Shahriar Khoshnevissan

Founder & Principal

I've spent more than four decades in technology, and for most of it I chose the same thing over and over: depth over hierarchy. I stayed close to the systems themselves rather than managing people — the one behind the scenes, building the systems that helped companies look good.

About a decade ago I decided to go back and strengthen my math and statistics foundation, so I could do AI properly rather than just use the libraries. That eventually led me to teach applied calculus and business statistics at university, which I still do today. Teaching sharpened how I explain data, and gave me a much deeper grasp of the calculus underneath machine learning algorithms — you understand something differently once you have to make it click for someone else. There's a real pleasure in helping students learn and grow; it's one of the most satisfying parts of what I do.

I'm a full-stack developer with deep experience across databases and multiple programming languages, and I've also worked as a data scientist, building dashboards and analytics systems in Power BI. Teaching statistics helps me explain what those charts actually mean — not just how to build them, but why the numbers behind them matter.

These days, that depth goes into AI: chat models, LangChain and LangGraph pipelines, machine learning, video and image models, and Microsoft Fabric. When I'm learning something new, my working day starts at 4 AM.

Forty years in, and I'm still, happily, a Computer Science 101 student.

Shahriar@PotomacBusiness.com

Niloofar Goode

Strategic Advisor

I spent nearly four decades building and running technology programs for organizations like Fannie Mae, AWS, and CGI, and a good stretch of that career leading teams through the kind of complex, high-stakes transformations most people only read about in case studies. When I stepped back a few years ago, I meant it — I was done chasing the next program.

What brought me back wasn't a job. It was a conversation with someone building something real, at the stage where the right relationships and the right judgment matter more than headcount. I've spent enough of my career watching companies grow — and watching what actually helps them grow versus what just looks good on paper — that I couldn't turn down the chance to be useful again, on my own terms.

I'm not looking to run another program day to day. I've done that, and done it well. What I can offer Potomac Business Systems is something different: perspective earned from sitting on the other side of hundreds of technology decisions, a network built over decades, and an eye for the kind of opportunity that's worth chasing versus the kind that just looks busy.

If there's one thing I care about more than any project I've delivered, it's the people I've worked with along the way. Several of the people I once managed have gone on to become executives and leaders in their own right, and there's no accomplishment on my resume I'm prouder of than that. If I can help this company grow the same way — by helping the right people and the right opportunities find each other — that's exactly the kind of "retirement project" worth coming back for.

Niloofar@PotomacBusiness.com