About Jeffrey Towson
Jeffrey Towson is an investor, professor and best-selling author focused on the emerging markets (China, Middle East, Latin America, etc.) – and their increasing collision with the West.
Investor:
- Jeff is a value investor with 12 years of experience in private deals in the emerging markets. His primary focus is China / Asia, the Middle East North Africa and Latin America. He has developed over $20B of projects across multiple industries – including real estate, hotels, banks / financial services, insurance, healthcare, retail, technology, petrochemicals, and energy / infrastructure.
- He is currently Managing Partner of the Towson Group, a small investment firm based in New York and Shanghai. The firm focuses on negotiated private deals (mostly healthcare) in the USA and between the West and emerging markets.
- He previously served as Head of Direct Investments for Middle East North Africa and Asia Pacific for Prince Waleed, nicknamed by Time magazine the “Arabian Warren Buffett” and arguably the world’s first private global investor. Waleed’s distinctions include: the world’s 4th richest person (2004, Forbes), the largest foreign investor in the USA, the largest shareholder of the world’s largest bank (Citigroup, 2007), the world’s second largest media owner and the leading Middle Eastern business person (Arabian Business).
- Between 2000 and 2009, Jeff was one of five core investment staff at Prince Waleed’s Riyadh headquarters (Kingdom Holding Company). From Riyadh, Kingdom Holding Company develops and manages investments in over +130 countries – including 5% of Citigroup, +300 hotels (Movenpick, Fairmont, The Plaza, George V, the Savoy), Bank of China, EuroDisney, Canary Wharf, News Corp, Saks Fifth Avenue, TimeWarner, the Four Seasons Hotels (through leveraged buy-out with Bill Gates), multiple Africa projects (private equity funds), and over 80M square meters of land developments in Saudi Arabia (approximately the size of Manhattan).
- Prior, Jeff was a Senior Associate at Booz-Allen & Hamilton in New York City. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MD from the Stanford University School of Medicine, a BA in Physics from Pomona College and a Fulbright Scholarship in Biophysics. He speaks Mandarin and Spanish and lives in New York and Shanghai.
Professor:
- Jeff is a Professor of Investment at Peking University Guanghua School of Management. He is also a past Fellow in Finance at the Cambridge University Judge School of Business and a teacher at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. Speaking engagements have included McKinsey & Co. conferences, Financial Times conferences, Columbia Business School, Wharton, London Business School, NYU Stern Business School, Fudan School of Management and many others.
Author:
- Jeff’s first book What Would Ben Graham Do Now: A New Value Investing Playbook for a Global Age (FT Press, 2011) focuses on the increasing collision of the West and the emerging markets. It was an Amazon (#1 in Business & Investing), USA TODAY Money (#3) and Inc. Magazine (#2) best seller.
- His second book, The Ten Global Strategies Every Value Investor Should Know (Greenleaf, 2013), is an investment book on emerging markets’ special situations. It is set for publication in 2013.
- His third book, China Demystified: A Pocket Guide to the 6 China Trends Transforming the World, is co-authored with Jonathan Woetzel of McKinsey & Company China. It explains the key China trends impacting the West – and is targeted to business professionals, government policy-makers and the general public. It is planned for publication in 2013.
- Jeff is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Buffett in Beijing Report – a monthly newsletter on global value investing interviews and insights. Sign-up is available for free at www.jeffreytowson.com
