Theodore J. Forstmann is one of the founding partners of Forstmann Little & Company, a private equity firm. He is unmarried and has no children. Forstmann is a graduate of Greenwich Country Day School, Phillips Academy, Yale University and Columbia Law School. At Yale he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He is usually known as "Ted" .

Forstmann, an attorney, founded Forstmann Little in 1978 with his brother Nicholas C. Forstmann, who later died of lung cancer, and William Brian Little. Ted Forstmann's second brother, J. Anthony Forstmann, founded ForstmannLeff.