Ferhan Hamid is Managing Partner of Fusion Solutions Group and its subsidiary Fusion Capital Markets. He is also President and CEO of Hamid Capital Partners a private investment firm based in the Washington D.C. area. In addition to his private business endeavors, Mr. Hamid continues his passion for public service as Chairman of the Board of the Virginia Lottery, where more than $850 million in profits go towards K-12 education in Virginia annually.
With Fusion and Hamid Capital Partners, Mr. Hamid has been engaged in numerous diversified business activities since 2016, including both active and passive investments in private companies focused on the technology sector, capital markets transactions ranging from growth equity to structured debt, providing strategic consulting advisory services for large multi-national corporations primarily involved in the government sector, and private real estate transactions.
From 2009-2016, Mr. Hamid successfully grew and exited as the CEO and co-founder of a software development firm which he led from start-up to multi-millions of dollars in revenue in seven years. An early entrant into the mobile software development market for the federal government, Mr. Hamid focused the company on organic growth as well as on a product acquisition strategy. After the exit, Mr. Hamid started Red Fort Strategies, a consulting firm based in Washington D.C., where he represented clients that included both multinational companies and Silicon Valley-based startups.
He first came to the Washington D.C. area in 2007 as a Director of FBR Capital Markets, Inc., a NASDAQ listed investment banking firm. At FBR, he helped raise an investment fund focused on public-private partnerships in real estate with former Washington D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams. While at FBR, Mr. Hamid also served as Director of FBR Investment Management, where he developed and evaluated new strategies for equity funds, hedge funds, and externally managed businesses.
An attorney by training, Mr. Hamid spent 13 years in government, finishing his career as Managing Deputy Comptroller for the City of Chicago. While in that position, he successfully transformed business processes to streamline finance operations, saving the city millions of dollars. Serving under Mayor Richard M. Daley, he managed a $400 million budget and administered a self-insured healthcare plan covering over 130,000 individuals. Mr. Hamid was also the city official with responsibility for $2 billion-plus deferred compensation retirement plan and chaired the Joint Labor-Management Committee on Health. While in City Hall, Mr. Hamid served as the City Comptroller’s designee on two of the City’s four pension funds and oversaw the City’s massive insurance and risk management programs.
Previously Mr. Hamid served as Counsel for the Chicago Park District, where he negotiated and drafted dozens of landmark agreements and was involved with hundreds of millions of dollars of public finance transactions. He started his career as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Illinois in the mid-1990’s where he focused on state and local tax issues.
Mr. Hamid has served as the Chairman of the Board of the Virginia Lottery, a $4.5 billion per year enterprise, since 2018. He has unanimously been elected as Chairman by his colleagues on the Board for seven consecutive years. He was first appointed to the Board in 2016 by Governor Terry McAuliffe and then re-appointed to a 5-year term in 2017 and again in 2022. Mr. Hamid also served on Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s Transition Policy Team. From 2016 to 2020, Mr. Hamid served as Treasurer of the Asian American Victory Fund, one of the largest Asian American Super PACs in the United States. He previously served as the Industry Co-Chair of the American Technology-Industry Advisory Council, established to assist the Obama Administration with its digital government strategy. Mr. Hamid was also selected as a member of MissionLink, an executive level forum designed to foster collaboration and innovation in the areas of defense, intelligence, and national security.
Mr. Hamid received his B.A. with Honors from the University of Illinois, Urbana and his J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.