Jeremy Benjamin Gerald Asher (born 16 July 1958) is an English businessman and company director. He has been the chairman of Agile Energy Ltd since 2005, and, since 2011, has also chaired Tower Resources plc, an oil and gas exploration company listed on the London Alternative Investment Market. He is also a director of Better Place, a venture-backed private firm providing infrastructure and services for the mass deployment of electric vehicles, and of Pacific Drilling SA, a company on the New York Stock Exchange that owns and operates ultra-deepwater drillships.
Born in London in 1958, Asher attended Winchester College, and went on to earn a BSc (Econ) degree at the London School of Economics, then an MBA from Harvard Business School, which he received with high distinction in 1981, also being designated a Baker Scholar. He joined Washington D.C.-based Strategic Planning Associates (later Mercer Management Consulting, ultimately merged into Oliver Wyman in 2007) as a consultant while still at Harvard, in 1980, and rose to become a manager before leaving in 1984. He then joined multinational commodity trader Marc Rich + Co AG (today Glencore), and by the time of his departure in 1989 had become global co-head of Global Oil Products there. In 1989, he and a partner acquired the Beta oil refinery in Wilhelmshaven, West Germany, which he developed as one of its managing directors and subsequently sold. He remained on the supervisory board at Beta Raffineriegesellschaft Wilhelmshaven mbH, the firm established to run the plant, until 1997.
Asr (Hebrew: אָשֵׁר, Modern shr, Tiberian šhr), in the Book of Genesis, is the second son of Jacob and Zilpah, and the founder of the Tribe of Asr.
The text of the Torah argues that the name of Asr means happy/blessing, implying a derivation from the Hebrew term 'eshan his in two variations—beoAsri (meaning in my good fortune), and ishsheruni, which textual scholars attribute to different sources—one to the Yahwist and the other to the Elohist. Many scholars suspect that the name of Asr may have more to do with a deity originally worshipped by the tribe, either Asrah, or Ashur, the chief Assyrian deity; the latter possibility is cognate with Asr.
Asr played a role in selling his brother Joseph into slavery (Gen. 37:23–36). Asr and his four sons and daughter settled in Canaan. On his deathbed, Jacob blesses Asr by saying that "his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties" (Gen. 49:20).
Asr was the eighth son of the patriarch Jacob and the traditional progenitor of the tribe Asr. However, some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation.
Asher is a common Jewish and Christian given name, after a character in the Old Testament.
Asher is a fictional character in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of novels. Asher is a Master Vampire, and the lover of Jean-Claude and Anita Blake.
Like Jean-Claude, Asher is fantastically handsome, having been selected for his beauty by Belle Morte, the vampire that made him. Anita describes his hair as the color of metallic gold and his eyes as the pale blue of a Siberian Husky. Although the left side of his face and body is angelically beautiful, his right side is hideously scarred; Asher has become an expert at using his hair, posture, and shadow to present only his left side to viewers until an opportune moment arises to reveal his scars, if desired.
In the epilogue to Burnt Offerings, Anita states that Asher intended to explore whether modern cosmetic surgery could help his scars. However, when this issue is mentioned in Cerulean Sins it only refers to Asher's ability in bed, which had been limited until a surgeon had removed the restricting scarred foreskin. No other cosmetic surgery or options is talked about and Anita says that touching the scars is like touching any other part of Asher. During a few different intimate times, she's made a point to kiss or caress the scarred side first, then the non-touched side.