Chaz Y. Lazarian, Esq.
Founder & President
Chaz enjoys a successful, multi-faceted business career. Landing in America as a 14-year old teenager without any family, Chaz quickly had to learn a new language, and culture. Being fluent in several languages and understanding various cultures, has enabled Chaz to interact and work with individuals from around the globe.
His business experience is vast. Having opened several companies, and successfully growing them, he found an interest in the law. After graduating from John Marshall Law School - Cum Laude - he used his legal and business background by entering the world of commercial banking and real estate.
In banking, Chaz began working as a hard-money lender and developed a residential division for the company. He worked his way through the banking channels, and became the highest earning commercial lending producer at a billion-dollar institution, having lent hundreds of millions of dollars. Chaz has unique analytical skills acquired from underwriting several loan opportunities. More importantly, he - himself - acquired several real estate projects where he acted as an owner, developer and general contractor.
Chaz formed and successfully ran a real estate title insurance agency for the bank. He was involved in thousands of real estate closings. He was also the President, and was integrally involved, in the bank’s Community Development Corporation, where again he used his loan underwriting, real estate development, and general contracting skills to successfully turnaround a boarded-up apartment complex into a successful condominium community where he received a Magnolia Award for Excellence in Housing development from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
Chaz is the Managing Director of Insignia, LLC, where he is responsible for the acquisition of bulk residential properties, as well as commercial properties.
John G. Mansour, Esq.
Treasurer
John Mansour is a founding partner of the law firm Ayoub & Mansour, LLC. His practice focuses on real estate law; specifically, Fi. Fa. and tax deed acquisition, tax sale litigation, title litigation, real estate development, zoning, real estate broker/agent liability, foreclosures and distressed assets and other real estate matters. John also has experience with employment discrimination and retaliation, consumer protection, complex class action litigation, business litigation, and ERISA pension benefits. His cases have included individual and class action cases in both Federal courts, as well as State courts.
John was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1999 and is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of Georgia, Middle District of Georgia, and Southern District of Georgia.
John graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1998. He graduated with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Georgia in 1995.
John currently is a principal owner and the manager of a family real estate. He has been involved in real estate acquisition, finance, development and construction since 1991. His real estate experience extends from the acquisition of undeveloped properties, to rezoning efforts and planning, to land development, and the construction of single-family detached and attached dwellings, as well as condominium construction. John has extensive experience in rezoning and entitlement of land with residential and commercial uses. He has prior experience and relationships with national and regional home builders, and local and national retailers, and other non-retail users, such as regional hospitals.
In addition to his real estate portfolio, John is a founder and manages an investment group that purchases properties acquired through the tax sale process in Georgia. John has also managed the acquisition of assets and several notes from banks and the FDIC.
Sajjad Sadeghi
Executive Board Director
Sajjad Sadeghi was born in the city of Tehran, Iran. The very stylized and romantic Persian literature found a special and everlasting nest in his heart, and it became the very tool for expressing his deepest thoughts and emotions. With the literature filling the need of Sajjad The Emotional, Sajjad The Practical chose to study Industrial Engineering to be able to skillfully orchestrate processes and businesses. His interesting and engaging professional career began in the year 2000, taking him through various industries (automobile, food, tobacco, creative & advertising, business consultation, fine art publishing, event planning, nonprofit, etc.), and a journey to different countries.
Sajjad is a visionary businessman, marketer, board director, and adviser with a robust career in strategic planning, corporate management, marketing, branding, business expansion, supply chain, organization (re-)design, and continuous improvement within Middle East, Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and United States. He has founded, established, and led several businesses and functions in various markets.
Sajjad is the first Iranian (and expat) Brand Manager in the history of British American Tobacco (BAT) and the first Iranian head of Trade Marketing & Distribution. He played a key role in (re-)launching, expanding and rejuvenating multiple high-profile international brands (like Kent, Dunhill, Vogue, Pall Mall, Lucky Strike, and Viceroy) in BAT and managing multi-million dollar investment and expenditure budgets from 2003 till 2012 in various capacities, departments, and markets. In addition, Sajjad developed comprehensive Marketing strategic and operational plans in collaboration with world-renowned agencies like Grey Advertising Global (Grey Dubai) and Memac Ogilvy for Middle East & Caucasus zones and end markets.
Sajjad is a change agent, coach, and mentor with over 20 years of influential leadership in several multinational companies around the world. He is also known as an innovative thinker, strategist, effective communicator, enabler, and decision maker, especially in critical and complex situations.
Sajjad is the Founder & Managing Director of Driftwood Nature LLC which is a Georgia Business Consulting Company set up to help different companies with their business planning, establishment, management and improvement requirements.
His heart belonging to his native literature, Sajjad keeps writing poems and short stories regardless of his residence in the world. He has published seven books and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Amanda Shelnutt
Arts Collaboration Director
Amanda Shelnutt graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from the University of Georgia in 1999 and pursued graduate work at Georgia State University with a focus on Italian Medieval and Renaissance Art.
Amanda interned at the High Museum of Art Registrar's Office in 2000, and worked for a year as an Assistant Conservator and Fine Arts Services Manager for an Atlanta based Art Conservation and Restoration Firm before settling in Gainesville in 2004 to be the Assistant Director of the Quinlan Visual Arts Center. In 2009, she became the Executive Director for the Quinlan Visual Arts Center, where for over a decade she led a comprehensive, non-profit visual arts center in the mission “Bringing visual arts to life, and to the life of the community”.
Amanda currently only takes on the clients/projects she is passionate about. She also provides artist representation, advocacy and promotion, fine art handling and installation, art and auction event planning, grant writing and non-profit consultation as well as speaking engagements.
Kamy Deljou
Art & Production Adviser
Kamy Deljou was born in Shiraz, Iran. He is an artist and entrepreneur with a mind full of innovative ideas. He began his training through the Metier Guild and apprenticed at the Dariush Academy of Shiraz. He then progressed his Mastership at Pahlavi University, famed for its cultural and modern art disciplines as well as its demanding discipline to craft in a wide range of mediums.
Kamy arrived in the United States in 1979 and established his atelier at Graphique Du Jour studios, working with some of the most brilliant names in contemporary art in the Southeastern United States. He developed innovative and original techniques and started traveling and exhibiting his work in the United States and worldwide.
Kamy is Co-founder of Deljou Holdings, the parent company of six subsidiaries encompassing an array of market segments and each with a specialized focus. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the 100,000 square foot campus houses one of the largest trade showrooms in the country, a retail gallery, art studios, and production facility.
The portfolio includes industry vanguards Deljou Art Group, the country’s largest Art Publisher representing emerging and established artists and the distribution of their original art and highly customizable fine art reproductions; as well as DAC Art Consulting, a full service and highly reputable firm fulfilling the art needs of hospitality, healthcare and corporate sectors around the world. Additional divisions include Level 57 Art Studio, Connect Contemporary, retail gallery Scope Fine Art and Monarch Studio specializing in high end digital printing and capturing.
Kamy has also been actively involved in several charity initiatives including funding for educational facilities and students, supporting Small World Films, and founding Undo Starving Artists (USA).
Bill Spence
Sculptor
Bill Spence founded his studio Bill Spence Sculpture in Atlanta eighteen years ago where he creates custom artwork. He specializes in original and custom patterns, molds (usually fiberglass, wood or cast urethane), and the final castings of the sculpture pieces. Most of his creations go into the Atlanta market area, but he has shipped castings to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, mid-West states and as far as Hawaii. He has a diverse set of clients ranging from interior/exterior designers, antique dealers, other artist, and commercial developers. An example of one of Bill’s exciting projects was working with the Isamu Noguchi Foundation in Long Island and Pace Gallery in New York to create a new casting of Noguchi’s concrete sculpture “Octetra” for a 2015 Noguchi retrospective. Bill re-created Noguchi’s 1965 design and built a mold for casting the five piece “Octetra,” working with a local precast plant to do the casting.
Before opening his current studio, Bill worked for CherryLion Studios in Atlanta, designing, executing and installing large scale commercial sculptures. And prior to that, he was a self-employed artist, fabricated his own bronze casting foundry, and casted and fabricated bronze sculptures. He also produced theater sets.
Bill has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, majoring in Sculpture, from the Atlanta College of Art, 1993 (merged with SCAD Atlanta in 2006).
One of Bill’s volunteer community services was as a 1998 founding member of Eyedrum, an exhibit space for display of all media of art, and was on the board until it moved from the 290 MLK location in 2010. Besides frequently exhibiting at Eyedrum, Bill curated two juried inside and outside sculpture exhibits, with over fifty artist participating.
Among the many venues that have exhibited Bill’s sculpture work are the Woodruff Arts Center, the High Museum of Art, Emory University campus, Chattanooga State campus and the Creative Arts Guild in Dalton, GA.
The Bill Spence Sculpture Studio is located at 1089c Memorial Drive, about two blocks west of Mooreland Avenue.
