ER Doctor to $650M Private Equity Firm

Dr. Kneeland Youngblood is the founding partner, chairman, and CEO of Pharos Capital Group, an SEC-registered private equity firm headquartered in Dallas with offices in Nashville. He earned a BA in Politics from Princeton University (1978) and an MD from UT Southwestern Medical Center (1982), with additional study at the University of Stockholm and Cairo University Medical School. After 12 years practicing emergency medicine, a cold call from Don Williams, CEO of Trammell Crow, led to the Falcon 10 flight that convinced Youngblood he could not change the environments his patients returned to without real capital. He left medicine in January 1998 and co-founded Pharos with two former Goldman Sachs executives, mentored along the way by Richard Rainwater, David Bonderman, and Michael Milken. Pharos has since completed 33 healthcare investments and manages more than $650 million in assets, backing workforce solutions for Native American populations (Tribal Health), care for the unhoused and severely mentally ill (Beacon Specialized Living), telehealth behavioral health (FasPsych), senior fall-prevention physical therapy (MOTION PT Group), in-home dialysis (Sanderling), and rural CKD detection (Renal 360). He has served on the boards of Gap, Starwood Hotels, Burger King, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, Energy Future Holdings (formerly TXU), Light & Wonder, the Milken Institute, and Caltech, led the $1.9 billion USEC privatization, and was appointed to the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. Outside of Pharos, Youngblood is leading a $900 million effort to reclaim 147 acres of Karnes County, Texas land originally purchased by his formerly enslaved ancestors in 1889, known as the Eckford family land story.