Elliance was born out of two confluent currents. The first was my desire to combine my two passions: my love for analytical computer science which I developed during my years at Cornell and Carnegie Mellon; and my other love for mythology, folklore, psychology, and art which I have cultivated over a lifetime. The second current was a reflection of our partnering style with our first few clients, whom we gave generously and served passionately by putting their interest before ours. Our new name was coined by our genius advisory board member and one of my heroes, Chris Labash, who was the former creative director of Ketchum Advertising, one of the largest agencies in the world in its heyday. Chris recommended that we abandon our then generic name, “Internet Services Corporation”, and adopt a newly coined word “Elliance”, which was a short form of ‘Electronic Alliance’. To Chris the word Elliance captured my personal aspiration to combine my love for technology … Continue reading →

Entrepreneurs are famous for creating companies from the depths of their souls. Business from the inside out if you will. But symbols take on a power of their own when they resonate with deeper mythological forces in the collective experience of humanity. And that is what happened in our case. The beginning of my love affair with mountains The symbolism of the mountains began as a deeply personal force because I spent the formative years of my life in the Karakoram mountains on the western flank of the Himalayan mountains. Growing up there with my ambitious geographer sister, I realized that I was living next to world’s highest concentration of peaks above 25,000 feet. I saw lots of hills and mountains but everything paled in comparison to some of the tallest peaks I witnessed. I recall standing next to Rakaposhi, Nanga Parbat, and seeing glimpses of K2 and marveling at their beauty and majesty. Our hikes through the mountains quickly … Continue reading →