Farouk Shami is Founder and Chairman of Farouk Systems, Inc., a major hair and hair styling products manufacturer based in Houston, Texas, and has lived in United States for over 40 years. While attending college in the United States, Farouk would return to Jerusalem in the summer where he opened a salon. He established Farouk Systems in October 1986.

Mr. Shami is also a generous philanthropist who has donated to many causes, including two million dollars to the victims of hurricane Katrina, 1.5 million dollars to the New York and New Jersey salon industry after Sept. 11, 2001, three million dollars worth of beauty products to Lebanon and one million dollars to open a diabetes research center at the City of Hope in California, in memory of his father, Sheik Mohammed Shami.

He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Immigrant of the Year by the Houston School of Law, a Lifetime Achievement Award from Hair Color & Design Magazine, and his proudest award, The King of Color.

Mr. Shami believes that each Palestinian should support the building of his or her local economy, saying that “charity starts at home. When we secure people with economic justice, education, health care and security, that itself will achieve justice and peace.” To that end he has been working to establish a Farouk Systems factory in Palestine that will employ over 500 people who are faced with economic injustice, with 10% sales to be donated to the Palestinian authority and 10% of sales to his birth place in the town of Beit Ur, a suburb of Ramallah. The donations are to pay for schools, health care, city streets and social needs.