The People Behind the Mission
ESB Foundation is guided by the lives and legacies of Shari Sharifi Brown and Edward G. Brown, whose commitment to education, service, philanthropy, and opportunity helped shape the foundation’s mission and continues to inspire its work on behalf of children and families.
Shari Sharifi Brown
Shari Sharifi Brown has spent her life between Iran and the United States. Born in Isfahan, Iran, she came to the United States to study at California State University, Los Angeles, where she earned a B.S. in Engineering. She later returned to Iran to work as a structural engineer. After the Iranian Revolution, she moved back to the United States and has now lived there for more than thirty years in total.
Born a Muslim in pre-revolutionary Persia, Shari later converted to Christianity in school and married into a Jewish-American family. Having lived within all three Abrahamic religions, she developed a deeply personal understanding of their shared values and came to believe that their similarities far outweigh their differences today.
Through a lifetime of study, reflection, and lived experience, Shari Sharifi Brown came to a clear conclusion: the essential teachings of the three major Abrahamic faiths can help make people whole, secure, and compassionate. She later formed the ESB Foundation with her late husband, Edward G. Brown, carrying forward a mission shaped by faith, education, service, and philanthropy. Her perspective continues to guide the foundation’s commitment to children, families, and meaningful opportunity for underserved youth across communities and future generations alike today.
Seven Commandments for Happiness and Prosperity
Seven Commandments for Happiness and Prosperity reflects Shari Sharifi Brown’s deeply personal journey through faith, culture, and lived experience. Born in Iran and later educated in the United States, Shari has lived within all three Abrahamic religions, an experience that shaped her understanding of their shared principles. In this book, she explores the spiritual and practical values that she believes lead to a more secure, meaningful, and prosperous life. Her perspective is rooted not only in belief, but also in years of study, reflection, and firsthand experience across different traditions and communities. The book presents her conviction that the similarities among the major faiths are stronger than their differences, and that these common teachings can help guide people toward wholeness, purpose, and peace. As part of the foundation’s broader mission, all proceeds from book sales benefit the ESB Foundation and support its work on behalf of children and families.
Edward G. Brown
Edward G. Brown was President, Co-Chairman, and Co-Founder of Cohen Brown Management Group, a leading consulting and training firm serving the financial services industry worldwide. Over more than thirty-six years, he designed and delivered executive programs focused on behavior, leadership, and culture transformation. Under his leadership, the firm expanded to more than fifty countries and twelve languages, helping major financial institutions improve revenue growth, customer experience, productivity, and employee engagement consistently worldwide.
Edward G.Brown was also the Axiom Award–winning author of The Time Bandit Solution, a practical guide to recovering stolen time and managing interruptions more effectively. Drawing from firsthand experience, he developed strategies that helped executives regain focus, improve creativity, and work with greater structure, clarity, and purpose each day.
Before his global consulting career, Ed built a varied life in business and entertainment. Raised in the Bronx, he began selling door to door as a teenager and later created one of the largest business management firms in the United States for musicians, entertainers, and professionals. He was a successful record producer and songwriter, wrote the #1 hit Tan Shoes and Pink Shoelaces, and later founded banks, developed real estate ventures, and launched numerous enterprises. Ed passed away in 2020.
The Time Bandit Solution: Structured Time & Workflow
The Time Bandit Solution explores a challenge familiar to almost everyone: having too much to do and never enough time to do it. In this book, Edward G. Brown explains how “Time Bandits” — the people and interruptions that quietly consume attention, energy, and productivity — can take a serious toll on both work and personal satisfaction. Drawing from his own high-pressure career and firsthand experience, Ed offers practical strategies for recognizing these patterns, reducing unnecessary interruptions, and recovering valuable time that often goes unnoticed. The book shows how the effects of interruption extend beyond the moment itself, creating stress, breaking concentration, and limiting progress on meaningful priorities. Through a structured, step-by-step approach, The Time Bandit Solution helps readers regain focus, improve workflow, and make better use of their time with greater clarity and control. All proceeds from book sales benefit the ESB Foundation and support its work for children and families.