gregory is the Director of Investments for Peterson Management, the family office of Peter G. Peterson (co-founder of The Blackstone Group). He is a generalist, working on special situation investments in the public and private realms. Previously, he was a research analyst at Goldman Sachs, covering energy, industrial and services-based sectors. Prior to Goldman, he was the co-founder of Gradefund and CFO of DormAid, a national college-services business, where he helped lead the growth and eventual sale. In his spare time, he competes in long-distance triathlons and marathons.  Gregory graduated from Columbia University with a BA in Economics, where he was a Division I swimmer and co-founder of the Columbia Financial Investment Group.

What ideas or efforts do you think will or have changed the world the most?

As Jared Diamond has eloquently put it…”guns, germs and steel”.  Free speech, healthcare and technology have and will continue to push mankind and other species forward.

What do you think some of the most pressing problems we face are?

Misinformation and education; hunger and poverty; climate change and deforestation

If you could make one improvement in the world what would it be?

My goal is to create a forum for people to listen and hear each other, especially on pressing, long-term issues that will face us as a collective.  Data and statistically relevant information are powerful tools that should help inform and drive better policies.  My hope is that we can bring the best information and people to the discussion as well as the positives and negatives of different solutions.  There is never just one solution for all.  To solve some of our most fundamental problems, we should strive to be a part of a process that opens people’s minds to paths not previously seen or understood.  To me, Impact PSF brings us one step closer to this goal.