Shahnaz Batmanghelidj

Shahnaz Batmanghelidj

Shahnaz Batmanghelidj

Shahnaz (“Nazee”) Batmanghelidj is an Iranian-born American citizen. She graduated from
the University of Oxford with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and then went to Princeton University, where she earned a master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies.

She began her career in investment banking at Drexel Burnham in 1980, working in the
Corporate Finance Department and developing experience across a range of industries. She
entered Harvard Business School and received an MBA in 1985, after which she returned to
Drexel and worked there until the firm closed in 1990.

In subsequent years while she was raising her family, she took on consulting projects including
advising the Ministry of Privatization of the Czech Republic after the fall of the Soviet Union.
She represented the Czech government in the sale of the largest chocolate maker to
BSN/Nestle and the sale of the tobacco monopoly to Philip Morris. In 2000, she was recruited
by a Norwegian shipping family (Hoegh Capital) to oversee their US investments and introduce
them to leading private equity, hedge fund and long-only fund managers, many of whom she
knew through her Wall Street connections.

Nazee is married to Radford Klotz, a general partner of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. They
have two sons, both of whom graduated from the University of Virginia with degrees in history.
Their son Marcus is leading a startup in education technology, focused on teaching American
history to high school students.

Nazee is currently a board member of Americans for Oxford and The Jefferson Scholars
Foundation, and she serves on the Advisory Council to the Department of Near Eastern Studies
at Princeton University. Previous board positions include trustee of Oxford University Press USA, vice-chair of the Near East Foundation (an NGO sponsoring development in the Middle
East and Africa), and board member of Encyclopædia Iranica and ICCD (a global organization
supporting individuals with mental illness).