Adnan A. Durrani ’81 B.S.

Mr. Durrani is Chief Executive Officer of American Halal/Saffron Road Foods and President of Condor Ventures, Inc., a firm devoted to strategic investing in natural food companies. Prior to his current endeavors, he served as an investment professional for almost 30 years and most recently was a partner at Blue Chip Venture Co. which led   a number of media and technology ventures, including Beliefnet (sold to News Corp.), Advertising.com (sold to AOL), Get2Chip (sold to Cadence) , and @Plan (sold to Doubleclick).

 

A skilled entrepreneur, Mr. Durrani has been recognized as one of the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who engineered "20 Ideas That Changed the Way the World Does Business". He founded Vermont Pure/Crystal Rock Water Co., the second largest bottled water company in the Northeast, and was a financial partner of Stonyfield Farms, Inc., the leading organic yogurt brand, spearheading its private sale to Dannone in 2003. He was also a principal of Delicious Brands, Inc., whose growth he led, with the financial backing of Carl Icahn, to become the fifth largest cookie brand in the United States. In addition, he served as a member of the Board and as Finance Chairman of Social Venture Network and co-founded the Social Venture Institute of New York.

 

Also active in the non-profit sector, Mr. Durrani is the Director, Treasurer, and Finance Chair of READ (Rural Education and Development Enterprise) Nepal, an organization devoted to building libraries in rural communities in Nepal and India, which is primarily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has been a lecturer at the Natural Business Conference in Berkeley, CA and at the Silicon Valley Technology Conference in Palo Alto, CA. In addition to serving as a member of Columbia Engineering’s Board of Visitors, he is Chairman of the Entrepreneurship Advisory Board. Mr. Durrani received a BS in electrical engineering from Columbia in 1981.