Joseph Baratta is the Global Head of Private Equity and a member of Blackstone’s Board of Directors. He is also a member of the firm’s Management Committee and serves on many of the firm’s investment committees. Mr. Baratta joined Blackstone in 1998 and in 2001 he moved to London to help establish Blackstone’s corporate private equity business in Europe. Since 2012, Mr. Baratta has served as the firm’s Global Head of Private Equity and is located in New York. Mr. Baratta has served on the boards of many past Blackstone portfolio companies and currently serves as a member or observer on the boards of Ancestry, Candle Media, First Eagle Investment Management, Medline, Merlin Entertainments Group and Copeland. He is also a former member of the Board of Trustees of Georgetown University; is a trustee of the Tate Foundation; and serves on the board of Year Up, an organization focused on youth employment. Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Baratta was with Tinicum Incorporated and McCown De Leeuw & Company. Mr. Baratta also worked at Morgan Stanley in its mergers and acquisitions department. Mr. Baratta graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University.