Andy Altahawi is a dual-discipline professional whose career combines a four-decade international legal practice with more than three decades in the U.S. capital markets. Few advisors carry both qualifications in equal measure; fewer still have applied them, in tandem, to the structuring and listing of cross-border issuers on the world’s most demanding exchanges. The grant that carries his name is the next chapter: turning that career toward the people who will follow it.
The career in brief
Mr. Altahawi took his law degree from Cairo University Law School in 1986 and was admitted to the bar in 1988 as a Supreme Court attorney, with reciprocal practice rights in additional jurisdictions. He later earned a Doctor of Philosophy in finance from the University of Szeged — the academic bridge between his two professions.
He entered the U.S. securities industry in 1994 as a Senior Vice President in the Investment Banking division of Prudential Securities, where he served until 1998. In 1998 he founded Adamson Brothers, an SEC- and FINRA-registered broker-dealer (CRD #46684) that grew into a multi-office firm active in equity and bond trading, options, mutual funds, market making, and corporate finance; its broker-dealer operations ran until 2007, after which the firm continued as a specialized capital markets advisory practice. Today his work is listing advisory and consultancy for companies entering NASDAQ and NYSE, with any matter touching U.S. law handled in co-counsel with U.S.-admitted attorneys.
Alongside all of it, the international legal practice has never stopped: cross-border corporate structuring, international commercial contracts, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, commercial arbitration — including Bermuda-form insurance and reinsurance disputes — and governance counsel to boards of publicly traded companies. He has served as General Counsel to large multinational enterprises and has negotiated and arbitrated dozens of international commercial disputes through to final award.
The record, stated plainly
Throughout its operation as a FINRA-registered broker-dealer, Adamson Brothers was never the subject of a customer complaint or a regulatory citation from FINRA or the NASD — a clean record across a decade of multi-office trading, market making, and corporate finance. Mr. Altahawi’s own registered career from 1994 was likewise free of customer complaints. His full regulatory history, including the 2018–2019 SEC Longfin matter resolved by consent without admitting or denying the allegations, is published in full at andyaltahawi.com/record.
The chapters, in full
- International Legal Practice — Since 1988
- Investment Banking History — 1994–2007
- The Practice Today — Listing Advisory
- Credentials & Record
- Andy Altahawi Public SEC Comments on Certain Regulations Discussed in the Public Discourse
- Gallery — Andy Altahawi
Why a grant
Because the dual qualification that makes the practice unusual also makes the obligation obvious. A lawyer who has priced deals and a banker who has drafted for foreign jurisdictions knows exactly how much of the world never gets close to either profession — and how small the sums are that change one person’s trajectory. The Areas of Giving page sets out where the money is intended to go.
The record, in the open
Mr. Altahawi publishes his complete career record — including a full, factual account of the one regulatory matter in his career and his own statement on it — from the primary sources, at andyaltahawi.com/record. A grant-maker asks for trust; its founder’s record should be one click away, whole and unedited.