Updated, 8:35 a.m. | At Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Kenneth B. Mehlman has helped guide the investment giant into becoming more open as the firm transformed from a secretive partnership to a publicly traded company.
Now he is assuming a top role at the private equity industry’s lobbying group.
The group, the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, elected Mr. Mehlman as its new chairman on Wednesday, making him one of its most visible faces as it argues on behalf of its members. His appointment was announced on Thursday.
The move comes as the lobbying group continues to push for government policies favorable to the private equity industry. The council took big steps to defend its members last year, when a presidential run by Mitt Romney shed an often negative light on the world of leveraged buyouts. (Among those efforts: a cartoon depicting private equity in a sunny light.)
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Document: News releaseThe council also pushed back against efforts to raise the tax rate of carried interest, the primary source of profit from leveraged buyouts.
Mr. Mehlman, known as Ken, will be taking over from Mark B. Tresnowski, the general counsel at Madison Dearborn Partners. Among his primary responsibilities will be helping the council persuade lawmakers and others on issues that affect the leveraged buyout industry.
“I’m privileged to succeed Mark as chairman of the P.E.G.C.C.,” Mr. Mehlman said in a statement. “I have enormous respect for the P.E.G.C.C.’s important work engaging with public policy makers to encourage more economic growth and retirement security for millions of Americans.”
It is a role Mr. Mehlman knows well. Before he joined K.K.R., he was perhaps best known as a political mainstay who managed the presidential re-election campaign of George W. Bush in 2004 and served as chairman of the Republican National Committee.
He has also taken on a prominent role in trying to persuade his fellow Republicans of the need to support same-sex marriage.
At K.K.R., Mr. Mehlman oversees its public affairs department, including all interactions with the press and investors. A former environmental lawyer, he also leads the firm’s environmental social governance program, which has included strengthening ties with the Environmental Defense Fund by helping curb greenhouse gas emissions and energy use at K.K.R. portfolio companies.
“Ken has helped show that private equity can do good while also doing well in the investments it makes, including through a landmark partnership with my organization, Environmental Defense Fund,” Fred Krupp, the fund’s president, said. “Ken’s collaborative approach will serve the P.E.G.C.C. and its members well.”