Leonard M. Tannenbaum

One of Len’s four children, Max, is the President of Dream Dragons, a company launched by 13 high school students through the Southwestern Connecticut chapter of Junior Achievement program, which empowers young entrepreneurs.

In 1998, he founded Fifth Street Finance, a finance company specializing in raising funds from private investors and investing in small- and mid-sized companies. He raised $30 million ($15 million from his father-in-law, Bruce E. Toll) and established his first fund which made investments until 2004. In January 2005, he launched a second fund, Fifth Street Mezzanine Partners II which reached $157 million in value and included institutional investors such as DuPont, Sumitomo Bank and WP Global; the fund stopped investing in 2007. In 2007, he launched a third fund, which in 2008, after taking the advice of David Einhorn, he converted into a business development company (BDC). This entity, named Fifth Street Finance Corp., went public in May 2008. Fifth Street's customers are primarily private equity firms that invest in lower middle-market or middle-market companies (averaging $10 million in EBITDA). Investments average $35 million and never exceed $100 million. Effective September 2014, they received permission form the S.E.C. to increase the maximum investment across its platform to $250 million.

In 1997, Tannenbaum married Elizabeth Toll, daughter of housing developer Bruce E. Toll, in a Jewish ceremony at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia. They divorced in October 2010. After the divorce, Bruce E. Toll filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Tannenbaum alleging that he had promised and failed to pay Elizabeth half the profits from the management of Fifth Street’s latest fund.

Leonard M. Tannenbaum (born 1971) is the founder and chief executive officer of Fifth Street Asset Management. He also founded the pro-business political action committee "Keeping America Competitive".