Hamid Ladjevardi

Hamid Ladjevardi is manager of American Baltic Investments which seeks to identify, develop, and arrange capital for investments in targeted projects in the Baltic countries. Prior to this, he was co-founder and manager of the general partner of Baltic Fund 1, L.P., the first and longest running private equity fund in the Baltics, which was established in 1994. He has been actively involved in investment projects in the Baltic States since late 1991.
Prior to co-founding the fund, Mr. Ladjevardi was Vice President of Morgan Stanley & Company, Inc., where he was a portfolio manager and market advisor for 12 years.

Mr. Ladjevardi previously held senior management positions at the Behshahr Industrial Group in Iran, which his family managed and controlled. One of the largest and most diverse private sector groups of enterprises in that country, the Behshahr Industrial Group was active in banking and insurance, textiles, consumer goods, mining, trade, and distribution, and had extensive trading operations in the United States, Germany, and Japan.
Together with his brother, Mr. Ladjevardi created the Behshahr art collection which was one of the most highly regarded contemporary Iranian art collection by the art community in Iran.

A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Mr. Ladjevardi received degrees in economics and political science and then went on to receive his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Mr. Ladjevardi is Co-Chairman of the U.S.-Baltic Foundation which promotes democracy, free markets, and cultural exchange with the Baltic States. He is a frequent guest speaker at Baltic financial and government sponsored seminars. He was awarded the annual prize from the Latvian Artists Union and Cultural Capital Foundation of Latvia for the Best International Project of the year 2000 for conceiving and organizing a world premier touring exhibition of contemporary art of the Baltic States in the United States.

Mr. Ladjevardi is a co-founder of the recently established American Foundation for Contemporary Iranian Art (AFCIA, February 2004), a non-profit organization for promotion of contemporary Iranian art in the U.S. He is a trustee of the Zimmerli Art Museum of New Jersey, which has the largest collection of non-conformist Soviet and Baltic art in the world.