IT - Omid Kordestani

Omid Kordestani

Born: 1963 Tehran ^[1] Iran
Occupation: Senior Advisor, Office of the CEO and Founders of Google
Net worth: $2.2 Billion (2007)^[2]
Spouse(s): Bita Daryabari - (ex-wife)

Omid Kordestani (Persian: امید کردستانی) was the Senior Vice President for Worldwide Sales and Field Operations of Google until April 16, 2009. He was replaced by Nikesh Arora former manager of Google Europe.

Early life

Omid Kordestani was born in Tehran ^[3] Iran and moved to San Jose, California at the age of 14 after the death of his father. He graduated with an electrical engineering degree from San Jose State University and went to work for Hewlett Packard as an engineer. Several years later in order to pursue a business degree, he entered Stanford Business School and earned his MBA in 1991.

Career

Kordestani has more than a dozen years of high-technology consumer and enterprise experience, including key positions at Internet pioneer Netscape Communications. He is Google's senior vice president of worldwide sales and field operations.

His efforts together with those of others, have transformed the world's top search destination into online advertising's hottest property — scoring more than 100,000 advertisers in just 18 months. He was also vice president of Business Development and Sales and grew Netscape's website revenue from an annual run-rate of $88 million to more than $200 million in 18 months. He started his career at Netscape as director of OEM Sales, and during his four-year career at that company he was responsible for establishing major customer relationships with Citibank , AOL, Amazon, Intuit, Travelocity, Intel, @Home, eBay, and Excite. Prior to Netscape, Kordestani held positions in marketing, product management, and business development at The 3DO Company, Go Corporation, and Hewlett-Packard.

In the May 8, 2006 issue of Time Magazine, Kordestani was named one of Time's "100 People who shape our world".[1]

Kordestani is one of the wealthiest residents in Northern California. San Jose magazine estimates his net worth at $1.9 billion.

He was selected as The Persian Person of the Year in 2007 by Persian Awards.

References

1. ^ California
2. ^ "#204 Omid Kordestani". http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/54/richlist07_Omid-Kordestani_XDD8.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-20.
3. ^ California
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Kordestani
5. http://people.forbes.com/profile/omid-kordestani/37780

IT - Farzad Nazem (Zod Nazem)

Farzad Nazem (Zod Nazem)
Born: 1958
Education: B.S. in Computer Science from California Polytechnic State University.
Occupation: Chief Technical Officer and Executive Vice President, Engineering and Site Operations, Yahoo! Inc.
Pre-Yahoo! Activities:
Prior to Yahoo!, he was vice president of Oracle Corporation's Media and Web Server Division. Previously, Nazem held various technical positions for SYDIS, Inc. and Rolm Corporation.

Within one year of joining Yahoo , in early 1996 as senior vice president of engineering and surfing, Nazem was named chief technical officer of the company in January 1997. In this role, he has been responsible for overseeing all areas of engineering, including site operations and product development. Nazem has more than 18 years of experience in executive and technical positions. His management and growth style is one that calls upon internal strengths. Nazem prefers to build almost everything within the company without having to rely on third party vendors or customers. His team therefore consists of product experts and engineers who work well together, sharing ideas as well code. He agrees that the CTO position is one that involves understanding technology to elegantly solve business needs.

References & Sources:

http://www.anvari.org/iran/Prominent_Iranians/Farzad_Nazem.html
http://www.nipoc.org/Farzad_Nazem.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farzad_Nazem

IT - Pierre (Parviz) Omidyar

Sorry for this much delay in Uploading the posts, from now on it will be tried to upload regularly.

Pierre Omidyar

Born: June 21, 1967 (1967-06-21) (age 42) Paris, France
Occupation: Founder and Chairman, eBay Inc.
Net worth: US$3.6 Billion (2008) ^[1]
Spouse(s): Pamela Kerr Omidyar

Website: pmo.vox.com

Pierre M. Omidyar (Persian: پرویز امیدیار, born June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American entrepreneur and philanthropist/economist, and the founder/chairman of the eBay auction site.^[2] Omidyar and his wife Pam are well-known philanthropists who founded Omidyar Network in 2004 in order to expand their efforts beyond non-profits to include for-profits and public policy. Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm committed to creating and fostering opportunity for people around the world.

According to Forbes, as of March 2009, he is the 156th richest person in the world.^[1]

Early life and work

Omidyar was born in Paris, France to Iranian immigrant parents, both of whom had been sent by his grandparents to attend university there.^[3] His mother Elahé Mir-Djalali Omidyar, who did her doctorate in linguistics at the Sorbonne, is herself a well-known academic.^[4] His father was a surgeon.^[5] The family moved to the US when Omidyar was six. Growing up in Washington, D.C. ,he developed an interest in computing while at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland. He graduated from St. Andrew's in 1984, and in 1988, he graduated with a degree in computer science from Tufts University. Shortly after, Omidyar went to work for Claris, an Apple Computer subsidiary, where he helped write MacDraw. In 1991 he co-founded Ink Development, a pen-based computing startup that was later rebranded as an e-commerce company and renamed eShop.

eBay and later career

Omidyar was 28 when he sat down over a long holiday weekend to write the original computer code for what eventually became an Internet sulang-farand — the auction site eBay. eBay stands for e-commerce Bay area. The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade PEZ candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book^[6] and confirmed by eBay.

The site was launched on Labor Day, Monday, September 4, 1995, under the more prosaic title of "Auction Web"; it was hosted on a site Omidyar had created for information on the ebola virus. Auction Web was later renamed "eBay". The service was free at first, but started charging in order to cover Internet service provider costs.

Jeffrey Skoll joined the company in 1996. In March 1998, Meg Whitman was brought in as President and CEO and continued to run the company till Jan 2008 when she announced her retirement. In September 1998, eBay launched a successful public offering, making both Omidyar and Skoll billionaires. As of July 2008, Omidyar's 178 million eBay shares were worth around $4.45 billion.^[7] With eBay's stock plummeting in recent months, Omidyar's eBay shares are now worth closer to $2.65 billion.

Omidyar Network

Main article: Omidyar Network

Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic, social, and political change. To date, Omidyar Network has committed more than $270 million to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple investment areas, including microfinance, property rights, government transparency, and social media.

Prior to founding eBay, Pierre co-founded Ink Development Corp., later renamed eShop and acquired by Microsoft. After graduating from Tufts with a B.S. in computer science, he joined Claris, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, as a consumer software engineer. Today, Pierre serves as a trustee of Tufts University, Punahou School and Santa Fe Institute, a director of Meetup, and chairman of eBay Inc.

Mr. Omidyar is also a private owner of Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach, California.

References

Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b} "The World's Billionaires", Forbes, 2009-03-11, http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/10/billionaires-2009-richest-people_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html, retrieved on 2009-06-22
2. ^ Viegas 2006, p. 13
3. ^ Viegas 2006, p. 14
4. ^ Viegas 2006, p. 16
5. ^ Viegas 2006, p. 18
6. ^ Cohen 2002
7. ^ http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=EBAY

Sources

• Cohen, Adam (2002), The Perfect Store: Inside eBay, Back Bay Books, ISBN 978-0316164931
• Viegas, Jennifer (2006), Pierre Omidyar: The Founder of eBay, Rosen Publishing Group, ISBN 978-1404207158

The Birthday of Iranian VIPs Blog!

Dear Visitor,

Thank you for visiting this blog and wish you enjoy it.

"Iranian VIP" is created to show the other side of Iran to the World. Unfortunately in the recent decades Iran and Iranian people are shown and introduced to the world some how differently and , frankly speaking rather bad.

I, as an Iranian and as a guy who loves his mother land, am trying to re-introduce Iran to the world. I am trying to be HONEST, NOT RADICALIST and am trying to present all of my posts well documented.

Please feel free to contact me or put some comments any time you feel needed. For introducing of an ancient culture like Iran, a blog like mine is not enough for sure, but i am doing my share to introduce my home land as much as I can.

To be more successful in introducing Iran, I have decided to starts with Iranian VIP, all around the world. Other items of my interest , which I will for sure cover them will be posted later on in some other Blogs.

Wish you enjoy the blog,

Iranian VIPs Blog