How did Weld get involved with Leeds Equity Partners?
He began doing business with them while working for law firm McDermott Will in the late 1990s, and switched firms in 2000, creating Leeds Weld Equity Partners. This was the same time he was moving to New York to join soon-to-be second wife Leslie Marshall (and, fortuitously, establishing residency in time to be eligible to run for state office in 2006). The firm was focused on investing in for-profit education companies, which suited Weld’s privatization beliefs, and probably seemed at the time like a potentially good campaign issue. “He has always been interested in education and the role that the private sector could contribute,” says long-time Weld friend Mitchell Adams.
