Goli Ameri - Life and Business Career

Life and Business Career

Ameri first came to the United States when she was 17 in 1974 to attend Stanford University. There, she earned a B.A. in Communications and French Literature and, later, her M.A. in Communications. She also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. At Stanford, she met and later married then-fellow student Jamsheed "Jim" Ameri, now a real estate investor. She became a United States citizen in 1989. She has two sons.

Ameri was founder and president of eTinium, Inc., a telecommunications consulting firm in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of over fifty market studies and wrote a bi-monthly industry analysis column for Telephony magazine. She has been quoted in such publications as The National Business Journals, The Oregonian, The Seattle Times, The San Jose Mercury News, and Internet Week and has been invited as a speaker and moderator to industry conferences worldwide. Prior to founding eTinium, Ameri was a director at U.S. Leasing, a former division of Ford Credit and Fleet Bank, in San Francisco.

She served on the steering committee of the Babson in Oregon M.B.A. program, and was a member of the Oregon Steering Committee on the Campaign for Undergraduate Education for Stanford University. She was a trustee and the Vice Chair for Development for the Catlin Gabel School, overseeing fundraising activities for the scholarship fund and teacher education. Ameri has also taught Junior Achievement classes in Oregon. She is fluent in English, French and Persian, as well as conversant in Spanish.

In October 2007, Ameri was named as one of the "100 Most Powerful Women in the Northwest" by The NW Women's Journal for her UN service and her position on the Advisory Board of the National Education for Women’s Leadership program at the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University.

Ameri received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor on May 11, 2008. The award is given annually to 100 recipients to pay tribute to the experiences and individual achievements of immigrants to the United States.

In 2012, Ameri was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the international NGO Freedom House. The Carnegie Corporation of New York included Ameri in its annual list of "Immigrants: The Pride of America," which was published on July 4, 2012 in The New York Times.