Sami El-Saden

Sami El-Saden most recently served as President & CEO of Ignite USA, the North American market leader in environmentally safe reusable beverage containers. He transformed it from an industrial design firm into one of the fastest growing consumer product companies in the U.S. with over $300 million in sales. He sold the business to Newell Brands, one of the leading consumer goods companies in the world with over $16 billion in sales.

Prior to Ignite, Sami held senior marketing and business development positions at Nestle USA, Favorite Brands International and EthnicGrocer.com, an internet start-up funded by Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital, KB and others. Sami spent his early career as an investment banker in corporate finance at Smith Barney, Harris Upham and Banker’s Trust Company.

He currently serves as Chairman of Full Swing Golf, the leader in golf and sports simulation products, and Verrix LLC, a bio-medical spin-off from the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is an investor in, and/or member of the Board of Directors of multiple other privately-owned middle market consumer products companies. Sami and his wife Laura support a number of philanthropic and cultural causes including the Northwestern University Settlement House, Girl’s Hope Boy’s Hope, RUSH Hospital, The Night Ministry, The Humanities Festival, Lurie Children’s Hospital at Northwestern Hospital, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Northwestern Hospital and C24/7. Sami received his MBA from the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA and graduated with distinction in 1984 from Stanford University with a B.A. in Economics.