Thomas Fahr Steyer is an American climate investor, businessman, hedge fund manager, philanthropist, environmentalist, and liberal activist. Steyer is the co-founder and co-chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, founder and former co-senior-managing-partner of Farallon Capital and the co-founder of OneCalifornia Bank, which became Beneficial State Bank, an Oakland-based community development bank. Farallon Capital manages $20 billion in capital for institutions and high-net-worth individuals. The firm's institutional investors include college endowments and foundations. Steyer served on the board of trustees at Stanford University from 2007 to 2017. Since 1986, he has been a partner and member of the executive committee at Hellman & Friedman, a San Francisco–based private equity firm.

A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and derivative instruments. In the United States, financial regulations require that hedge funds be marketed only to institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.