Shanaz Hemmati
Co-Founder and Executive Advisor · ZenBusiness
Co-founder and Executive Advisor of ZenBusiness, the Austin company whose platform helps entrepreneurs form, run and grow small businesses and which says it has helped start more than 950,000 of them. She co-founded it with Ross Buhrdorf, served as Chief Operating Officer, and earlier spent 11 years at HomeAway and worked at Excite.com. A University of Texas at Austin computer engineering graduate who came to the U.S. from Iran as a child.
Last reviewed: Sep 29, 2026
Shanaz Hemmati
Co-Founder and Executive Advisor ZenBusiness
Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026
Executive Summary
Shanaz Hemmati is co-founder and Executive Advisor of ZenBusiness, the Austin company that sells an all-in-one platform for forming an LLC and then running the business that follows, from registered agent service to compliance and bookkeeping. She co-founded it with Ross Buhrdorf, who is chief executive, and for most of its life ran operations as Chief Operating Officer while it grew into a company Entrepreneur reported as valued at $1.7 billion and which says it has helped start more than 950,000 businesses. A software engineer by training, she left Iran as a child to go to school in the United States and built her career at Excite.com and then HomeAway before becoming a founder.
Career Highlights
- Co-founded ZenBusiness with Ross Buhrdorf and served as Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer before moving to Co-Founder and Executive Advisor.
- Spent 11 years at HomeAway, the vacation rental marketplace, until its acquisition by Expedia.
- Worked at Excite.com, the early web portal, where she first met Buhrdorf.
- Named to Inc.’s 2025 Female Founders 500 list; Silver Stevie Award for Female Executive of the Year in 2024; “Entrepreneurial Vision” award at the 2023 Greater Austin Business Awards.
- Mentor at Capital Factory and board member of the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce.
Professional Journey
Hemmati came to the United States from Iran as a child to pursue an education, and studied computer engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, starting in hardware design before pivoting to software. As a non-native English speaker and a woman in a male-dominated field, she has said, she often had to speak loudly to be heard.
Her technology career began at Excite.com, the 1990s web portal, where she met Ross Buhrdorf. She later joined HomeAway, the Austin vacation rental marketplace, and stayed 11 years, until Expedia acquired the company. Some time after, over coffee, Buhrdorf described an idea for a business that would help entrepreneurs start and run their companies. Both were drawn, she has said, to the small-business category because “small businesses are what keep the economy growing and going”, and to the idea of building something with a positive social impact.
At ZenBusiness she was Chief Operating Officer, overseeing day-to-day operations as the company scaled into one of Austin’s most prominent startups. The company credits her with driving growth through data, systems and tools, with identifying and developing talent, and with leading a diversity, equity and inclusion strategy that brought female representation across staff and management to nearly 50%. She has also pushed AI adoption inside the business, including the company’s AI assistant, Velo. Her advice to founders is summed up in a mantra she repeats: “be fearless, be ethical, be passionate.”
She now holds the title of Co-Founder and Executive Advisor, and is no longer listed on the company’s executive team, which is led by CEO Ross Buhrdorf. Outside the company she mentors entrepreneurs through Capital Factory, sits on the board of the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce, is a member of UT Austin’s International Board of Advisors, and established a graduate fellowship at UT Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering for international graduate students.
Education
The University of Texas at Austin
Computer Engineering