Zahir Lavji

Zahir Lavji is a recently retired executive and presently involved in various pro bono advisory services to entrepreneurs, startups and scientists in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device space. Additionally, he is active with the Hyde Park Angels, a Chicago based angel investing group. He is a member of the Innovation Fund (funding translational research in medicine) at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Innovation Mentors. Prior to his retirement, Zahir held various senior management positions at Abbott, a diversified global healthcare company. He joined Abbott in 1989 from Bayer as a Business Unit Director in their International Division. He spent 8 years in Japan leading various marketing and sales roles and finally as President of Abbott Japan. Among his senior management responsibilities at Abbott he headed up the Central & Eastern European business, Divisional Vice President of Metabolic franchise in the US, Vice President Global Commercial Diabetes Care Division and Vice President Marketing Abbott International. He was appointed to Corporate Officer at Abbott in 2004. He is also active with the Alzheimer’s Association and the Aga Khan Foundation.

Dr. John N. Kalaras

Dr. Kalaras’ remarkable expertise as an Ambassador of Change, with excellent Leadership skills, Innovation and Creativity, has assisted organizations in achieving and maintaining Operational Excellence with substantial growth and astonishing profitability. As keen strategist, John truly exemplifies the “big picture” thinker, always having the foresight to envision the long-term implications of a plan and offer solutions proactively.

Recipient of numerous awards, John has been honored with impressive accolades, such as the UNESCO recognition as “Professor of the Year 1999”, The White House recognition for Academic Excellence, Lt. Governor of IL, and State Treasurer’s Award for Outstanding Achievements. Between 2005 and 2009 he served on the President’s Business Advisory Council under President George W. Bush, responsible for academic and training issues in the USA.

As a business strategist, he has designed and authored 15 business programs offered in the form of seminars or workshops worldwide. Programs like: Project Management, Lean/Six Sigma, Leadership, Executive Coaching, Effective Change, Excellence in Client Service, Hospitality Excellence, Business Basics, Career Success I & II, Interviewing-Resume and Portfolio Enhancement. As an educator for 34 years, he has served all teaching levels of academia, while he has written three college books on “Career Success” is on Amazon.com, “Your Passport to Quality” and “How to Design an effective Business Plan.”

Salim Hemani

Salim Hemani is the President and Co-Founder of Raza Communications(www.raza.com); a switch facility based Telecommunication Company that provides international, local and long distance calling services in 22 countries.

Salim was born on 1969 in Dhaka Bangladesh and spent most of his child hood there. He joined his brother in Chicago in 1989 and started his career working in Odd jobs. Raza communication was born in 1996 when Salim along with his family, started selling prepaid phone cards door to door to retail outlets. In 2002, Raza communication started investing in its own switching platform and applied for carrier license. This allowed Raza to be less dependent on other carriers to fulfill customer needs and allowed flexibility to manage its own cost.

Today, Raza communication is a dominant force in the telecommunication market and competes with all major carriers in the world. Since 2007, Raza communication has been generating over 100 million in annual revenue. Raza Communications revenue in 2012 was 130 million and they are expected to generate 150 million in 2013.

Aside from his busy schedule with Raza, Salim is very generous with his time to help others. He is also very active as a volunteer in his community.

Seyi Fabode

Seyi Fabode is the chief electricity officer and co-founder of Power2Switch, an innovative website that educates consumers about retail electricity and enables residential and commercial electricity customers to comparison shop for electricity providers and save money on their electric bills. As CEO, Seyi is responsible for investor and partner relationships, sourcing and hiring the best talent for the team, and defining the strategic direction of the company.

Seyi has an MBA from the Booth School of Business and an M.Sc. (Manufacturing Systems Engineering) from the University of Warwick. He founded Power2Switch out of the New Venture Challenge, (NVC) one of the nation’s premier business competitions, at Chicago Booth in 2008. He is also a proud author of the book “Aien #2102“.

Amyn Ali

Amyn Ali is a Chicago-based entrepreneur with Over 7 years of experience in the Quick Service Restaurants with WingZone, Dunkin Brands (Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins). Amyn owns and manages 10 restaurants in the Chicagoloand area.

Amyn also has Over 12 years of experience in Supply Chain consulting with A.T.Kearney . His client work focuses on Procurement Transformation, Organizational Alignment, Strategic Sourcing, Warehouse & logistics and Pricing Strategy.

Amyn has Undergraduate degree in Arts & Sciences from DePaul University and MBAE from University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Matt Ingleby

Matt Ingleby is a cofounder and owner of RIPT Apparel, an online T-shirt retailer that sells one new design every 24 hours. Matt exercises his expertise in transportation logistics and inventory management to maximize the efficiency of his company’s need for Just-In-Time Inventory. Matt has played an integral role in scaling his small business of 3 partners to a full-time production facility manned by 8 employees in under 2 years.

Prior to starting RIPT Apparel, Matt had 5 years of corporate retail experience including inventory management and retail analysis.

Paul Friemel

Paul is a cofounder and owner of RIPT Apparel, a leader in the competitive daily t-shirt design industry. Paul’s extensive background in art and design has propelled RIPT to the forefront of fresh, clever, and creative shirt offering every 24 hours. Paul oversees branding initiatives for the company as well as maintains direct correspondence with a community of over 750 artists that participate in RIPT’s ongoing search for unique artwork.

Before starting RIPT in 2009, Paul was the New Media Coordinator for Grammy Winning rock band The Smashing Pumpkins and has created visual artwork and websites for bands such as Taking Back Sunday, Hawthorne Heights, and Coheed & Cambria.

Scott Winterroth

Scott Winterroth is the founder of Front & Social Media, a creative public relations and startup marketing firm based in Chicago and and co-founder of CopyTrunk.com. Scott is also the founder of the event, BloggersMeetStartups.com, a collaboration between influential content creators and startup founders.

Prior to starting Front & Social, Scott has served as Public Relations Manager for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority-owner and operator of Navy Pier, the midwest’s top leisure tourist destination, and McCormick Place the Nation’s largest convention center.

Nissa Mohomed

Nissa is an Associate with the Health Strategy practice at Booz & Company in Chicago. She holds an MBA with concentrations in Strategy and Finance, with a certificate in Health Administration from the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy Studies from Duke University. Prior to joining Booz & Company, Nissa was the Vice President of Strategic Development at a for-profit socially geared brokerage firm, which promotes alternative end uses of recycled materials.

Previously, she was an Associate at J.P. Morgan Securities, a municipal Bond Derivatives Group, where she assessed key risk and return metrics to optimize group securities trading practices. Last summer Nissa joined Seeds, a start-up which promotes microlending through social games. In her spare time, Nissa enjoys playing strategy board games, Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico, being some of her favorite.

Dr. Jamaluddin Husain

Dr. Jamaluddin Husain is professor of entrepreneurship at Purdue University Calumet where he is also the Director of the Small Business Institute.

His BS in engineering is from Bangladesh, diploma in Small Business Consulting and M.S. is from the Philippines and PhD from Northwestern University. He specializes in assisting small businesses during start-up and growth stages.

Dr. Husain was recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award as well as the endowed Coleman Chair in Entrepreneurship. Dr. Husain is also the founding President of the NGO Entrepreneurship & Development Foundation – USA.

Wahib Merchant

Nadim Vasanji

Ali Jetha

Ali is Co-Founder & Operating Partner at Sataza, a Contemporary Indian Grill cconcept, founded in Chicago in 2012. Sataza seeks to create a niche in the fast casual dining sector, bringing Indian food to the mainstream market by creating a simple, fresh and customizable way of serving fusion Indian food – an “Indian Chipotle” in some sense.

Prior to co-founding Sataza, Ali was based in the UK, working in Management Consulting for Arthur D. Little covering the Oil & Gas industry, advising on strategy and performance improvement. Ali Graduated with a Masters Degree from Imperial College in 2004 and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business in 2011.

Asif Rehmani

Co-Founder at sharepoint-videos.com, Asif is a trainer, consultant, speaker and author on Microsoft SharePoint technologies. He is a SharePoint Server MVP and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT). In addition to live training, Asif also produces SharePoint video tutorials for all range of SharePoint users and helps facilitate SharePoint adoption in organizations.

Over the years, Asif has authored several books on SharePoint. He is the author of “SharePoint 2013 – First Look for Power Users”. He is also the co-author of the books “Professional SharePoint Designer 2007”, “Beginning SharePoint Designer 2010” and “Real World SharePoint 2010” by Wrox publications .

Asif has been a speaker at conferences since 2006 on numerous SharePoint topics. His speaking engagements has taken him to several places around the world such as USA, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, UK etc. for many conferences including Microsoft’s TechEd, SharePoint Conference, SPTechCon, SharePoint Connections, SharePoint Fest, Best Practices Conference, SharePoint Saturdays, SharePoint Roadshows and more.

Rahim Poonja

Rahim is a senior manager in Ernst & Young’s (EY) Commercial Advisory Services practice in Chicago, where he advises corporate and private equity clients on mergers, acquisitions and growth strategy. He has over seven years of experience in strategy, with a deep appreciation for market dynamics and growth drivers, competitive threats, customer/consumer behavior and investment identification and prioritization. Before joining EY, Rahim was a Consultant at Bain & Company in Boston. Examples of clients served to-date include Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Dell, Microsoft, Visa, eBay, GE, Johnson Controls, Warburg Pincus and many other leading PE firms. Previously, Rahim also spent time as an Assistant Manager in Business Development, and Project Manager in Engineering, at Lockheed Martin.

Rahim earned his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, his MCIS from the University of Denver, and his BS in Computer Science from DePaul University. He has been recognized by each institution for demonstrated academic success and student leadership.

Apart from his professional obligations, Rahim serves in a number of volunteer roles within the Ismaili Muslim community of Chicago, focusing on academic counseling and youth development. He also enjoys flying discs, running instead of walking, and passing Go to collect $200.

Kabir Kassam

Kabir Kassam is currently a Technical Instructor for New Horizons as their resident Master Black Belt in Six Sigma (SSMBB). Mr. Kassam has successfully run a Multimillion dollar educational enterprise which served over 20,000 students. He is on the Board on the National Tutoring Association and is committed to high quality education, assessment and operation. Mr. Kassam developed a vision to service a market with dynamic and innovative educational approaches. A graduate of DePaul University in Chicago with a B.S. in Informational Systems and an MBA Cert from Loyola University, Mr. Kassam saw the power of higher education.

Mr. Kassam has served as a Chief Executive Officer for a privately held K-12 education and assessment company. Prior to that, Mr. Kassam has held executive positions such as Director of Business Quality and Director of Operations for various companies throughout his career.

Aziz Rehmatullah

Aziz Rehmatullah is a Consultant with Accenture’s IT Strategy practice, and is based out of Chicago. His key focus areas are IT Mergers and Acquisitions and IT Finance. Previously, he was based out of SF Bay Area, where he worked for a variety of startups leading various initiatives including web-marketing automation, establishing off-shore offices to provide sales support, and helping clients from different industries optimize their marketing dollars.

More recently, he co-founded AarGlobal, a company based in Pakistan, with the goal of capturing the fancy lighting market in Pakistan. In December 2012, AarGlobal successfully closed the acquisition of Pakistani assets of Eglo Inc, the world’s second largest fancy lighting company based out of Pill, Austria.

Aziz has an MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management where he was a member of the Kellogg Entrepreneur’s Organization (KEO). In his spare time, Aziz enjoys traveling, watching sports, and writing his bio in the third person.