Gerson Lehrman Group

Origins

Gerson Lehrman Group was founded by Duke University and Yale Law School graduate Thomas Lehrman and fellow Yale Law School graduate Mark Gerson, who had worked at the hedge fund Tiger Management, that led to a generation of spinoffs (known as Tiger Cubs). Alexander Saint-Amand joined GLG shortly after its founding, and serves as its President and CEO.

GLG, initially funded by a friends and family round, was formed as a publishing house to produce industry guidebooks for institutional investors, a business they abandoned a year later when they could find no buyers for their product. The founders retooled their business model a year later to offer phone consultations and periodic roundtable discussions with experts. This business came to be called an expert network.

GLG’s first customers were investors, and most of their growth from 1999 to 2005 was within the investment community. In 2006, they began working with big strategy consultancies and with companies in life sciences, chemicals and industrials, and technology.

Non Profit

In 2006, GLG worked with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide new primary data and analysis relevant for any other recovery plans in the rebuilding of Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. It has been on the news that it has also done some other philanthropy work with smaller charities.

Partnerships

As the use of alternative research providers within the financial industry has grown, brokerages themselves have been partnering with firms such as GLG.

On September 10, 2008, the company announced a deal with Credit Suisse, whereby analysts from the financial services giant would be able to tap into GLG’s Council Members as part of their research process. About 300 Credit Suisse analysts became members of the GLG expert network. In 2009, Gerson Lehrman Group Managing Director Dmitri Mehlhorn announced a partnership with Frost & Sullivan's, making their over 800 market researchers available to consult with GLG clients.

In July 2009, GLG announced that it has partnered with Amba Research, a leading financial services Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) firm that provides equity and credit research.

On July 8, 2010, GLG and Bloomberg announced a partnership that enables clients of the Bloomberg Professional platform to access the GLG expert network through the Bloomberg platform.

In October 2011, GLG partnered with and acquired a minority stake in Ushi, a leading China-based business social networking provider, and the largest competitor of Linkedin in the region.

Controversies

The expert network business model has drawn scrutiny for concerns relating to adherence to disclosure rules and sharing of insider information within the investment industry. During 2005, for example, doctors who served as paid consultants to investment firms as a result of their role in an expert network generated a “fair share of controversy.” GLG was part of a lawsuit filed by Biovail in March 2006, in which Biovail claimed that its shares had been manipulated. In September 2006, GLG announced the creation of a proprietary system that helped identify and manage conflicts, leveraging its experience as a pioneer in its industry to craft risk-reducing rules for expert engagements

In January 2007, it was reported that the company and Vista Research, then a Standard & Poor affiliate, were part of an inquiry by the New York State Attorney General’s office into the consulting practices of investment firm clients. As of December 2007, the Attorney General had taken no action, and the investigation appeared to be dormant.

In November 2012, Mathew Martoma, a portfolio manager who worked for an affiliate of S.A.C. Capital Advisors, now known as Point72 Asset Management, was accused in criminal and civil complaints of obtaining secret data while there from a former University of Michigan neurology professor who worked on a clinical trial for an Alzheimer's drug. The professor was named as Dr. Sid Gilman, a paid Council Member of GLG.