Joshua S. Friedman is Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC, a leading global alternative asset management firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Canyon specializes in value-oriented investments for endowments, foundations, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors. Its investment strategies focus on distressed loans, corporate bonds, convertible bonds, securitized assets, direct investments, real estate, arbitrage, and value equities. Canyon Partners’ 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 Board of Directors of Harvard Management Company. He is also a member of Harvard’s Committee on University Resources; the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors; the Harvard University Campaign Executive Committee; and the Harvard University Task Force on Science and Engineering. Mr. Friedman serves as a Trustee for The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the California Institute of Technology (Caltech); Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Mr. Friedman is a member of the Investment Committees for The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the J. Paul Getty Trust and chair of the LACMA Finance Committee. He is a member of the Executive Committees for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Mr. Friedman is a former chair of the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees of Caltec h (2013-2019). He also formally served as a Trustee for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2015- 2020). 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 Los Angeles and have three sons. Mr. and Mrs. Friedman are 2019 recipients of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
