Jeffrey Towson is a professor at Peking University, a private equity investor, and a best-selling author. Nicknamed the “Dean of global deals”, his area of expertise is investing and deal-making between the West and the emerging markets.
Investment and Advisory
Jeff is an investor and advisor with +15 years of experience across three continents. He has developed over $25B of projects across multiple industries – including real estate, hotels, banks / financial services, insurance, healthcare, consumer products, retail, technology, petrochemicals, and energy / infrastructure.
He is currently Managing Partner of the Towson Group, a niche investment and advisory firm based in New York and Shanghai.Previously, Jeff was Head of Direct Investments for Middle East North Africa and Asia Pacific for Prince Alwaleed, nicknamed the “Prince of deals” and the “Arabian Warren Buffett”
Prince Alwaleed is arguably the world’s first private global investor and his 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 management consultant (Senior Associate) at Booz-Allen & Hamilton in New York City where he focused on financial services and healthcare. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association and the American Medical Association Foundation.
Teaching
Jeff is currently a Professor of Investment at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management in Beijing where he teaches global investing and private equity in developing economies.
He is a past Fellow in Finance at the Cambridge University Judge School of Business and teaches at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.
Speaking engagements have included McKinsey & Co. conferences, Financial Times conferences, Columbia Business School, Wharton Business School, London Business School, NYU Stern Business School, Fudan School of Management and many others. He is a regular commentator on China Radio International.
Research and Writing
Jeff’s first book What Would Ben Graham Do Now: A New Value Investing Playbook for a Global Age (FT Press, 2011) focused on investment strategies in 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 was The One Hour China Book: Two Peking University Professors Explain All of China Business in Six Short Stories. It is a “speed read” on the key China trends impacting the West – and was co-authored by Jonathan Woetzel of McKinsey & Company China.
His upcoming book is Alwaleed’s Value Point: Three Groundbreaking Deals of the Arabian Warren Buffett. It is an in-depth look at the pioneering strategies behind Prince Alwaleed’s famous acquisitions of Citibank, the Four Seasons and other companies. It is set for publication in late 2014.
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Jeff received 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 from the Karolinska Institute for Biomedical Science in Stockholm, Sweden. He speaks Mandarin and Spanish and lives in New York and Shanghai.
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