About the author
Peter Fuhrman is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of China First Capital, Ltd., a boutique investment bank based in China and the USA. China First Capital works exclusively with China’s most innovative and high-growth private Small & Medium Enterprises (”SME”) companies, providing strategic financial advice and pre-IPO capital-raising.
In addition to his work with China First Capital, Peter is also a founder and CEO of Awareness Technologies, a security software company based in Los Angeles, California that was recently named one of Deloitte’s “Fast 500” , the list of the fastest-growing technology businesses in North America.
Peter has had a varied career, spanning journalism, finance, management, technology, venture capital and private banking, investment banking. He worked first as a management consultant focusing on China, then spent ten years, beginning in 1986, working for Forbes Inc., Peter spent eight years based in Europe for Forbes Magazine, as a foreign correspondent and editor, rising to become European Bureau Chief, and head of Forbes Magazine’s editorial operations in Europe. During these years, he was named four straight years as one of the 500 Most Influential Journalists in America. An important focus of his reporting work was entrepreneurship.
Peter left journalism to become a world-changer, rather than just write about them. He began a career in finance, venture capital and high technology. He served as a principal and member of the board of directors of a market-leading music software company, establishing partnerships with Intel, Compaq and AOL.
Peter then moved to Los Angeles to serve as CEO of a venture capital corporation. Peter managed a $50 million venture capital investment portfolio of 16 companies based in the US, Europe and Israel operating in the software, computer hardware, internet services and healthcare fields. He served on numerous corporate boards. Investors included European and American hedge funds, private equity groups, corporations. In late 2003, Peter was recruited to serve as Chairman and CEO of a film finance company during its IPO process on the NASDAQ market in the USA.
These days, Peter has time for little else except the two great businesses he works for, China First Capital and Awareness Technologies. He likes it that way.
He graduated with his BA in Chinese History from Tufts University, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He holds an M.Phil degree from Cambridge University in Britain, and also did postgraduate studies at Nanjing University in China, and as a Yale-in-China Fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Peter is a frequent speaker at conferences on private equity and IPO market in China. He has lectured at UCLA’s Anderson Business School on entrepreneurship, private equity and venture capital. He enjoys cycling, and is an avid collector of antique Chinese and Tibetan art.