Gov. Mike Dunleavy has appointed Gabrielle “Ellie” Rubenstein to the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation Board of Trustees.
Rubenstein replaces Bill Moran, a Ketchikan banker who is retiring from the board after 16 years. Rubenstein will serve a four-year term beginning July 1.
Rubenstein is the daughter of famed billionaire and philanthropist David Rubenstein, founder of the Carlyle Group, which has had management of a small portion of the Permanent Fund, of up to $1.75 billion. David Rubenstein is among the world’s wealthiest and most influential individuals, a frequently featured guest at the World Economic Forum that takes places in Davos, Switzerland each January.
Ellie is also the daughter of the notorious former owner of the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska Dispatch), Alice Rogoff, who left the state after driving the state’s largest newspaper into bankruptcy. During her time at the ADN, Rogoff meddled in state government and politics, and steered Gov. Bill Walker through her election coverage. She famously hosted President Barack Obama at her home on Campbell Lake in Anchorage, and crashed her floatplane in Halibut Cove.
Ellie Rubenstein first moved to Alaska in 2001, and after completing her undergraduate degree, she moved to Anchorage. She has been a resident of the state for the last decade. She is a co-founder and CEO of Manna Tree Partners, a growth equity food investment fund that focuses on investing in family-owned food companies.
“Manna Tree closed its first fund just last year with $141.5 million,” Pitchbook wrote in 2021, “but the firm has already scored an exit with the IPO of pasture-raised egg maker Vital Farms, which went public at $657 million pre-money valuation last July. It has also backed indoor farming startup Gotham Greens, grass-fed beef producer Verde Farms and Evolve BioSystems, the maker of a probiotic supplement for infants.”
Ellie Rubenstein is said to be an avid angler, hunter, and pilot. She is the founder of a nonprofit that promotes outdoor wilderness, youth education, and military health and recovery programs.
She has dedicated time to the American Red Cross since first volunteering with the Red Cross of Alaska in 2014. Rubenstein earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Harvard University, her master’s degree in agriculture economics from Purdue University, and her MBA from Indiana University’s Kelly School of Business.
The Alaska Permanent Fund is an $80 billion sovereign wealth account that was established to secure oil royalties for the future, when Alaska would not be receiving as much from oil taxes and yet would still need revenues to run state operations. It is a constitutionally established perpetual fund that has been managed by the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation since 1976. Alaskans receive a dividend from the fund’s earnings.
