Sam Vaghani grew up in entertainment and is a contemporary diverse entertainment professional.  

His father grew up with his best friend in Chicago, Girish Patel, when they were in college near Albany Park Chicago. Girish’s father, of RJ Films, created many known Indian Gujarati movies and series, including Mahi Sagarnihara, and also co-directed and produced episodes of the hit 1987 78-part series Ramayan released with worldwide record television ratings of 650 million impressions in 1987 and 2.5 billion impressions during the 2020 re-telecast, almost 4x higher than the first release 33 years before.  

Ramayan was re-cast during the Covid pandemic in March of 2020 by Narendra Modi to bring prosperity to troubled pandemic times.   

Sam Vaghani is the son of a well-known electronic manufacturer from South Barrington, IL where they grew up and was an advocate for LEED Certified Buildings. He is a youngest buyer in 2011 at SOM’s the World’s Tallest Residential Tower in the Near North Neighborhood of Chicago before the grand opening of the Burj Khalifa of the UAE in 2010. He is the first landowner out of 50 Buildings to seek both LEED and Well certification at his unit as mentioned by the Kendeda Fund.    

But he’s much, much more than this as well. He’s a bonafide intellectual, a writer, an influencer, actor, a former energy engineer entrepreneur and Comed Trade Ally, sustainability professional, a Chicagoan from the Near North/River North Neighborhood, a Californian, and a relative of Billion Dollar Wind Turbine magnate Vinod Tanti and far more. His experience is grand. He’s a true creator, someone who cares deeply about the world and is interested in advocating for new ideas. And he doesn’t just talk about them; he turns them into projects.  

To give an example, Sam Vaghani is passionate about biomimicry. Never heard of it? Well, you’re about to. 

“Biomimicry is mimicking natural life in the industries of the manmade world such as on film and television. The use of sound, footage, real life footage, natural wildlife, ocean scenes, atmospheric scenes from outer space, can all be used and edited or animated into the work of a film.” 

He learned the concept while learning about the Pebble Project while a Purdue Student from his professor Former New York Giants player and Purdue professor Gregory Lasker, in the years 2007/2008, the same year and semester of the Obamas and Jeremy Piven well known West Lafayette visit, the Big10 Tour for the 2008 Obama Campaign, and Sam Vaghani was there with his Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity brother.    

He is completing the UCLA Extension’s Screenwriting Certificate Program this next March, after receiving advice from Mr. Ray Charles Robinson Jr. in the summer of 2020.  

Films are where he’s established his brand as a producer, actor, and financier, but there is also more to him. 

He explains,   

“Every person is their own brand… they’re shaping people, sharing commonality to be seen by people all around the world. Everyone has their digital device now. Everyone has their credo, their 2 or sometimes 3 cents to share, their input, their advice or their new, fancy product. We have our recommendations, our basic, shareable knowledge that we give out for people everywhere.   

I have mine as well. I have been a producer/financier of a couple of films.   

Film moves people. A great movie can motivate, entertain, and change peoples. And Sam is very much involved in more of them. 

“I am an associate producer for Four Samosas, an American comedy, a feature film.” 

Sam was heavily involved early in the film Limbo, with an independent studio group as mentioned above. The film premiered at the Beverly Hills Film Festival in 2019 and became digitally available in 2020. It was Sam’s first horror thriller, a mystery and “Thriller-Horror film” as he describes it. 

Sam Vaghani is a Stage 18 Incubator space member of Cinespace Chicago. Recently Cinespace was acquired in a $1 billion deal by TPG Real Estate. He is also a member of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Chicago International Film Festival. Sam is also a Producer member of this year’s 10-Year anniversary for the One Earth Film Festival 2021. 

Sam’s work also includes deeply significant themes. “I am the youngest financier/film producer for the Reginald F. Lewis biopic. Sam contributed his edited photo of Reginald F. Lewis in a 2021 released book of African American History called Black Firsts: 500 Years of Trailblazing Achievements and Ground-Breaking Events by Jessie Carney Smith, Ph.D, a well distinguished author, educator, scholar, historian, and Librarian Emerita. He is a staple in the New York story of the first African Americans to go to Harvard. He went to Harvard Law and became successful in New York thereafter. Reginald Lewis’ story was significant in the 60’s. He was one of the first black quarterbacks in college. He was invited to enter Harvard Law for his Masters, one of 6, during an integral time in diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion in Higher Education. He is a first of many, an Apollo, of Harvard. He is recognized to be the first Harvard man to make the largest donation back to the University. He became the Harvard Manhattan attorney and became the leader of his own private equity law firm, he turned into the big son of Wall Street and International Business Mogul across 7 continents. His story is legendary among the first pioneers of African Americans in business.” Sam subscribes to a principle called Same-in-Common, to have commonality with people across the world.