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Profile of a SAJAer: Mansoor Ijaz, Financier, Op-Ed Columnist, and Television Commentator

See Ijaz photo essay on South Asia quake (PDF).

Mansoor Ijaz is founder and chairman of Crescent Investment Management LLC (CIM), a New York investment partnership since 1990 that includes among others Lt Gen James Alan Abrahamson (USAF Ret), former director of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative and the renowned German architect Joachim Hauser.  Crescent specializes in the use of quantitative modeling techniques to manage investment portfolios.

The group’s new publicly listed technology fund, Crescent Technology Ventures Plc (CTV), is funding and developing the next generation of technologies focused on protecting vital infrastructure and providing for security against a spectrum of terrorist threats.  The fund is preparing investments in five primary areas of concern: Internet and cyber-security, air and seaport cargo container security, stratospheric telecommunications platforms and alternative energy development.  Former CIA Director Amb R James Woolsey serves as chairman of CTV’s Board of Advisers.  Lt Gen Thomas McInerney (USAF Ret) serves as chairman of CTV’s Board of Directors.  Mr Ijaz is CTV’s chief executive.

The group recently launched its first property development venture, Crescent Hydropolis Resorts Plc (CHR), which is franchising and constructing the world’s first underwater hotels and resorts.  Proposed sites for Hydropolis Hotels include Dubai, Oman, Monaco, Las Vegas, Rio de Janeiro and Qingdao.  Joachim Hauser, founder of the Hydropolis concept, serves as chairman of CHR and Mr Ijaz serves as chief executive.

Ijaz received his SM degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985 where he trained as a neuro-mechanical engineer in the joint MIT-Harvard Medical School Medical Engineering Medical Physics Program.  He received his bachelor's degree Magna Cum Laude from the University of Virginia in 1983, where he majored in Physics.  In the late 1980s, he applied the extensive modeling experience he gained at MIT and Harvard to develop The CARAT System, Crescent's proprietary currency, interest rate and equity risk management system.  The CARAT System compiled an investment record of 28% compounded annually during the period 1990-1999.

Away from Crescent's daily business affairs, Ijaz serves on the College Foundation Board of Trustees at the University of Virginia and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.   He appears regularly on a variety of financial and political news programs for CNN, CNNI, Fox News, BBC, Germany’s ARD TV, Japan’s NHK, ABC and NBC.  He has commented for PBS’ Newshour with Jim Lehrer and ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel.  Ijaz has been featured twice in BARRON'S Currency Roundtable discussions. He has also contributed to the editorial pages of London’s Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International, The Christian Science Monitor, The Weekly Standard, National Review, USA Today and the Times of India.

As a private American citizen, Ijaz negotiated Sudan's counterterrorism offer to the Clinton administration in April 1997 and proposed the framework for a ceasefire of hostilities between Indian security forces and Kashmiri separatists in the disputed Kashmir region in August 2000.  Ijaz's father, Dr. Mujaddid Ahmed Ijaz (deceased), a prominent American physicist, was an early pioneer in developing the intellectual infrastructure of Pakistan's nuclear program.  Ijaz earned All-American weightlifting status while attending UVA and was born in Florida in 1961.  He was raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

E-mail: crescent@crescentgroup.com

FOX News Channel on Ijaz

Read Mansoor Ijaz's 1997 testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on countries supporting terrorism

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