Mr. Hobby is a Founder and Managing Partner of Genesis Park, a private fund manager that invests across selected industries, using significant credit, equity and public capital markets capabilities to maximize a given opportunity.
Genesis Park is well known for public company carveouts, having bought outright or partnered with a public parent to liberate orphaned divisions and create value in multiple transactions. In that context, Mr. Hobby has served as Chairman of CapRock Communications and as CEO of Alpheus Communications and Texas Monthly (case studies below). Prior to Genesis Park, Mr. Hobby conceived a strategy for integrating media operations through improved information technology. With Mr. Hobby as Executive Chairman, that company, Columbine JDS Systems, Inc., became the largest provider of back-office media software in the world.
Genesis Park’s third fund, licensed by the Small Business Administration, closed in 2021, and has $275 Million in investable capital.
Genesis Park’s current private portfolio is here: https://www.genesis-park.com/portfolio/
Genesis Park’s most recent portfolio addition, Flic Financial, is a newly launched residential solar finance business built alongside the firm’s highly successful investment in Freedom Solar (the largest independent solar installer in Texas). Mr. Hobby serves as founding Chairman of Flic Financial.
In addition to his private market activities, Mr. Hobby has more than five decades of combined public company experience. He recently served as the CEO of Genesis Park Acquisition Company, a successful Special Purpose Acquisition Company, and has served on the boards of NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG), Eagle Global Logistics (NASDAQ: EAGL), Stewart Information Services (NYSE: STC), Coastal Banc (NASDAQ: CCB), Amegy Bank of Texas (NASDAQ: ANBK), Aronex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARNX), and FloTek (NYSE: FTK). Through that service he has experienced the full spectrum of corporate experience, including extensive M&A, spin offs, proxy fights, insider bids and activist director initiatives.
Notably, Mr. Hobby played a critical role in NRG’s acquisition of Reliant Energy – widely hailed as the most successful and transformational acquisition in the history of the power sector – as well as NRG’s acquisition of Green Mountain Energy. He was one of two legacy directors selected by Elliot Management and Bluescape Energy to lead the successful restructuring of NRG in 2016.
As the leader of the Hobby Family Office for more than two decades, Mr. Hobby has built an impressive real estate portfolio that includes majority and minority interests in award-winning new urbanist re-developments (Genesis Park Almeda, Silver Street Development and Post Oak Plaza in Houston), hospitality (Hotel Magdelena, Indigo Clarksville and St. Cecilia in Austin), along with notable properties in Colorado and Virginia. For the benefit of his family interests, Paul has also created and overseen a very successful alternative asset portfolio that ranges from venture capital to solar finance, to royalty interests and a bespoke, closed-end Business Development Company strategy.
In his philanthropic life, Mr. Hobby has done many things in the community. That list includes school boards, neighborhood associations, community foundations and other worthy causes, but his concentration has been in public higher education and not-for-profit healthcare. In addition to creating the blueprint and execution plan for the Hobby School of Public Policy at the University of Houston, he has served both the University of Virginia and the University of Texas in multiple capacities, and as Vice Chairman of Hermann Hospital and long-time Board Member of Baylor College of Medicine.
Mr. Hobby is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he has been honored by the Raven Society and the University of Texas School of Law, where he has served as an adjunct faculty member and been honored as an Outstanding Young Alumnus. He has been a guest lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, the Jones School of Business at Rice University and other schools around Texas.
He is former Chairman of the Greater Houston Partnership, the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the Texas Ethics Commission, the Texas General Services Commission, and The Texas Business Hall of Fame.