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George
Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. He survived
the Nazi occupation and left communist Hungary in 1947 for
England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics
(LSE) in 1952. While a student at LSE, Soros became familiar
with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a
profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional
and philanthropic activities.
In
1956, Soros moved to the United States, where he began to
accumulate a large fortune through an international investment
fund he founded and managed. He is currently the president
and chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, a private investment
management firm that serves as principal advisor to the
Quantum Group of Funds, a series of international investment
vehicles. In July 2000, Soros merged his flagship Quantum
Fund with the Quantum Emerging Growth Fund to form the Quantum
Endowment Fund. The Quantum Fund is generally recognized
as one of the most successful investment funds ever, returning
an average 31 percent annually throughout its more than
30-year history.
Soros
has been active as a philanthropist since 1979, when he
began providing funds to help black students attend the
University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. Today
he is chairman of the Open Society Institute and the founder
of a network of philanthropic organizations that are active
in more than 50 countries. Based primarily in Central and
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union—but also
in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the United States—these
foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the
infrastructure and institutions of an open society. In 1992,
Soros founded Central European University, with its primary
campus in Budapest.
Soros
is the author of seven books, most recently George Soros
on Globalization (PublicAffairs, March 2002). His other
books include: The Alchemy of Finance (1987); Opening the
Soviet System (1990); Underwriting Democracy (1991); Soros
on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve (1995); The Crisis
of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered (1998); and
Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000). His articles
and essays on politics, society, and economics regularly
appear in major newspapers and magazines around the world.
Soros
has received honorary degrees from the New School for Social
Research in New York City, the University of Oxford, the
Budapest University of Economics, and Yale University. In
1995, the University of Bologna awarded Soros its highest
honor, the Laurea Honoris Causa, in recognition of his efforts
to promote open societies throughout the world.
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