Ihab Shahawi

Ihab Shahawi is the founder and CEO of The SAILS Group, Inc. an international agency committed to the quality of care, supervision and training of adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. An expert in his field, Ihab Shahawi has applied his learned business acumen to the assistance of developmentally and intellectually challenged individuals. The result has been a unique, scalable system and philosophy, as exemplified by the SAILS Group, yielding a 99 percent success rate among individuals placed. Success is measured by improvement in overall well being, reduction in inappropriate behavior, and an increase in skills and appropriate behavior.

Unlike contemporaries in his field, who are primarily physicians, Ihab Shahawi has brought an entrepreneurial outlook to model and scale his company’s services. This venture-oriented mentality has driven SAILS to provide strategies that are not only effective, but able to be replicated and expanded successfully. He believes that the system, if followed correctly and passionately, can work with almost everyone in the niche it serves. Mr. Shahawi is driven rather than deterred by difficulty, and has found success with some of the most behaviorally challenging individuals in the state of California.

A family-oriented man, Mr. Shahawi considers the SAILS Group a family business at heart. Since 2002, he has split duties with his wife Vivian, who runs the day-to-day operations while he handles project development and administration. Mr. Shahawi credits the growth of the company to this partnership, and now counts his oldest daughter and son among the SAILS Group as part of the compliance team, which trains employees to adhere to the company philosophy and operational design.

Ihab Shahawi is also the Managing member of the Legacy Holding Company, which provides project consultation on alternative energy, sustainable construction and other organic, earth-friendly products. He has been the recipient of various achievement awards, including the Who’s Who in California Businessmen “Golden State Award” in 1990 and the Metropolitan Who’s Who “Healthcare Executive of the Year” in 2006.