Amin Zoufonoun
Iranian American Ali Rowghani becomes Chief Operating ...
Facebook's new Executive Amin Zoufonoun adores/performs ...
Amin Zoufonoun (Zolfonoon), born 1971 in Tehran, Iran, is grandson of famed tar maker and player Habib Zoufonoun, and son of Mahmoud Zoufonoun, noted Iranian violinist and a performer of "Golha" classical music series. Amin's uncle, Maestro Jalal Zolfonoon, is a well known Iranian setar player. Amin's family immigrated to the United States in 1976. Amin learned to play setar at the age of 11, but he is also a self-taught Kamancheh (Persian bowed string instrument related to rebab) player. He says in his interview with Kodoom.com that he got interested in playing Kamancheh after he acquired a Kamancheh from the famed Iranian classical music group "Shams Ensemble."
Amin received his Electrical/Computer Engineering degree, and later J.D. in law, from Santa Clara University in California. After serving for three years as Director of Intellectual Property & Corporate Counsel for ArrayComm LLC, a privately held wireless company, he joined Google in 2003 as Director of Corporate Development. In that role, he was directly involved in a number of key strategic acquisitions and investments such as On2, Grandcentral (Google Voice), Metaweb, and Feedburner. He left Google in March 2011 to join Facebook as Director of Corporate Development. CNBC reported that by hiring Zoufonoun, Facebook is building up its M&A team to increasingly vie with Google, which acquired more than 40 companies in 2010, partly thanks to Zoufonoun.
Amin lives in the Northern California bay area with his wife and children. His three brothers, Amir, Ramin and Omid, besides being successful businessmen, are all musicians. Amir plays setar, Ramin plays tar and piano, and Omid (a graduate of Vienna music Conservatory) besides playing guitar is a well known composer of hybrid Iranian-Western style music. In his interview with Kodoom.com, Amin attributed some of his career and professional success to his multicultural exposure and his family's love of Persian music and culture. He grew up in a household frequented by legendary Persian musicians like maestros Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Hossein Alizadeh, and legendary poets like Simin Behbenahi. The video shown below captures the "Zoufonoun Ensemble" (Amin and his three brothers led by Mahmoud Zoufonoun, Amin's father) performing in October 2003 at the University of Minnesota, one of Mahmoud Zoufonoun's compositions in the Dastgah (mode) of Mahour, entitled, "Gol o Zari" (lyrics by the sufi poet, Hafez).
Amin's favorite Persian musicians come from Iran's old classical era, such as Banan and Roohollah Khaleghi. He is proud of his Persian heritage and also his new employer Facebook, which he says "has connected peoples and nations and cultures like never before."
