Meet Joe

Joe is the son of immigrants.  His father emigrated from Syria in 1961 and his mother from Italy in 1978. Through their example, Joe learned that the key ingredients to succeed in life are hard work, perseverance, and working smarter. This has been his modus operandi throughout life. Joe had the right mentors along the way to help cultivate his focus and energy.

Brooklyn born and raised, Joe became a Plainedge resident during the summer of 1994.  His life in Plainedge started as a 10th grade student in our high school.  Joe looks back fondly at the warm welcome and good education received in this community.  Plainedge High School had left an overall positive impression that he longed to raise his children in a similar community.  

Thankfully, Joe was able to establish his home in Plainedge with his wife Kelly and provide his six children with the same positive experiences he enjoyed living in this small, tight-knit community.

Joe graduated Plainedge High School in 1997. Aside from the values instilled in him at home, a lot of his drive and success can also be attributed to his time at Plainedge. While striving for academic success, Joe participated in a variety of school activities such as football, wrestling, tennis, orchestra, pit orchestra, chamber orchestra, the senior play, National Honor Society, and more. 

Many of these programs were not available or were very difficult to participate in the NYC school system. Moving to a community like Plainedge was a welcome respite from his early life experiences. 

After taking numerous honors and AP-level classes while at Plainedge, Joe graduated in the top 10% of the class with acceptances to Boston University, New York University, Boston College, University of Delaware, SUNY Binghamton, and SUNY Albany.  He decided to attend Boston College and after freshman year transferred to Emory University to complete his Bachelors of Business Administration with a dual concentration in Finance and Economics. After a few years, Joe earned a Master of Science in Accountancy from CUNY Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business by attending classes at night while still working full-time at his first post-graduate job at Value Line, Inc.

Upon graduation, Joe went on to work as an equity research analyst at Value Line, Inc. (“VL”) where he prepared financial forecasts and wrote research reports that were utilized by investors to develop informed trading strategies.  

While working full-time at VL, Joe attained his masters degree and honed his accounting skills and technical knowledge at Deloitte & Touche (“Deloitte”).  Deloitte is a Big-4 accounting, tax and consulting firm with an expansive global presence.  Working in Deloitte’s audit practice helped him understand the “ins-and-outs” of several publicly-traded companies through the implementation and testing of SOX 404 internal controls, as well as auditing large publicly traded companies.  One of the signature engagements he worked on at Deloitte was the spinoff of Broadridge Financial Services with $2bn in revenue from ADP.  He also passed the NYS CPA exam in 2007 and is licensed to practice in New York. 

Yearning to enter the finance world again, Joe landed at FTI Consulting Inc. as a Senior Consultant to help unsecured creditor committees maximize their recovery in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganizations.  

Lastly, his career took him to the corporate finance and accounting world to work for two premiere boutique investment banks. Joe worked at Moelis & Company for five years rising to the position of Vice President of Finance.  In his over nine years at The Raine Group, Joe rose the ranks to become it’s Chief Financial Officer – Management Company. He had also concurrently held the position of CFO of a public company called Marquee Raine Acquisition Corp. (“MRAC”) which was a joint-venture between Raine and Marquee (owners and management team of the Chicago Cubs). Joe resigned from his role at MRAC upon its successful business combination with Enjoy Technologies.