Advisory Board

Executive Committee Members

Hashem Pesaran

John Elliott Distinguished Chair in Economics
Director, USC Dornsife Institute for New Economic Thinking

Hashem Pesaran is the John Elliot Distinguished Chair in Economics at the University of Southern California, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He also holds Directorships of USC Dornsife Institute for New Economic Thinking, and the Centre for Applied Financial Economics at USC. Previously, he was head of the Economic Research Department of the Central Bank of Iran and the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Iran. He has also been a Professor of Economics and the Director of the Applied Econometrics Program at UCLA, and a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Vienna. He was awarded Honorary Doctorates by the University of Salford, the University of Goethe, Frankfurt, Maastricht University, and University of Economics in Prague. He is the recipient of the 1992 Royal Economic Society Prize for the best article published in The Economic Journal for the years 1990 and 1991, the joint recipient of the Econometric Reviews Best Paper Award 2002-2004, and the joint recipient of the Best Paper Award 2004-2005 in the International Journal of Forecasting. Dr Pesaran was the founding editor of the Journal of Applied Econometrics (1986-2014), and is a co-developer of Microfit, an econometric software package published by Oxford University Press. He was named one of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds 2014” by Thomson Reuters in 2014. He has over 200 publications published in leading scientific journals and edited volumes in the areas of econometrics, empirical finance and macroeconomics and the Iranian economy. He is an expert in the economics of oil and the middle-east and his research has been cited almost 66K times according to Google Scholar. He holds a PhD degree in economics from Cambridge University. He is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Applied Econometrics (IAAE). His latest book publication is Time Series and Panel Data Econometrics, 2015, Oxford University Press.

Lily Sarafan

President, Homecare Assistance

Lily Sarafan is co-founder and CEO of Home Care Assistance, the leading consumer health company in the $100B in-home care market with a mission to change the way the world ages. Under Lily’s leadership, HCA has grown from Silicon Valley startup to industry champion and today employs more than 6,000 team members across 150 markets. The company is consistently recognized as an employer of choice, best-in-class consumer product, and one of the fastest growing companies in the world, and Lily as a featured expert on digital health and innovation in aging at the White House and global conferences. Lily led the successful consumer exit of HCA, paving the way for significant investment in and attention to the senior care space. For her leadership at the helm of HCA, Lily has been honored as Women Health Care Executives’ 2016 Woman of the Year and Ernst & Young’s 2016 Entrepreneur of the Year. Lily is an active investor and advisor to startups and venture capital firms and a mentor at 500 Startups and StartX. She is also co-founder and Executive Chairwoman of Porcelane, a health tech startup pioneering house call dentistry. Alongside corporate board seats and membership in such organizations as YPO and Chatham House, Lily serves on the boards of several high-impact nonprofits including the Stanford Alumni Association and the National Iranian American Council. One of Silicon Valley’s 40 Under 40, Lily has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Newsweek and Inc. She holds an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering and B.S. in Science Technology and Society with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies from Stanford University, where she was Eben Tisdale Fellow and Class President

Shane Tedjarati

President, High Growth Regions, Honeywell

Shane Tedjarati is responsible for driving Honeywell’s business expansion in High Growth Regions of the world: Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Tedjarati has been instrumental in engineering Honeywell’s success story, starting in China and India, and expanding globally to the High Growth Regions of the world where today Honeywell drives the majority of its growth. Before coming to Honeywell, Tedjarati accumulated more than 20 years of consulting experience in various industries. He was the regional managing director for Deloitte Consulting (Greater China), where he worked with Chinese stated-owned enterprises and multi-national corporations to help them formulate and execute strategies for sustainable growth in China and abroad. Tedjarati is a Henry Crown Fellow of Aspen Institute and also the co-founder of its Middle East Leadership Initiative and China Fellowship Program; special advisor to Chongqing and Wuhan Mayors; and industry Co-chair of the dual master’s degree program by MIT and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He is a frequent guest lecturer on a broad range of topics related to globalization. Tedjarati is an avid aviator. He has lived in China for more than 20 years and speaks six languages.

Yahya Tabesh

Professor Emeritus, Sharif University of Technology

Yahya Tabesh is a visiting scholar at Stanford University and distinguished faculty of the Sharif University of Technology (Tehran, Iran). Yahya served as the chairman of the department of Mathematical Sciences at Sharif for several years. He was also director of Math and Computer Olympiads in Iran. A pioneer in developing math house and schoolnet, he is also responsible for developing mathematics text-books and curriculum for thousands of students in the field who went on to become highly successful entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley. Dr. Tabesh also served as director of the Computing Center at Sharif University. He also did research in computational linguistics and was a leader in helping develop Farsi under the Unicode standard. Dr. Tabesh won the Erdos international award in 2010 for his sustained and distinguished contribution to the enrichment of math education. Dr. Tabesh is also co-founder of seven startups which developed innovative technologies.

Mehdi Zarghamee

Former Chancellor, Sharif University of Technology; Founder, Isfahan University of Technology; Senior Principal, Simpson, Gumpertz, and Hager

Dr. Mehdi Shaghagi Zarghamee is a former chancellor of Aryamehr University of Technology (currently Sharif University of Technology) in Iran, former professor at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, and founder of the Isfahan University of Technology. He currently works as Senior Principal in the Division of Engineering Mechanics and Infrastructure of Simpson, Gumper, and Heger, Inc. He was the principal investigator for the structural modelling of the 0/11 collapse of the World Trade Center Towers for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Dr. Zarghamee has forty-five years of consulting, academic, and management experience. His experience includes analysis and design of complex structures and mechanical systems, investigation including condition assessment, failure risk analysis of structures and infrastructures and repair, rehabilitation, and asset management of deteriorated infrastructures. His expertise also includes wind and earthquake engineering.

Advisory Council Members

Ramin Alizadeh

Ramin Alizadeh, Citi, Head of Capital Markets — Western Region, US

Based in San Francisco, Ramin is responsible for the design and execution of capitarl markets strategies, such as Fixed Income, Equity, FX and Commodities markets for clients in the western Region. He brings more than 25 years of market experience to our clients.
Prior to joining Citi, Ramin was at Merrill Lynch, providing advice and execution of sophisticated market strategies for the ultra high net worth clients. Before that, he was at Morgan Stanley, with responsibility for the firm’s institutional structured derivatives transactions. At Morgan Stanley’s London office, he led a unit that provided hedging strategies for major European pension funds and insurance companies with a focus on asset and liability matching capabilities for such institutions.
Ramin has a Ph.D. in Particle Physics from Oxford University.

Anousheh Anaari

Co-founder and Chairwoman, Prodea Systems

Anousheh Ansari brings more than two decades as a successful serial entrepreneur to Prodea Systems, where she serves as chairman. Anousheh captured headlines around the world as the first female private space explorer. She earned a place in history as the fourth private explorer to visit space, and the first astronaut of Iranian descent.
An active proponent of world-changing technologies, Anousheh has dreamed of space exploration since childhood. Her family provided the title sponsorship for the Ansari XPRIZE, a $10 million cash award for the first non-governmental organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. This feat was accomplished in 2004 by legendary aerospace designer Burt Rutan in 2004.

Prior to founding Prodea Systems, Anousheh served as co-founder, chief executive officer and chairman of the board for Telecom Technologies, Inc. After earning three key U.S. patents and growing the company to 250 employees with 100 percent sequential growth year over year since inception, the company successfully merged with Sonus Networks, Inc., a provider of IP-based voice infrastructure products.

A living example of the American dream, Anousheh emigrated to the United States as a teenager who did not speak English. She immersed herself in education, earning a bachelor’s degree in electronics and computer engineering from George Mason University, followed by a master’s degree in electrical engineering from George Washington University. She is currently working toward a master’s degree in astronomy from Swinburne University.

Anousheh is a member of the XPRIZE Foundation’s Vision Circle, as well as its Board of Directors. She has received multiple honors, including the Working Woman’s National Entrepreneurial Excellence Award, George Mason University’s Entrepreneurial Excellence Award, George Washington University’s Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Southwest Region. While under her leadership, Telecom Technologies earned recognition as one of Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest-growing companies and Deloitte & Touche’s Fast 500 technology companies.
In addition to her business achievements, Anousheh actively pursues ways to enable social entrepreneurs to bring about radical change globally. She has served on the boards of directors for Make-a-Wish Foundation of North Texas and Collin County Children’s Advocacy Center. She works with a number of other non-profit organizations, including the Ashoka Foundation in its support of social entrepreneurs.

Nima Asgharbeygi

Tech Lead Manager, Google

Nima Asgharbeygi is currently the Technical lead Manager at Google. He is a co-founder of Clever Sense, which was acquired by Google. He is the technology mastermind behind the CleverSense Platform. He is a deep thinker and a guru in machine learning and data mining technologies. He has crafted intelligent agent architectures capable of learning and decision making for his PhD research at Stanford University. Such technologies are at the heart of the Clever Sense platform. When not thinking about technology, he finds inspiration on long walks on the beach in Half Moon Bay, or in art museums. Nima is also is a member of the Product Design Committee at Clever Sense.

Amir Kermani

Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business and Department of Economics, UC Berkeley

Amir Kermani holds joint positions as assistant professor at the Haas School of Business and Department of Economics at the University of California Berkeley. His research interests include monetary policy, macroeconomics and housing, market securitization and political economy. Before joining UC Berkeley in 2013, he received his PhD from MIT.

Ahmad Kiarostami

Co-founder and CEO of Fotomoto

Ahmad Kiarostami is the co-founder and CEO of Fotomoto. He has worked in cinema and software industries for twenty years. After taking on leadership roles at Microsoft Middle-East, he founded three companies including the first multimedia and online production venue in Iran, where he published award-winning multimedia products in cinema and visual arts.
Ahmad has served on the board of San Francisco Cinematheque, the oldest organization in North America promoting experimental cinema and video. His music videos are among the most viewed Iranian music videos on YouTube. He has studied Math and Computer Science at Sharif University and Philosophy at UCLA. He is currently the CEO of Fotomoto, which he founded in 2008.

Ali Partovi

Serial Entrepreneur, Angel Investor, Startup Advisor, and Co-founder, Code.org,

Based in San Francisco, Ali is an angel investor, startup advisor, and serial entrepreneur. Ali is also a co-founder of computer education non-profit Code.org and an active investor in sustainable food systems.Ali co-founded and sold two high-profile startups: iLike, acquired by MySpace in 2009, and LinkExchange, acquired by Microsoft for $265 million in 1998. Ali’s portfolio as an investor / advisor has included such successes as Zappos, Facebook and DropBox, as well as newer ventures such as Viagogo and OPOWER.

As a visionary, Ali was among the first people to see the potential of the Facebook Platform and among the earliest to grasp the business opportunity of search. Ali’s current passion is sustainable food and agriculture, based on his articles Food is the New Frontier in Green Tech and Hacking the Food System Focus on the Supply Chain and related angel investments in Farmigo and BrightFarms and serves on the board of school food non-profit FoodCorps.Ali co-founded iLike with his twin brother, Hadi, serving as CEO and President respectively. They created iLike in an effort to reinvent GarageBand.com, which Ali ran after acquiring the assets of the company from the original owners. iLike created the first successful application on the Facebook Platform, which remains the most popular music app on Facebook today.

In 2009, Myspace acquired iLike and Ali served as Head of Business Development at MySpace until transitioning to a strategic advisory role in April 2010. Ali originally established himself as an entrepreneur by co-founding LinkExchange, which was acquired by Microsoft for $265 million in 1998.

From 1998-2000, Ali worked at Microsoft and created “Keywords,” a pilot project to develop pay-for-placement, keyword-targeted text ads on alongside MSN Search results (essentially equivalent to Google AdWords, but many years earlier). Ali left Microsoft when the Keywords pilot program was shut down. Ali also co-founded “DrinkExchange,” a monthly social event that spread from San Francisco to Washington, London, Tokyo, and Sydney.

Pirooz Parvarandeh

Seasoned Executive, Board Director, Philanthropist, and Investor

Mr. Parvarandeh is an accomplished leader who has committed much of his career to the growth and success of a single company. He was a dedicated employee of Maxim Integrated for 27 years, diligently working through technical and management positions to executive-level roles. Mr. Parvarandeh’s primary interest has always been innovation. He developed the first Innovation Council at Maxim Integrated with the intention of inspiring the development of disruptive technologies and allowing for opportunities to “think outside the box.” Mr. Parvarandeh has been instrumental in the development of several startups, such as Automotive BU which he grew to well over $100 million while serving as CTO. He has extensive experience with mergers and acquisitions and has evaluated numerous targets from a technology perspective. Mr. Parvarandeh currently serves on the board of directors of iBridges, a non-profit organization. Previously, Mr. Parvarandeh served on the board of directors of a publically traded company, InvenSense Inc., from 2009 to 2011. His interest in developing and executing new ways of accomplishing goals aligns well with many current trends in board strategies. In addition to board work, startups and investments, Mr. Parvarandeh currently serves as the senior advisor of Roche Diagnostic’s DNA sequencing unit. Mr. Parvarandeh completed his Bachelor of Sicence and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Amir Tehrani

Managing Partner, Legacy Angel Ventures

Amir is an entrepreneur and civic leader who backs entrepreneurs locally and nationally. Amir was the first Entrepreneur in Residence for the City of Los Angeles, working closely with the most exciting companies in LA to source capital and to provide support, while also identifying opportunities for the City to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. He also worked closely with the White House to co-found National Entrepreneurs Day, to celebrate and recognize entrepreneurs around the country. Amir is the founding partner at Legacy Angel Ventures (LA Ventures), an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in exceptional Los Angeles-based companies. Prior, Amir founded and scaled Allied Group, Inc., a Los Angeles-based consumer products company, and Conrad Asher, an athletic apparel company. Previously, Amir spent several years at Unisys, AOL, and in management consulting at Deloitte Consulting advising Fortune 100 companies. He serves on board or advises several fast- growing tech and consumer companies including Inc Magazine, cPrime Inc. (acquired by Alten Group, Ticker: ATE), Oblong Industries, Crowdfunder, Notarize, and Hint Water. Amir is also the founder of the Legacy Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing together innovative entrepreneurs across America to foster collaboration. Amir serves on the board of the Young Presidents Organization (Bel Air Chapter), the LA Sports and Entertainment Commission, City Year and The Riordan Programs at UCLA. He completed his undergraduate degree from UC Irvine in Economics, Management, and Computer Science and his MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA.

Payam Zamani

Founder and Chairman, Planet Ops, Inc.

Payam Zamani is the founder and chairman of One Planet Ops, Inc., a hybrid tech firm that consists of several operating technology companies and brands, an angel fund, and a startup incubator. The firm currently operates a few large tech businesses, including BuyerLink.com (formerly Reply.com), MerchantCircle.com and QualitySmith. The firm operates under a “innovation + intention” philosophy and attempts to combine capital with social capital by ensuring all operating businesses are contributing to various social causes. Payam’s serial entrepreneurship began in 1994 when he co-founded Autoweb.com, the first online car buying service. In 1999 he helped to take the company public. The company’s market cap ultimately reached $1.2 billion. Zamani later founded PurpulrTie, before starting Reply! In 2001. In May 2011, Reply! Acquired MerchatCircle, an online network of business owners, for $60 million in cash and stock. Zamani recently founded Contractors.com, a new home improvement service which matches property owners with local contractors.