Béla Szigethy & Stewart Kohl

Béla Szigethy

Béla Szigethy founded The Riverside Company in 1988 as a private equity firm investing in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market. Under the guidance of Mr. Szigethy and Co-CEO Stewart Kohl, Riverside has expanded to be a global investment firm that employs more than 350 people in offices across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Prior to founding Riverside, Mr. Szigethy was a Vice President in the leveraged finance department of Citibank, where he worked from 1981 to 1988. He participated as a senior debt lender in some of the large leveraged buyouts completed in the mid-1980s. He holds a bachelor of arts degree with a double major in psychology and French from Oberlin College, and a master’s of international affairs in international finance from Columbia University.

Stewart Kohl

Stewart A. Kohl is Co-Chief Executive Officer of The Riverside Company, a $14 billion global private equity firm founded to invest in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market. Since 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 1,000 companies globally. The firm’s investors include leading pension funds, endowments, funds-of-funds, insurance companies, banks and private wealth investors. The firm employs more than 350 people in offices across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

Mr. Kohl joined Riverside in 1993 to partner with Co-CEO Béla Szigethy. Prior to that, he was a vice president of Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd., the private equity arm of Citibank.

In addition to his work with Riverside, Mr. Kohl serves as an Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Cleveland Foundation, the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland as well as being a member of the Board of Directors of the Cleveland Clinic, where he Co-Chaired its $2.6 billion Power of Every One Capital Centennial Campaign, which was completed in 2021. He was inducted into the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges Hall of Excellence in 2009. He previously served as Co-Chair of the Building for Hope Capital Campaign of the Center for Families and Children.

Mr. Kohl received the Maltz Heritage Award in 2023, recognizing his commitment to diversity and acceptance. He also earned the George S. Dively Entrepreneurship Award in 2018 and he and Riverside were recognized for the 2018 Malden Mills Corporate Kindness Award. He was inducted into the Northeast Ohio Business Hall of Fame in 2014. After spending 16 years as a “Heavy Hitter” participant in the Pan-Mass Challenge bicycle fundraiser, Mr. Kohl founded VeloSano, a similar event that has raised more than $51 million to fund cancer research since 2014.

Mr. Kohl holds a BA from Oberlin College.