Author: Todd Maurer

Todd Maurer is an emerging markets analyst, entrepreneur and investor focused on human capital and education. Affiliations: Founder 3/1 Global Research LLC, President Versatile PhD, Partner at Educated Ventures. For over two decades he has brought analytical research, investment banking and M&A expertise to corporations, governments, and private investors worldwide. For more information, contact: maurer [at] threeoneglobal.com Maurer was previously Vice President of Corporate Development, China and North Asia, for Apollo Global, a joint venture education investment company formed in 2007 by Apollo Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: APOL) and Carlyle Group, with operations in 14 countries. Prior to this he was a Partner at Lotus Asset Management Limited, a Hong Kong-based hedge fund and alternative investment firm, which focused exclusively on the Asia-Pacific and India through both public and private market investments. He has also held senior corporate finance and equity research positions within Peregrine Investments Holdings Limited based in Hong Kong, Seoul and Beijing. At Peregrine he worked on a number of landmark privatizations, global offerings and financial restructurings involving both state-owned enterprises and private sector firms, while also representing some of the world’s leading multinationals on acquisitions in China and Asia. He commenced his career as a trade economist with KOTRA, a Korean government agency, where he developed US-Korea economic and trade research. Maurer has taught courses at UCLA on China and Emerging Market Investment, and has lectured widely in the US and in Asia. He was previously Board Member of The STEM Academy, a non-profit organization that provides STEM literacy to middle and high school students, and is currently a Member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, an affiliate of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Maurer earned a B.A. in Economics from U.C.L.A, an M.I.A from the School of Public and International Affairs at Columbia University, and has conducted post-graduate study at Peking University and Nanking University, China. He speaks and reads Mandarin Chinese, and conversational Korean and Russian.

Talent, Training and AI: How Asia is (Again) Emerging as the World’s Laboratory

There are three key variables that businesses, investors and educators must understand with respect to Asia’s future rise and its impact on the world’s industries and workers. One, the trajectory of Asia’s educational achievement from K12 through post-graduate education, including English language, STEM and other skills capabilities. As I have noted previously in this blog, […]

Investing in the World’s Idle Youth

Disconnected or idle youth as measured by NEET rates (defined as 18-24 year olds neither in employment nor education or training) can be a major determinant of economic stagnation, social unrest and investment risk. Unsurprisingly, the worst performers (based on OECD data) are often those with low educational attainment and a high degree of gender […]

Keynote at US-Sino Online Higher Education Conference: Shanghai, 2018

I was honored to keynote the US-Sino Online Higher Education Forum at Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）which took place on June 1, 2018. My talk was focused on the next phase of collaboration between US and Chinese universities. I have consistently thought that education remains a critical aspect of Sino-US relations and that the ability of […]

2018 GEI Rankings – Education Investment and Opportunity

The latest GEI White Paper_2018 Rankings are available. There were a number of changes this year with additional data related to PISA Science Scores and presence within the THE Global University Rankings, with a total number of measured data points rising to 21. Below is a brief excerpt. With its combination large populations, economic growth and […]

Why all foreign students should be given a green card

US labor productivity is growing at its lowest rate, over an extended period, since 1948. In the face of this multifaceted decline, the Trump Administration’s “New Foundationfor American Greatness” has explicitly targeted GDP growth rates of 3% by 2021 based on a raft of trade, budgetary and investment measures. It has also championed an attempt to “Buy American, […]

When Fintech Meets Education: An International Love Affair

Investors and entrepreneurs are usually exuberant about the 1.65 billion strong global student market until they hear the bad news: the majority can’t afford anything beyond basic education. This, of course, doesn’t include the 122 million illiterate youth in the world today or the legions of non-formal and professional learners who may want to improve their skills but have little […]

Will Trump’s “America First” Policies Disrupt International Education?

In 2016, the United States hosted over 1 million foreign students at an estimated $32.8 billion economic impact and over 400,000 jobs, a level that could easily exceed $45 billion by 2025. Under the outgoing Obama Administration, international student enrollments grew five-fold from 200,460 international students in 2009 and left the US as the top destination […]

Russia’s Untapped Potential: Beyond Hacking

Russia is not an education superpower. What if it were? This may not be an idle question as the country seeks to bolster its international position–no less under a Trump Administration–and to counteract the perception of either being a state-sponsored hacker or geopolitical bully. Domestically, Russia’s persistent de-population trend over the past quarter century coincides with a global shift […]

Understanding the Global Edunomic Index (GEI)

What is the GEI? The Global Edunomic Index (GEI) was recently published over at 3/1 Global Research. Within it we analyzed education, economic and investment risk/environment data across 49 Emerging and Frontier Markets and then stack-ranked them using our internal scoring methodology. Why? To help companies, universities and investors make sense of the world’s rapid development […]

Does America’s Foreign Language Deficit Matter? Ask Google Translate

For many years US education officials have lauded the remarkable success of Finland in math and science, where its 15 year-old students have, along with a handful of Asian countries, dominated the global rankings as measured by comparative international PISA scores. US Education Secretary Arne Duncan lamented that US students are one to two years […]