| Whitney Tilson | |
|---|---|
| Residence | New York, NY |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | Harvard College Harvard Business School |
| Occupation | Investor, Writer/Author, Philanthropist |
Whitney Tilson is an investor[1], writer/author, and philanthropist.
Tilson is a disciple of the Graham-Dodd-Buffett-Munger school of value investing. He co-manages T2 Partners LLC with Glenn H. Tongue, which is comprised of three value-oriented private investment partnerships and the Tilson Mutual Funds, the Tilson Focus Fund (TILFX) and Tilson Dividend Fund (TILDX).
Tilson co-authored the book, More Mortgage Meltdown: 6 Ways to Profit in These Bad Times (published in May 2009), has written for Forbes, the Financial Times, Kiplinger’s, the Motley Fool and TheStreet.com, and was one of the authors of Poor Charlie's Almanack (ISBN 1578645018), the definitive book on Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger. He is a CNBC Contributor, was featured in a 60 Minutes segment in December 2008 about the housing crisis that won an Emmy, was one of five investors included in SmartMoney’s 2006 Power 30, was named by Institutional Investor in 2007 as one of 20 Rising Stars, has appeared dozens times on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox Business Network, was on the cover of the July 2007 Kiplinger’s, has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and has spoken widely on value investing and behavioral finance.
Since 2005, Tilson, with his partner, John Schwartz, has run and presented the Value Investing Congress, a biannual investment conference in New York City and Omaha. Also since 2005, Tilson, with partner John Heins, has published Value Investor Insight, an investment newsletter.
Contents |
Tilson was born in New Haven, CT in 1966 and spent much of his childhood in Tanzania and Nicaragua (his parents are both educators, were among the first couples to meet and marry in the Peace Corps, and have retired in Kenya). He attended Bing Nursery School while his father worked toward his doctorate in education at Stanford, and was one of the children that took part in the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment (also see: Don't! The Secret of Self Control).
In 1985 he graduated from Northfield Mt. Hermon School, where his father was Academic Dean, and then graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in Government in 1989. After college, Tilson helped Wendy Kopp launch Teach for America and then spent two years as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. He earned an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School in 1994, where he was elected a Baker Scholar (top 5% of class).[2]
From 1993-1999, Tilson worked with Harvard Business School Professor Michael E. Porter studying the competitiveness of inner cities and inner-city-based companies nationwide. He and Professor Porter founded the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, of which Mr. Tilson was Executive Director. Mr. Tilson also led the effort to create ICV Partners, a national for-profit private equity fund focused on minority-owned and inner-city businesses that has raised nearly $500 million.
Tilson launched T2 Partners (formerly Tilson Capital Partners) on January 1, 1999.
He lives in Manhattan with his wife and three daughters.
In 2004, Tilson partnered with John Schwartz to create the Value Investing Congress which has become the premier event for value investors to attend, and dubbed the, "Superbowl of Value Investing" by CNBC. Presenters at the congress have regularly broken news and moved stocks: In October, 2010, David Einhorn presented St. Joe Corporation as a short idea and sent the stock down 10% on the day that he spoke:[3]. Einhorn did the same in October, 2011 when he presented Green Mountain Coffee Roasters as a short idea. Other notable speakers at the Congress have included: William Ackman, Leon Cooperman, Julian Robertson, Mohnish Pabrai and Guy Spier.
Tilson is involved with a number of charities focused on education reform and Africa. For his philanthropic work, he received the 2008 John C. Whitehead Social Enterprise Award from the Harvard Business School Club of Greater New York. He is a member and past Chairman of the Manhattan chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization and serves on the board of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Academy Charter Schools in NYC and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. He is also one of the founders of Democrats for Education Reform, which aims to move the Democratic Party to embrace genuine school reform, and Rewarding Achievement (REACH), which helps students at 31 inner-city NYC high schools pass Advanced Placement exams.
In 2010, Tilson was featured in an education reform documentary film, A Right Denied: The Critical Need for Education Reform. In it, Tilson explores the twin achievement gaps (between the U.S. and its economic competitors, and between low-income, minority students in the US and their wealthier peers) and forcefully advocates for an urgent school reform agenda.
More Mortgage Meltdown: 6 Ways to Profit in These Bad Times (John Wiley & Sons, 2009) ISBN 0470503408
Poor Charlie's Almanack (ISBN 1578645018)