Carl F. Kohrt Distinguished Alumni Award: Ravenel Curry ’63

Carl F. Kohrt Distinguished Alumni Award

Ravenel Curry ’63 
Presented in recognition of significant professional or personal accomplishments and in gratitude for continued loyalty to Furman University. 

Ravenel Curry is a distinguished businessman and philanthropist. He is a visionary leader known for his intellectual curiosity and believes in being a lifelong learner. In 1988 Ravenel co-founded, with his late wife Beth Rivers Curry, Eagle Capital Management, a $32 billion investment firm. He began his investment career as a security analyst at Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, was a partner at H.C. Wainwright and a Portfolio Manager of the Duke Endowment. Through the Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, established in 1974, the family continues to make transformational gifts to many organizations aligned with the long-held values including higher education, free markets, historic preservation and education reform.

Ravenel serves as a trustee of The Duke Endowment, American Enterprise Institute, Manhattan Institute, New York Hall of Science, New York Historical Society, South Carolina Genetics Endowment, and he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as chair of the New Jersey Higher Education Assistance Authority and as a member of Hudson Institute’s Chairman’s Advisory Board. In 2017 the Manhattan Institute awarded him the Alexander Hamilton Award, created to honor those individuals helping to foster the revitalization of our nation’s cities. It also celebrates leaders who have made remarkable contributions in the realms of public policy, culture, and philanthropy.

Ravenel graduated from Furman with a degree in political science in 1963, was active with ROTC and a Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity member. He earned an MBA from the University of Virginia in 1967. He was a multi-term Furman Trustee, chaired the Investment Committee, and served as President of the Alumni Board. He and, his late wife Beth, were among the first inductees into Furman’s Benefactors Circle. A significant gift from their foundation in 2004 enabled the Chinese Studies program to surge forward and remains one of the most popular study away programs at Furman. Ravenel is an avid fan of Furman basketball and football.

A native of Greenwood, South Carolina, he now lives in New York City with his wife, Jane Moss, and his three children – Ravenel Boykin Curry IV, Caroline Rivers Curry (Rob Davis), and Marshall Anderson Curry (Elizabeth Martin); and seven grandchildren, Ravenel V, Zinnia, Wick, Jackson, Quinton, Jane and Rivers.

Watch the 2022 Bell Tower Ball video on Ravenel Curry ’63 here.