Being organized to fund education, legal access, and economic opportunity — the three things that opened every door of its founder’s career. That career is why the grant exists, and it is published here in full.
Every consequential door of a four-decade career — the law, Wall Street, an investment bank of his own, the world’s exchanges — was opened first by education, access, and someone willing to give a stranger a start.
The Andy Altahawi Grant is the deliberate version of that. It is being organized to make direct grants in three areas: education for students of law, finance, and the capital markets; access to competent legal representation for people and small enterprises who cannot buy it; and practical support for entrepreneurs and communities shut out of ordinary financial opportunity.
It is announced here before it is formed, with the founder’s complete professional and regulatory record published alongside it — because an organization that intends to ask for anyone’s trust should put its own history on the table first.
Each answers a specific obstacle the founder met, worked around, or watched others fail to clear. None is open for application yet.
Direct tuition and study grants for students of law, finance, and the capital markets — with particular attention to first-generation and cross-border students, the ones with the talent and none of the introductions. Named award families are planned in law, in finance, and for scholars whose studies span more than one legal system.
Support for legal aid clinics, pro bono programs, and law-school clinical education — the places where people who cannot afford a lawyer still get one. A career built inside the law carries an obvious debt to the parts of it that operate without a fee.
Financial-literacy programs, entrepreneurship training, and small-enterprise support in communities that never get near a capital market — teaching what capital is, how it is raised, and how a business is built to survive the answer.
Andy Altahawi’s working life has run in two disciplines at once — international law and the U.S. capital markets — for four decades. Each chapter has its own section on this site.
Law degree from Cairo University Law School in 1986; admitted to the bar in 1988 as a Supreme Court attorney, with reciprocal admissions in additional jurisdictions. Cross-border corporate structuring, international commercial arbitration, and board-level governance counsel — with U.S. matters handled in co-counsel with U.S.-admitted attorneys.
Since 1988Senior Vice President in investment banking at Prudential Securities from 1994 to 1998, then founder of Adamson Brothers — an SEC- and FINRA-registered broker-dealer (CRD #46684) that operated from 1998 to 2007 in trading, market making, and corporate finance, and was never the subject of a customer complaint or a FINRA or NASD citation.
1994–2007Listing advisory and consultancy: companies entering NASDAQ and NYSE by direct exchange listing, Regulation A+ and registered offering preparation, listing readiness, and cross-border structuring for international issuers — the work intended to fund the grant.
TodayLaw degree, Cairo University Law School — bar admission follows in 1988; later a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Szeged.
Enters the U.S. securities industry — Senior Vice President, Investment Banking, Prudential Securities, through 1998.
Founds Adamson Brothers, an SEC- and FINRA-registered broker-dealer; broker-dealer operations run to 2007.
Listing advisory for companies entering NASDAQ and NYSE — and a grant-making initiative in formation.
An organization should begin the way it means to continue — in the open.Andy Altahawi
The Andy Altahawi Grant is published here while it is still being organized. It has not been formed as a legal entity, holds no tax exemption, accepts no donations, and has no application open. This site exists so that the purpose, the planned areas of giving, and the founder’s complete history are on the record from day one.
That history includes a clean registered career — no customer complaints, and no FINRA or NASD citation against Adamson Brothers across a decade of operations — and one regulatory matter, the 2018–2019 SEC Longfin proceeding, resolved by consent without admitting or denying the allegations. All of it, with the primary sources, is published at andyaltahawi.com/record.
In the places where the career happened — the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square, the Dubai cross-border desk, and the city in between. Fifteen photographs, each captioned.
Students, universities, legal aid organizations, and community programs are welcome to introduce themselves now. Every message is read, and every milestone of the formation will be announced here.
