About
I built things first. The microphone came later.
Entrepreneur, investor, and community leader in Orange County, California.
About
Entrepreneur, investor, and community leader in Orange County, California.
The business
Economics with a specialization in computing at UCLA. Two years at Microsoft. Then Arthur Andersen, consulting on business intelligence, ERP, and the earliest wave of commercial e-commerce.
In 2001 I left to build one myself.
Wedding Favorites, Inc. became a multi-brand operation: Event Blossom in wholesale and manufacturing, WeddingFavorites.com direct to consumer, ModParty on Amazon and Etsy. We manufactured overseas, imported, warehoused, dropshipped, and sold through Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, David’s Bridal, and 1-800-Flowers.
At its peak the company ran with more than sixty staff across multiple levels of management. Hiring people, promoting them, and occasionally getting both wrong is its own education.
Twenty-five years is long enough to watch the internet reinvent itself three or four times and still be standing.
It reached eight figures in annual revenue. I exited in 2025.
The other work
I served the Islamic Center of Irvine across eleven years: on the board of directors, on the executive council, as a waqf trustee, and two years as President. In 2024 the organization gave me its Founders Award at the twentieth anniversary, which meant more than it probably should have.
Somewhere in there I started getting asked to emcee. Then to do the fundraising too. Then to do both at somebody else’s event, and then at the one after that.
Twenty-five years on, I have hosted and raised money for Islamic Centers, schools, hospitals, clinics, relief organizations, and senior services across Southern California.
I have also spent a lot of that time teaching giving strategy, including donor advised funds, appreciated stock, and tax-aware structures, because the gap between what people are willing to give and what they know how to give is enormous. Closing it is the cheapest fundraising work a nonprofit can do.
Now
Today I invest through Hays Holdings across real estate, public equities, and private deals, and I advise founder-led businesses through Hays Point. I speak and emcee because the two decades of nonprofit work made me useful at it, not because I set out to become a speaker.
What I care about most is the question underneath all of it: what should we do with the opportunities that success gives us.
Anything I say about investing, taxes, or giving is educational and based on my own experience. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice.
Kooks and Kahunas
Thirty-plus members and an annual surf camp. It started as a few people paddling out and turned into one of the more durable things I have built, which says something about how community actually forms.
Four days a week
Strength training four mornings a week at Empire Training Grounds in Irvine, at ICOI. Same idea as the surf club, different room: show up consistently, bring people with you, and it turns into something.
In 2011 I won the Body Transformation Challenge, guided and judged by celebrity fitness trainer Rehan Jalali. I am competitive about nearly everything, which my family finds less charming than I do.
Next step
Date, organization, room size, and what the evening is meant to raise.