By Danielle Beurteaux
"Hearing loss affects not only people who have it, but also the people with whom they interact," says Robert Boucai (see right). "It affects my employees, my friends, my family."
Boucai, 34, co-founder of $400 million Newbrook Capital Advisors, has a moderate congenital hearing loss. He's worn hearing aids since the age of five. "When I have a conversation, I'd argue that I listen far more intently than most people because I have to," he says.
Two years ago he was approached by the Deafness Research Foundation board chair Rebecca Ginzburg about getting involved. He'd been recommended by the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, where he was already engaged in outreach and fund-raising efforts, and he immediately agreed to join the group's board. The foundation was formed in 1958 to provide information, advocacy and grants for hearing loss and deafness issues and research. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, 36 million adult Americans suffer hearing loss.
Hearing problems aren't limited to those with congenital loss or the elderly. Noise pollution is a growing hazard. "People are living longer, but they're also abusing their ears a lot more—talking on cell phones, [using] iPods, [riding] the subway," says Boucai. A central focus of the Deafness Research Foundation is funding research. The New York nonprofit has given more than 2,200 grants in all, which in the most recent year includes the first Centurion Clinical Research Award of $50,000 as well as another $407,696 to researchers investigating topics such as hair-cell regeneration and sound training. Boucai thinks that hair-cell regeneration—finding a way to produce damaged hair cells in the inner ear, which do not naturally grow back—is the best hope to restore natural hearing, but he also knows that this solution might be 20 years away. In the meantime, he says, increasing grants is a priority. "These are grants that wouldn't otherwise be funded," he says. "They don't make economic sense, but some things that don't make economic sense can have the best rewards, in this field in particular."
Sam Martini, a supporter of the foundation, says Boucai is unusual. "The cause is very lucky to have someone as dynamic and caring and driven and generous as Robert." Boucai talks about the efforts a person with hearing loss needs to make: procuring hearing aids (which can cost up to $10,000 and are not covered by insurance), lipreading and developing concentration skills and heightened awareness. In school, he says, working extra hard was a given. "You have to study 20, 30% harder to be at the same level as everyone else."
Not that his hearing loss slowed him down: Boucai played football, baseball and hockey in high school; he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton school; and he co-founded Newbrook, a global long/short equity vehicle, in 2006, after stints at The Blackstone Group and Karsch Capital.
Of course, he wonders what his life would have been like if he didn't have a hearing loss. "How much more potential would I have had without it?" he wonders. "On the other hand, it has formed me as a person."