Sam Hamadeh

Hussam ("Sam") Hamadeh was a media entrepreneur based in New York with business interests in digital media, publishing, and film. He died on December 10, 2015.

Hamadeh co-founded Vault.com in 1997 and served as the company’s President through its successful sale in 2007 to a major private equity firm, reportedly for nearly $100 million. In 2009, Hamadeh founded PrivCo, which provides data to subscribers on more than 500,000 private companies; he served as chief executive of PrivCo until his death in December 2015 and in that capacity, also regularly commented on private companies for the mass media.

Hamadeh was a graduate of UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania Law School with a JD, and the Wharton School of Business with an MBA. He spoke and wrote frequently about entrepreneurship, including serving as the Keynote Speaker at Wharton's Annual Entrepreneurship Conference.

Honors and awards have included Crain’s Top Entrepreneur's Award, the Harvard Business School Club’s Entrepreneur of the Year Silicon Alley Reporter’s “100 Most Important Internet Executives” Deloitte & Touche’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School's Young Alumnus of the Year award. He also was an Executive Producer of several notable films, including Home Movie starring Adrian Pasdar, and Made For Each Other starring Chris Masterson, Danny Masterson, and Bijou Phillips.

Hamadeh's prominent charitable activities included supporting the charity Right to Play, which sets up sports and athletic programs for children in the world's war-torn areas, recently hosting a major benefit in New York City attended by prominent Olympic medalists and New York Governor David Paterson, raising over $50,000 from just this event.