George Soros

Profession: Investor
Place/Date of Birth: Budapest, Hungary, 12 August 2020

George Soros

George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. He emigrated in 1947 to England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics, and in 1956 to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed. While a student at the London School of Economics, Mr. Soros became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his philanthropic activities.

Mr. Soros established his first foundation, the Open Society Fund, in New York in 1979, his first Eastern European foundation in Hungary in 1984, and the Soros Foundation-Soviet Union in 1987. He now funds a network of foundations that operate in 31 countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Central Eurasia, as well as South Africa, Haiti, Guatemala, and the United States. These foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. Soros has also founded other major institutions, such as the Central European University and the International Science Foundation. In 1994, the foundations in the network spent approximately $300 million; in 1995, $350 million; and in 1996, $362 million. Projected giving for 1997 is expected to be maintained at a similar level.

In addition to many articles on the political and economic changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Mr. Soros is the author of The Alchemy of Finance, published by Simon & Schuster in 1987 and republished in 1994 by John Wiley & Sons; Opening the Soviet System, published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in 1990; Underwriting Democracy, published by The Free Press in 1991; and Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve, published by John Wiley & Sons in September 1995. Mr. Soros’s most recent book, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, was published in November 1998 by Public Affairs.

Mr. Soros has received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School for Social Research, the University of Oxford, the Budapest University of Economics, and Yale University. In 1995, the University of Bologna awarded Mr. Soros its highest honor, the Laurea Honoris Causa, in recognition of his efforts to promote open societies throughout the world.

Mr. Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management LCC, a private investment management firm that serves as principal investment advisor to the Quantum Group of Funds. The Quantum Fund N.V., the oldest and largest fund within the Quantum Group, is generally recognized as having the best performance record of any investment fund in the world in its 28-year history.

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