♪ narrator: our world today is wealthier than ever. but not everyone shares in this wealth. today's young business leaders are challenging this, changing the way we think about money, its power and its purpose. this is a new generation. this is the new philanthropy. ♪

>> what drives me every day to be successful his family, friends, and being able to support people and making those people proud. the hottest ticket in new york isn't the mets or the yankees, it is an invitation to an exclusive club in chelsea where one for year -- once a year, some of the most young professionals meet for a good cause. this is the brainchild of a 30-year-old investment manager. you are with the corporation with the heart of a charity and the mind of a business. that is a fact. >> i'm from chevy chase, maryland. i am with a small private equity firm. i enjoy business, negotiations,

i enjoy the hunt and the thrill of the chase of success. ♪ i worked at lehman for a year and a half right out of school. i was 22 years old. my responsibilities were grandiose. i started with getting coffee in getting spreadsheets. they were very good at getting responsibilities to young people. working to build models and track performances. and then being responsible for investment decisions and trading decisions. i was going to california for the weekend to go to a ohio

state football game, and then i flipped over to my bloomberg account, and it was red in all caps. lehman files for chapter one protection. o my god! how did this happen? people were taking stuff out of their desks and putting them into boxes. people smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor. pizza boxes everywhere. it was quite a scene. it was through no action of myself, or anyone on my floor, or anyone in my building. that was eye-opening for me. ♪

when i was there was i happy at , lehman? i was happy at times. i would not have been happy making a career there. i was frustrated without being able to impact those businesses. i had no impact on the future of general motors. i must market about what was happening with the actual business. just being frustrated by the lack of impact and change we could have on our investments. it is what started me on this path were we have a changeable impact and an ability to affect change in our portfolio. ♪ starting leading bridge was regaining control of my own destiny. whether i was successful or not, i would have control over successor future failure. and i was ok with that.

♪ >> i am david hughes, president and ceo of rugby architectural building products. we are a nationwide distributor of specialty building materials. we operate 28 locations across the united states. >> selling like gangbusters. we have u.s. distribution here. our relationship with zach coopersmith and leading bridge capital starting in august 2011 when zach invested in rugby. through growth capital and affiliated investors, we have grown the business to approximately $300 million in sales from $76 million in sales. having partners like leading

bridge and zach has been a special relationship, good chemistry. i think we have been able to grow faster and handle more opportunities as a result of my partnership with them. >> hey buddy. how are you doing? >> we help solve problems for small businesses. we have been able to provide a solution for a number of family businesses, small businesses, that have helped employees keep their jobs and employers keep their suppliers. alternately, grow those businesses that provide more opportunities for their employees. >> zach is wise beyond his years. he is not much older than my kids, so i think about that, how young he is. he is obviously a very bright guy. he provides a very good perspective because he challenges business decisions

and always asking questions. >> what i love about what i do, you get to really know the people you are dealing with and get to make it more about a spreadsheet or a business. it really becomes about their family, their wife, their kids, their aspirations, goals for life after business. ♪ >> so, there is still some cleanup to be done here. >> when the time is right to be able to help others, waiting for the time to be perfect, when you are 100% comfortable, then you are too late. when you have the opportunity to write a check or volunteer and make a difference, ticket and it -- take advantage of that opportunity. never a perfect time. never a perfect time.

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using his business skills to transfer him the philanthropy feels. >> nice to meet you. >> business has been in his blood from an early agea. lauren -- warren coopersmith, i am zach coopersmith's data. -- dad. our family business was mainly selling candies, snacks, and goods to movie theaters. -- to stores and movie theaters. it morphed into selling into video stores when they started coming about. we experimented with other things, tobacco, fancy foods, some failures, some successes. zach: my earliest memories are working in the warehouse of the candy distribution company. i got paid a quarter an hour. we grew up, summers and weekends in the family business, and always talking about business. everything i know in business, i learned from watching my dad.

watching him wake up at 4:00 in the morning loading trucks for 25 years. he has been through a lot. the house was mortgaged twice for the business to be successful. all kinds of sacrifices to be made. but he was always at my baseball game, my soccer game. he was able to find that balance. i think i try to emulate that a bit. work is important, being successful is important, but if you miss the rest of life, it's all for nothing. warren: zach's early business ventures were numerous. he started selling rocks that he would take out of a person's garden and try to sell it back to him. he was two years old or three years old. he had some success there, but no investment, so i guess that was an incredibly successful venture. that moved on to selling paper products in the neighborhood. since i stocked them in the warehouse, he put samples together.

it actually grew a little bit, he actually had an assistant in the neighborhood, putting these little packs together, and he would run around the neighborhood. he did all right with that type of thing. zach: if you want to talk about the first llc that was formed, i had a moon bounce rental company that i started off with a friend in my sophomore year of high school. we were 15 years old, i guess, when we started it. borrowed the money from our parents, bought a moon bounce. formed a business, insurance, the whole bit. six weeks in, we had no business. we sat down and said ok, what can we change? then we opened up the yellow pages and made phone calls, and that day we booked 14 jobs, which was a month and a half or two months of work in like a six-hour period. we were running around the basement. i remember it like yesterday. james was my partner, high five. we were going absolutely crazy. i went to college a few years later, and we were able to sell the business for more than we

had invested into it at the end. even though it was on quite a modest scale, it was starting a business from scratch, and we ended up selling it three years later for a profit. ♪ zach: as far as an early influence with philanthropy in my life, it would be my parents. again, i think from a very early age, it was instilled in me that when you are blessed in a way that allows you to help others, it is your duty to help others, whether in a small way, a big way, or somewhere in between, it is critical to do so. the first memory i have of philanthropy was a small county fair in virginia where we sold popcorn and cotton candy to raise money for a group of special needs children in the area. we woke up at 4:30 in the morning, went to the fairgrounds, set up shop, sold cotton candy and popcorn for a dollar apiece and raised a lot

of money to me at the time, to donate the money. we did it for a number of years. that was from the ages of 4, 5, or 6, early on, though, small dollars in the global philanthropy. the lessons learned, the values on philanthropy and the importance of philanthropy were certainly instilled from an early age. warren: you either within you have the instinct and the desire to give and share, or you do not. i think there should be a desire within that if your lifestyle changes and you are able to, and then you want to give back. ♪ zach: really no different than when we go look for a business to buy. i was looking for a charity to partner with and attach myself to, and make a wish was a very well known organization, a very fiscally responsible organization where most of the

dollars donated go toward granting wishes, and most importantly, i love the mission, what they did, why they existed. the impact they had on families and on children. ♪ [cheering] ♪ pat: i am pat clemency. i am ceo and president of make-a-wish in metro new york and western new york. the mission of make-a-wish is to grant wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions, to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy. we understand the importance today of the wish experience. it is part of patient care. we also understand its impact, not just in that moment, but over the lifetime of a child, of a family, of everyone in the

community who has been touched by that wish. zach: you become a better fundraiser, philanthropist, the more personally involved with the mission. directly impacting children and their families. ♪ zach: toast to wishes started six years ago. i was sitting around with a few friends and just saying hey, we go out in the city and we have fun, wouldn't it to be nice to go and try to have fun but do some good while being together? we felt like there was a void in the market, so to speak, of really fun charity events that supported great causes. just like a business finds a void in the market and fills it, that is what we did here by starting toast to wishes. we created a fun event that people love to come to, supporting a charity that people love to support.

we minimize cost and maximize the chance of success. the way it was set up, there was a venue that was going to closed otherwise, so there was no opportunity cost, all the liquor and food was donated, all the music was donated, all the auction items were donated, so the only cost was paying the staff there that night. how badly could it go? what was make-a-wish's reaction when i first approached them with this event? i guess their reaction was been there, done that, not going to work. you need to be persistent. if you believe in something strong enough, don't take no, and continue to push until you get what you want. for me, it was worth trying to help make-a-wish, trying to help kids, trying to grant wishes. do not stop me from doing that. we are going to be successful. we are going to raise a lot of money. let us raise the money. ♪

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narrator: investor zach coopersmith was on the board of make-a-wish when he spotted a gap in the new york philanthropy scene. the result is an annual party. it is attended by some of wall street's youngest and richest leading lights. zach: first of all, welcome, thank you so much for coming. we set out with a goal of $10,000, and hopefully have 150 people show up, and the first year we raised $45,000 and sold the venue out with 220 people. we were beyond excited. it was a cool spot, open bar, great food, small auction, and everybody had a great time. it snowballed into a really neat, annual event. we are now in our sixth year. we have raised $1.5 million. we have 600, 700 people every year. we continue to sell out. we are looking for a bigger venue that is still a lot of fun. people come back because they love make-a-wish, they love

making a difference, and they love having fun while doing it. i think that is what it does, give people an avenue through which to donate money to a great cause, and for that, they are appreciative. and by the way, they get to have a whole lot of fun while making that difference. and the average wish costs, it moves around a little bit, but it is about $8,000. you can take $1.6 million, $1.7 million that we have raised, that is a lot of wishes. ♪ pat: that very first year when zach and his friends raised $40,000, that in itself is pretty remarkable for a first-time event. the second year, when he raised $175,000, i think everyone really sat up and took notice. i think what was so remarkable about it is that you could already see how important this event was, not only for raising money, but for building the next

generation of leadership for make-a-wish, and really creating a long-term commitment for the cause. zach: i have been involved with a number of wishes. the one that came to mind that truly was a life-changing experience, and i do not say that lightly, with a child from -- was a child from salt lake city named jacob. becky: i am becky shelton. my son is jacob shelton, and he is a make-a-wish child. and that's how we know zach. ♪ becky: we lived in a rural town, so doctor's appointments were 2.5 hours either way. so, i got very good at getting the kids breakfast, putting them on the bus, driving to the doctor's office, getting back. getting the kids off the bus. that was our daily routine.

zach: jacob was battling illnesses his whole life, and his wish was to go to "sesame street" to meet elmo, and he came from salt lake city with his mom and his mom's friend to meet elmo, and the make-a-wish people teamed me up with the family, with becky and jacob and her family to go to sesame street. becky: when jacob saw elmo, it was like his blankie, his soft thing, his place to go, so whenever he was sick, whenever we had to have a procedure done in the hospital, our go to thing was an elmo video. that would take his mind off what was going on for a little while. elmo was his happy place. elmo was where he felt safe. zach: he got in the limousine, put the wheelchair in the back, got him into the limousine, becky pulled off his shirt and stuck a feeding tube right in his stomach.

it was something i had not seen before, something i had not been exposed to, and wow, things just got really real, really fast. ♪ zach: it was really a special time. it was not go meet elmo, shake his hand, and call it a day. we were on set for six hours. jacob got to meet the camera man, he got to go backstage, he got to meet the puppets. ♪ zach: he was interacting with the muppets like they were people. >> you are in my heart forever now, jacob. right here, feel my heart. ♪ becky: his face was as bright and the smile was as big as i had ever seen, and those eyes could light up the world. and he just loved it. he was jacob -- not a care in world. he was jacob right there with

his buddy. zach: you realize what they have been through as a family, and it makes you realize the trivial issues that we deal with on the trading floor at barclays, goldman, or i deal with with our companies day to day. just how trivial some of those issues are. they are not meaningless, but look at what this family is dealing with, what they are seeking to overcome, and you look at those hurdles and your hurdles, and it makes your hurdles easier to jump over. ♪ becky: there are moments that now that jacob has passed away i have. and those memories will always be with me. for that, i will forever be grateful. ♪

zach: putting on an event is very similar to planning a business. we talk about leadership, how do you start an event and end up six years later with an event that looks like what we have today? it is about leadership. it's having a group of people who are passionate about what they do, passion about the cause, the vision, the mission, and rally people around them, and that is what we have done. it's no different than as ceo of one of our businesses or what we try to instill in the management of our businesses. it's the same thing here. let's get a group of people, get them excited, get more people around us, get them excited, and continue to grow. that is what we have done with the event. that is what we have done with the new leadership council, and what our successful businesses have done within their companies as well. pat: i think the new breed of philanthropists is really asking questions about not only wanting to participate and give time or give money, but really looking at the opportunity to see the results of their work. so, if anything, i think they

are bringing a sensibility about understanding the impact of where they make their donation of time and money. zach: my personal approach to philanthropy is really to generate as many smiles as you can for the dollars to which you are donating and raising. and i did not want to wait until later in life to be able to make a difference. at the end of the day, we are here for the mission of make-a-wish, what make-a-wish does, the impact it has on children facing life-threatening illnesses. ♪ zach: neighborhood by neighborhood, area by area, our generation really is making a bigger difference than maybe past generations have at this age, and we will continue to make even a bigger impact. ♪

♪ francine: welcome to "leaders" with me, francine lacqua. pearson is an international publishing company with its biggest businesses in education and books. earlier this year, pearson sold two of its most well known brands, the "ft" and "the economist." in an exclusive interview, i speak with the group's ceo, john fallon, about the impact of selling those established brands and his vision for the company. thank you for speaking to bloomberg. we have been talking about the "ft" sale for as long as i can remember. when did you decide it was for sale?