J-P Conte: How I Structure My Time Between Business and Philanthropy

J-P Conte oversees his family office, supports scholarships at 11 universities, and holds seats on various boards. When Authority Magazine brought up work-life balance, he wasn't interested in the framing. "I think 'work-life balance' is a little bit of a misnomer," he said. "Balance implies 50-50, and in reality, there will be very few times, if ever, where work and life are 50-50."

Conte founded and serves as managing partner of Lupine Crest Capital, his family office headquartered in Aspen, Colorado, with investments across healthcare, financial services, software, and industrial technology. He's also behind the J-P Conte Family Foundation, which he launched in 2017, and he holds governance seats at Colgate University, the UCSF Foundation, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and California Pacific Medical Center. He doesn't try to carve his calendar into neat halves. "But if you truly love what you do, you'll forget all about this and go with the ebb and flow of life altogether," he told Authority Magazine.

J-P Conte's Board Service Across Institutions

Conte finished at Colgate in 1985 and serves as a trustee at the university. He also sits on the UCSF Foundation board, the board at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and the foundation board at CPMC in San Francisco.

When he created the Conte First Generation Fund to back first-generation college students at 11 universities, he didn't just write checks. "I interviewed each school, visited each school, and learned that some of the schools were really good at it," he told HNGN. "And other schools didn't. They were either too small, didn't have the resources, or both."

J-P Conte on Giving Where It Counts

A pair of gifts made in 2024 and 2025 show where Conte's money goes and why. He gave $25 million to Colgate University for the social center, a new building on Colgate's campus, announced as part of the university's Campaign for the Third Century. It was one of the largest single gifts in the school's history.

The second was $5 million to UCSF's Department of Neurology for Parkinson's disease research. Two endowed professorships were created with the money. The gift is personal as Conte's father, Pierre, battled Parkinson's.

How J-P Conte Applies Deal Discipline to Giving

Conte spent decades in private equity, where companies were picked apart for their leadership, operational capacity, and growth potential. He brings the same lens to the institutions he funds. After he pushed for leadership changes at Sponsors for Educational Opportunity's Bay Area chapter, the organization's footprint expanded. "We multiplied the reach of SEO in the Bay Area by five to seven times," he told HNGN.

His family foundation supports work in a variety of areas, ranging from educational access to environmental conservation. Lupine Crest Capital, his family office, recently led a $30 million investment to build one of Colombia's top five insurance brokerages and joined an investment in a Brazilian waste-to-energy company.

J-P Conte grew up in Brooklyn and New Jersey, raised by a French immigrant father and a Cuban immigrant mother. Neither parent went to college. His entire career, from investing to philanthropy, was shaped by that history.