33 Facts About Mansoor Ijaz

Mansoor Ijaz was born on August 1961 and is a Pakistani-American venture financier and hedge-fund manager.

Mansoor Ijaz is founder and chairman of Crescent Investment Management Ltd, a New York and London-based investment firm that operates CARAT, a proprietary trading system developed by Ijaz in the late 1980s.

Mansoor Ijaz was born in Tallahassee, Florida, and grew up on a farm in Montgomery County, Virginia.

Mansoor Ijaz's father, Mujaddid Ahmed Ijaz, was a Pakistani experimental physicist and professor of physics at Virginia Tech who was noted for his early role in the development of Pakistan's nuclear energy program and his discovery of numerous isotopes while working at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

Mansoor Ijaz's mother, Lubna Razia Ijaz, was a solar physicist who worked with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization to develop renewable energy programs in Pakistan.

Mansoor Ijaz began his career on Wall Street in 1986, joining Van Eck Associates Corporation as a technology analyst.

In 1990, Mansoor Ijaz left Van Eck to start Crescent Investment Management LLC, where he developed a trading system, Computer-Aided Regression Analysis Techniques, to manage his first hedge fund.

Since that time, Mansoor Ijaz has remained active as Crescent's owner, operating it as a quantitative investment adviser and venture investing firm.

Mansoor Ijaz formed and listed Crescent Technology Ventures PLC on London's AIM Stock Exchange to raise venture capital for his projects, but changes in AIM Rules for small-cap investment companies forced the start-up to de-list a year later.

Mansoor Ijaz has served as a media commentator and has written numerous opinion pieces for internationally known publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times in the United States and the Financial Times in the United Kingdom.

Mansoor Ijaz has appeared periodically for various networks in Pakistan, India and the US into early 2012 as Pakistan's Supreme Court-appointed Judicial Commission began the Memogate inquiry.

Mansoor Ijaz raised significant amounts for various Democratic Party causes during the 1990s when President Clinton had paved the way for minority communities to become more active in US politics, encouraging fellow Pakistani and Muslim Americans to join his fundraising efforts along the way.

In 1996, Mansoor Ijaz raised or contributed more than $525,000 for the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, bringing Mansoor Ijaz into close proximity with Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Hillary Clinton as well as other Clinton administration national security officials with whom he would later engage on Sudan, Kashmir and Pakistan's nuclear program.

Mansoor Ijaz used his fundraising results to advance his causes in Congress, appearing as an expert witness in front of committees in the Senate on extremist threats faced by the United States and in the House of Representatives to advocate for Washington to adopt a policy of "constructive engagement" with rogue Muslim countries affected by US sanctions.

In 2007, Nevada Republicans approached Mansoor Ijaz to run against Sen.

Mansoor Ijaz was a member of the board of directors of the Atlantic Council from 2007 until 2009, and he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations,.

Away from Crescent's daily affairs and former political and media engagements, Mansoor Ijaz has served on the College Foundation Board of Trustees at the University of Virginia, and he serves on the advisory board of the Rebuilding Afghanistan Foundation.

In noting his belief that governments have often failed to provide assistance to the poor in sufficient ways over the long term, Mansoor Ijaz sought similar pledges for the proposed fund from other philanthropists.

Mansoor Ijaz was involved in unofficial negotiations between the US and Sudanese governments in 1996 and 1997 to obtain access to Sudan's intelligence files on Osama bin Laden and the early remnants of Al-Qaeda's network there after efforts to extradite bin Laden to the US failed in early 1996.

Mansoor Ijaz first met Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and other Sudanese leaders in August 1996 and reported his findings back to US government officials, including Lee Hamilton, ranking member of the House Committee on International Relations at the time, and Sandy Berger, then Clinton's deputy national security adviser, and Susan Rice, then director for African Affairs at the National Security Council.

Mansoor Ijaz then argued that Washington should adopt a policy of "constructive engagement" with Khartoum vis-a-vis economic development and political reconciliation in return for Sudanese counterterrorism cooperation.

Mansoor Ijaz asserted that in 1996, prior to bin Laden's expulsion from Sudan, the Sudanese government allegedly offered to arrest and extradite him to the United States.

Mansoor Ijaz further asserted that US authorities allegedly rejected each offer despite knowing of bin Laden's involvement in training terrorists in Somalia, some of whom were allegedly involved in supporting militia members that downed US Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu in October 1993.

In 2000 and 2001, Mansoor Ijaz was involved in efforts to broker a ceasefire in Kashmir, the cause of multiple wars between India and Pakistan since independence.

Mansoor Ijaz held a series of meetings with senior Indian and Pakistani government officials as well as senior Kashmiri leaders in both Indian and Pakistani-held Kashmir from November 1999 until January 2001, traveling to India secretly on out-of-passport visas.

Sahay and Mansoor Ijaz worked together to develop a comprehensive blueprint for participation of a wider cross-section of Kashmiri resistance groups, particularly militant groups operating from Pakistan-held Kashmir.

In late summer 2000, Mansoor Ijaz traveled to Muzaffarabad to negotiate with Hizbul Mujahideen commander Syed Salahuddin.

The plan drafted by Sahay and Mansoor Ijaz reportedly became the basis of a decision by India's prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to announce a unilateral ceasefire in Indian-held Kashmir in November 2000.

Mansoor Ijaz was one of the key protagonists in Pakistan's Memogate controversy.

On October 10,2011, Mansoor Ijaz published an opinion piece about the interference of Pakistan's intelligence services in the function of its democratic institutions.

Mansoor Ijaz was among the key witnesses deposed, as were Pakistan's intelligence chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha and Haqqani.

The report said the former ambassador "orchestrated the possibility of an imminent coup to both persuade Mr Mansoor Ijaz to convey the message and to give it traction and credibility".

The commission's report exonerated President Zardari from any prior knowledge of the memorandum, although it noted that in the "considered view" of the justices, Haqqani had led Mansoor Ijaz to believe the memorandum had the Pakistani president's approval.