Haywood Blakemore is a retired lawyer living in Charlottesville. He grew up and was educated in Virginia and started his career working as a newspaper reporter in Richmond before heading to law school at UVa. As a newly minted lawyer, he went to New York and joined a large law firm, where he spent the next 30 years focusing on international business transactions while living in Washington, New York, Singapore,
Tokyo and Paris. He then was recruited to help the government of Qatar set up and develop a sovereign wealth fund to invest the country’s substantial wealth. From 2009 to 2023 he was based in Doha, where he led the investment legal team of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). During that time, he oversaw hundreds of investment transactions throughout the world as the QIA grew to more than $550 billion in assets.

He retired in 2023 and returned to the US after 40 years living overseas in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He is now settled in Charlottesville and active in various community organizations, including the Boards of The Montpelier Foundation, the Charlottesville Symphony and Randolph-Macon College.