Our Team

Farooq Cheema is General Partner of FLC. He is an experienced entrepreneur and an accomplished operating executive. He owns and runs multiple businesses including a fast-growing produce distribution company in California that buys and transports produce to customers across the East Coast and Midwest. The company has exceptional profit margins, great relationships with farmers, buyers and brokers, and is growing 200% annually.

Farooq successfully launched, grew and sold a regional tutoring company with over 200 employees. He has 5 process-oriented patents and has deep experience in how to design business systems and structures to scale growth. He currently serves on the Board of OPEN DC, a business association focused on fostering entrepreneurship in the DC Metro area.

He earned his undergraduate degree at Purdue University in Electrical Engineering, and his MBA at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

Greg McDonough is the CFO at Forest Light Capital who focuses on portfolio health and deal structuring. As the managing director of Blackburn Capital Advisors, Greg works with businesses and organizations ranging from early-stage startups to $100 million enterprises. He has led companies through turnarounds, mergers, acquisitions, and other significant financial events. He has an extensive understanding of the challenges inherent in owning a business. He knows what it takes to guide a company through a tough turnaround.

Greg is a certified insolvency and restructuring advisor (CRA), president of the Washington, DC chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), and the author of The Turnaround (2017).

Aakif Ahmad is General Partner and CEO of FLC. He is an entrepreneur and investor with 20+ years of professional experience leading sales teams and growing businesses. He runs three businesses, one focused on recruiting, one on lead generation and outsourced sales & marketing, and a restaurant. He is President of OPEN DC a premier Washington DC area business association of CEOs, business owners, entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate professionals.

From 1996 to 2008, Aakif worked at the Corporate Executive Board (now part of Gartner Group) where he was Managing Director and led B2B sales & marketing teams that collectively generated over $100M in revenue over, and more than 4,000 new clients across North America and Europe.

Aakif also is co-founder of Convergence, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that focuses on mediating actionable policy agreements among influential and diverse leaders on national policy issues.

Yasir is a seasoned Business Analyst with more than 12 years of experience in the field of Operations, Human Resources, Product Management, Business Intelligence and Strategy. He has worked with both national and international clients ranging from Telecom, Retail, Consumer Research, Financial Institutions/Fintechs, Transport, Development Sector and Software industry.

Yasir holds prestigious CBAP certification in Business Analysis (IIBA -Canada) coupled with MBA & BBA (Honors).

Mateen is currently working as Chief of Staff with a team of executives to work through the acquisition of multi-million dollar business and ensuring compliance with the organizational vision, culture, SOP’s and key performance metrics post acquisition.

Mateen started his career in the aviation industry as a customer services agent proceeding with acquiring mass and balance licenses and traveling on board as a crew member laddering up to the position of Airline Operations Officer at King Fahad International Airport . In his tenure of working at Shaheen Airline as an Operations Officer, he has gained hands-on experience in resolving day-to-day operational and strategic matters that directly had an influence on the revenues of the company. Prior to joining FLC, he was working as Administration & HR manager for an independent power plant.

He has done his bachelor’s program in aviation management followed up with a Master’s Program in Business Administration.