one that keeps you connected to what matters most.

♪ being able to support those who need you and making those people proud who had a big influence in their life. narrator: the hottest ticket in new york isn't the mets or the yankees. it is an invitation to an exclusive club in chelsea where once a year, some of the brightest and most successful young professionals in the city meet for a good cause. this lucrative event is the brainchild of a 30-year-old investor named zach coopersmith, and he believes that partying hard can redefine philanthropy in america's financial capital. >> we're an organization that must operate with the heart of a charity and the mind of a business. that's zach. zach: my name is zach coopersmith. i am from chevy chase, maryland. and i am a partner with leading ridge capital partners. we are a small private equity firm that invests in lower middle market distribution and logistics companies.

i enjoy business, i enjoy negotiations, i enjoy the hunt and the thrill of the chase of success. some time tuesday afternoon and all day wednesday as well. ♪ zach: so i worked at lehman for a year and a half right out of school. so i was 20 -- 22 when i was there, and my responsibilities -- i guess i would like to look back and think i had these grandiose responsibilities. but it starts out getting coffee and keeping track of spreadsheets. but they were very good at giving responsibility quickly to young people. so it was -- you were thrown in the fire pretty quickly, working to build models and to track performance of businesses, and then very quickly given your own book and p&l responsibility, where you are responsible for, you know, investment decisions and trading decisions. i was going to california for

the weekend to go to an ohio state football game at the rose bowl, and i remember landing back from my california trip sunday night, and flipped over to my bloomberg account, and it was just, you know, red, all caps, red, all caps, red, all caps. breaking news, lehman filing for bankruptcy, lehman files chapter 11 protection, one after the next after the next. it was like, oh, my god, how did this happen? i went up to my desk and the trading floor was full of people just kind of taking stuff out of their desks and putting it into boxes. and people were smoking cigarettes and drinking, you know, liquor, pizza boxes everywhere. i mean, it was quite a scene to be sitting on the fourth floor of the lehman brothers and to watch everything around me kind of collapse when it was through no action of myself, anyone on my floor, really even anyone in my building, were the main reasons why lehman collapsed. that was eye-opening for me. ♪

zach: when i was there, was i happy at lehman? i was happy at times, but i would not have been happy making a career working at lehman brothers. it was frustrating to be investing in businesses without being able to help impact those businesses. so we would own $10 million of the bank debt of general motors, but i had no impact on the future of general motors. i much more cared about what was happening with the actual business. i won't call it an epiphany, but just being frustrated by the lack of impact and change we could have on our investments is what kind of started me down this path to form leading ridge where we really do have a tangible impact and the ability to help affect change at our portfolio companies. for me, starting leading ridge was about kind of regaining control of my own destiny. whether i am successful or not, at least i will have control

over that future success or future failure and i was ok with that. ♪ david: 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. we are selling like gangbusters now. we are selling it in a lot of markets now. we bring it in here, and we have got u.s. distribution for that now. our relationship with zach coopersmith and leading ridge capital started in august 2011 when zach invested in rugby. through growth capital provided by leading ridge partners and affiliated investors, we have grown the business to approximately $300 million in sales from $76 million in sales. having partners like leading

ridge and zach is -- it has just been a special relationship. there has been good chemistry. i think we have been able to grow faster and handle, you know, more opportunities as a result of my partnership with him. >> hey, buddy. >> what is up, man? how are you doing? >> just keeping dry. zach: what we do is we help solve problems for small businesses. we have been able to provide a solution for a number of family businesses, a number of small businesses that have meant that the employees keep their jobs, the customers keep their supplier, the suppliers keep their distributors, you know, and all told successfully grow those businesses and continue to provide more opportunities for their employees. david: 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. he is always asking you questions. zach: what i love about what i do -- you get to really know the people you are dealing with and get to make it more than just about a spreadsheet, more than just about a business. and it really becomes about their family, about their wife, their kids, you know, their aspirations, their goals for life after business. david: so, yeah, so this -- still some cleanup to be done here. yeah. zach: as far as when the time is right to be able to help others, waiting until the time might be perfect, until you are 100% comfortable and know that you will never need to earn another penny in your life, well, then it is too late.

when you have the opportunity to write a check or have the opportunity to volunteer and make a difference, take advantage of that opportunity. there is never a perfect time. ♪

narrator: investor zach coopersmith has used his business skills to help transform the philanthropy scene in new york city. his career has taken him from wall street to the companies which make up the nuts and bolts of the american economy. zach: how are you? nice to meet you jason. jason: good to meet you. zach: looks like you guys are busy today. narrator: business has been in his blood from an early age. warren: my name is warren coopersmith. i am 69 years old. i am zach coopersmith's dad. our family business is mainly selling snacks to 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. but we grew up, summers and weekends in the family business, and always sort of talking about

business. everything i know in business, really, i learned from watching my dad. whether watching him wake up at 4:00 in the morning and load trucks for 25 years. and, you know, he has been through a lot. the house was, you know, mortgaged twice for the business to be successful. and all kinds of sacrifices he made, but he was always at my baseball game, my soccer game. and always was able to kind of find that balance. i think that i have tried to emulate that. where work is important, being successful is important, but if you miss the rest of life, then it's all for nothing. >> here. warren: zach's early business ventures were numerous. it started selling rocks that he would take out of a person's garden and try to sell it back to him. he was age 2 or 3. he had some success there, but he had no investment, so i guess that was an incredibly successful venture.

that moved on to selling paper products to the neighborhood, and since i stocked them in my warehouse, he put samples together. it actually grew a little bit. he actually had an assistant in the neighborhood, putting his little packs together, and he would run around the neighborhood. and he did all right with that type of thing. >> pretty good, huh? zach: if you want to talk about the first llc that was formed, and that being a real company, then that would be my moon bounce rental company that i started along with a friend in, i guess, my sophomore year of high school. so we were 15, i guess, when we started it. we borrowed the money from our parents, bought a moon bounce, formed a business, insurance, the whole bit. so it was six weeks in, and we had no business. we sat down and said ok, it is not working, what can we change? then we opened up the yellow pages and we just 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. and james, who was my partner, and we were high-fiving and we were going absolutely crazy. i went to college a few years later, and again we were able to sell the business for more than we had invested into it at the end. i think it was, you know, although on quite a modest scale, it was a -- starting a business from scratch, and ended up selling it three years later for a profit. 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, that it is your duty to help others. and whether it is in a small way, or 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 and raised 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 at a

dollar apiece, and we raised a lot of money -- a lot of money to me at the time and on a relative basis, hundreds of popcorns and cotton candy and were able to donate the money. we did it for a number of years. and, you know, that was from the age of 4, 5, or 6, early on, though, small dollars maybe in the scheme of 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 don't. 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 to attach myself to. and make a wish was a very well known organization. it was a very fiscally responsible organization where a

lot of the dollars donated to "make a wish" go toward granting wishes. and most importantly, i love the mission. i love what they did, why they existed. and the impact they had on families and on children. ♪ pat: i am pat clemency. i am the president and ceo of make-a-wish metro new york and western new york. the mission of make-a-wish is to grant wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope and 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 the family, of everyone in the community who has been touched

by that wish. zach: i think you become a much better fundraiser, a much better philanthropist the more personally involved you are 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, you know, hey, we go out in the city, we have fun, wouldn't it 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, truly fun charity events that supported great causes. and, you know, just like a business finds a void in the market and fills it, that is kind of like -- that is what we did here by starting "toast to

wishes." we really created a fun event that people love to come to, supporting a charity that people love to support. we minimize costs and we maximize the chance of success. the way it was set up was with a venue that was going to close otherwise, so there was no opportunity cost for them to be open. all the liquor and food was donated. all the music was donated. all the auction items were donated. so the only costs were 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 kind of "been there, done that, not going to work." you need to be persistent. and if you believe in something strong enough, don't take no and continue to push until you get what you want. you know, for me, it was worth trying to help make-a-wish, worth trying to help kids, worth trying to grant wishes. don't stop me from doing that. we are going to be successful. we are going to raise a lot of money. let us go raise the money. ♪

♪ narrator: investor zach coopersmith was on the board of the make-a-wish foundation when he spotted a gap in the new york philanthropy scene. the result is an annual party, attended by some of wall street's youngest and richest leading lights. zach: first of all, welcome, thank you so much for coming to the fourth annual "toast to wishes." 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. and, you know, we were just beyond excited. it was a cool spot, open bar, a lot of great little packed food, small auction, and i just had a great time. it snowballed into a really, really neat, annual event. we are now in our sixth year. we have raised over $1.5 million. we have 600, 700 people every year. we continue to sell out. we are looking for a bigger -- bigger venue that is still, you know, a whole lot of fun. and people come back because

they love make-a-wish, they love making a difference, and they love having fun while doing that. and i think that is what it does -- is it gives 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 or so now. $8,500. you take the $1.6 million, $1.7 million that we have raised, over $8,500 -- that is a lot of wishes. pat: that very first year when zach and his friends raised $40,000, that in itself was pretty remarkable for a first-time event. the second year when it raised $170,000, i think everyone really sat up and took notice. but i think what was so remarkable about it is that already you could 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. one that comes to mind that truly was a life-changing experience, and i don't -- i don't say that lightly, was a child from salt lake city. his name was jacob. becky: i am becky shelton. and 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 doctors' appointments were 2.5 hours either way. so, i got very good at getting the kids breakfast, putting them on the bus, putting jake and i in the car, going to phoenix to the doctor's office, getting back, getting the kids off the

bus. that was our daily routine. zach: you know, jacob was battling illnesses his whole life, and his wish was to go to "sesame street" to meet elmo, and so he came from salt lake city with his mom and his mom's friend to meet elmo, and make-a-wish teamed me up with -- with the family, with becky and jacob and her friend to -- to go to sesame street. becky: in jacob's life, elmo was -- it was like his blankie, his soft thing, his -- his place to go, so whenever he was sick, whenever we did have to have a procedure done in the hospital, our go to thing was an elmo video. and 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 and he felt good. zach: he got in the limousine, you know, the first thing, it was put the wheelchair in the back, got him in the limousine, and becky actually pulled up his shirt and just stuck a feeding tube right in his

stomach. it was, you know, something i had not seen before, something i had not been exposed to, and it was like, you know, wow, things just got really real, really fast. it was really a special, special time. it wasn't go meet elmo, shake his hand, and call it a day. we were on the set for six hours. jacob got to meet the camera man. jacob got to -- he got to do everything on set. he got to go backstage. he got to meet the puppets. he was interacting with the muppets like they were people. abby cadabby: you are in my heart forever now, jacob. right here. feel my heart. feel it. becky: his face was as bright and his smile was as big as i have ever seen, and those eyes could light up the world. and he just loved it. he was jacob -- with not a care in the 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 kind of trivial day to day issues that we deal with on the trading floor at lehmans or barclays or goldman, or i deal with with our companies day to day. just how trivial issues are, just how -- they are not meaningless, but look at what this family is dealing with, what they are seeking to overcome. and you look at kind of those hurdles, and you look at your hurdles, and it makes it 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. and for that, i will forever be grateful. ♪

zach: you know, putting on an event is very similar to planning a business. we talk about leadership. you know, how do we start an event and end up six years later with an event like it looks like today? we talk about leadership. it's having a group of people who are passionate about what they do, passionate about the cause, the vision, the mission, and rally people around them, and that is what we have done. it's no different than the ceo of one of our businesses or what we try to instill in some of 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 it. and that is really what we have done with the event, that is what we have done with the new leadership council, and it's really similar to 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 -- to generate as many smiles as you can for the dollars to which you are donating and raising. and i didn't 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 when facing life-threatening illnesses. if neighborhood by neighborhood, area by area, i think our generation really is making a bigger difference than maybe past generations have at this age, and can continue to make even a bigger impact. ♪

♪ emily: i am emily chang. this is "best of bloomberg technology" where we bring you our top interviews from the week in tech. we will have talks about president trump and how apple sees its role in fighting against terror. our one-on-one with meg whitman, the hewlett-packard ceo to give a report on their turnaround in the age of the cloud. another bombshell atbe