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Greenwich Library – House of Fidelity with Justin Baer
Greenwich Library is pleased to welcome Justin Baer to the Marx Family Black Box Theater for a discussion of his new book, House of Fidelity: The Rise of the Johnson Dynasty and the Company That Changed American Investing. Baer will be joined by David Benoit, Wall Street editor for The Wall Street Journal in New York.
A gripping and deeply reported account of the private family behind one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world, House of Fidelity traces the rise of Fidelity from a Boston investment firm into a force that helped reshape how Americans save, invest, and plan for retirement.
When Edward C. Johnson 2d founded Fidelity in 1946, investing was a pursuit reserved for the elite. Today, more than $15 trillion flows through Fidelity’s customer accounts and investment funds—touching the lives of one in five American adults. Fidelity helped invent modern retail investing: democratizing access to mutual funds, introducing the 401(k), and upending the need for traditional brokers. But behind the scenes of this financial juggernaut is a family saga unlike any other.
In House of Fidelity, veteran journalist Justin Baer tells the definitive story of the Johnsons—a New England dynasty that fiercely guarded control of their company while reshaping Wall Street. From the founder’s bold leap into Boston’s insular investing circles, to the meteoric rise of Peter Lynch, to behind-closed-doors battles over succession and legacy, Baer reveals a company and a family locked in a delicate balance of innovation, influence, and internal power struggles.
House of Fidelity is a sweeping history of American investing—and the dynasty that came to define it.
Copies of House of Fidelity will be available for purchase and signing through Diane’s Books.
- Date:
- Thursday, June 18, 2026
- Time:
- 7:00pm – 8:45pm
- Location:
- Marx Family Black Box Theater
- Audience:
- Adult
- Categories:
- Author Talk Business, Career, and Finance
Justin Baer is an award-winning journalist and an editor for The Wall Street Journal. In a career that includes stints at the Financial Times and Bloomberg News, he has covered almost every significant financial event over the past two decades, including the dot-com bubble, the 2008 financial crisis and the economic fallout from the pandemic. Along the way, Baer has chronicled the ups and downs of such major institutions as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and lives in New Jersey with his wife and three kids.
David Benoit is Wall Street editor for The Wall Street Journal in New York. He co-leads a team of reporters that covers banking, private equity, hedge funds, mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and more. David was previously a banking reporter on the team, responsible for covering JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. His work with colleagues breaking the merger of Dow and DuPont won a 2016 Gerald Loeb award and Talking Biz News named him the 2015 Business Journalist of the Year. He’s a graduate of Boston College and lives in Norwalk.
Program Contact: [email protected]
