News Americas, NEW YORK, NY: The love of her Caribbean husband – Jedidiah Francis is worth more than the $407 million she was set to inherit as the daughter of one of Malaysia’s richest men.
So who is the man that 34-year-old Angeline Francis Khoo is giving up all that money for as she cuts ties with her father, Tan Sri Khoo Kay Peng, chairman of fashion and lifestyle company Laura Ashley?
News Americas Now has revealed that he was born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and holds a DPhil in Statistics from the University of Oxford.
Jedidiah Francis, or “Jed” as he is fondly called, attended St Mary’s RC School in Kingstown and completed his secondary education at St Vincent’s Grammar School.
According to a 2006 Searchlight advertisement by his family, he graduated from St Vincent’s Community College as one of two ‘Students of the Year’ in 2000, receiving awards as the top Biology and Mathematics student.
Seeking higher education opportunities, he joined the British Army in February 2001 and trained as a soldier and then as an Electronics Engineer. In July 2002 he received an honorable discharge from the military to pursue his personal academic goals.
After gaining acceptance from Queen Mary University of London, Francis was awarded an NCB scholarship to study for a BSc in Biology with Business Management in 2003, graduating with first class honors in July 2006.
His interest in mathematics and biology converged in his BSc dissertation, where he developed a statistical model to describe the spread of transposons or “jumping genes” in mosquito populations.
His work in modeling jumping genes earned him entry to the University of Oxford, where he worked alongside leading researchers to develop statistical models of the genetic evolution of HIV.
Asked about his motivation and drive in 2006, Francis attributed all his success to God’s faithfulness and emphasized the contribution of his parents, Mr. & Mrs. Eli and Vienna Francis and family.
At that time, his family also accepted the financial support of the Marriaqua Friendly Society (Bun Pan) during his high school and A-level years, the National Commercial Bank for securing finance to complete his BSc degree and Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and Govt. of St. Vincent and the Grenadines for their outstanding support.
Francis is said to have met Khoo in Oxford. After her father disapproved of the man she wanted to marry, she cut ties with him and married him anyway.
“I believed the father’s position was wrong, so there was no doubt about what was right,” she told the Daily Mail.
The couple now live in London. Francis, according to his LinkedIn profile, is head of data science at online fashion retailer ASOS.com. He lists his specialties as: Statistical Modeling, Probabilistic Modeling, Computational Statistics, Data Analysis, Machine Learning Algorithms and Data Mining among others.
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