Joshua S. Friedman is Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC, a leading global alternative asset management firm. Canyon employs a deep value, credit intensive approach with a focus on special situations and other complex investments. The firm’s strategies include distressed, special situation financings, securitized assets, real estate, arbitrage, convertible bonds, and value equities. Canyon’s flagship fund, the Canyon Value Realization Fund, twice received Institutional Investor’s “Credit-Focused Hedge Fund Manager of the Year” Award. Additionally, the Canyon Structured Asset Fund received Institutional Investor’s “Hybrid Hedge Fund of the Year” Award. Mr. Friedman has also received Institutional Investor’s “Lifetime Achievement” Award.
Mr. Friedman is a graduate of Harvard College (1976) (B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Physics), Oxford University (1978) (M.A., honors, Politics and Economics, Marshall Scholar), Harvard Business School (1980) (M.B.A., Baker Scholar) and Harvard Law School (1982) (J.D., Sears Prize, magna cum laude). Prior to forming Canyon, Mr. Friedman was Director of Capital Markets for High Yield and Private Placements at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Prior to working at Drexel, he worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of Goldman Sachs in New York.
Mr. Friedman is a member of the George W. Bush Presidential Center Executive Advisory Council. Additionally, Mr. Friedman serves on the boards and/or investment committees of a number of endowments and foundations including Harvard Management Company (Chair of Audit and Compensation Committee), the Harvard Committee on University Resources, the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (Chair of Investment Committee); California Institute of Technology (Caltech) (Executive Committee and Investment Committee (ex-Chair)); Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (Finance Committee); and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (Executive Committee, Chair of Finance Committee).
Mr. Friedman formerly served as a Trustee for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2015-2020) and as a member of the Investment Committee of the J. Paul Getty Trust (2019-2021). Mr. Friedman also formerly served on the Board of Advisors of the UCLA Hospital Department of Neurosurgery (2009-2020); the UCLA Anderson School of Management (2017-2020); and the California Science Center (2010-2012).
Mr. Friedman and his wife, Beth, live in Dallas and have three sons. Mr. and Mrs. Friedman co-endowed the Star-Friedman Challenge for Promising Scientific Research at Harvard University and are 2019 recipients of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
