Rami interacts consistently with entrepreneurs in the southeastern Michigan region to help them to identify and fulfill their talent mobility needs. Currently, many businesses – especially start-ups – face skilled labor shortages. Rami works with a network of supporting organizations such as local chambers of commerce, Global Detroit (an immigration advocacy non-profit), and many local community groups to bring skilled talent to local employers and to help them become part of their new communities. In addition, he has also served as a co-founder of and mentors to many successful start-ups and community service organizations like Akebu-lan Village in Detroit.

Rami is proud of his involvement with many charities, including Akebu-lan, Sara’s House, Racquet Up, Habitat for Humanity, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and several others. Giving back is one of his core beliefs, and he has generously assisted many service organizations and needy individuals. Recently, he started a scholarship for underprivileged students attending Michigan State University who have a passion for immigration. In addition, he has won the FBI’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Leadership Award, and the Presidential Gold Medal from the FBI’s National Citizens Academy Alumni Association.

Leading with Grace

For Rami, one essential quality of good leadership is being open to innovation. In this enormously competitive environment, leaders who are reluctant to change face extinction. True leaders embrace a culture of “permanent transformation” and ensure that employees achieve buy-in of the company’s goals. Indeed, this is another – and even more critical – quality of an effective leader: doing good by your people and not letting them see that you are the driving force behind their professional growth. Rami’s mentoring and support of his staff is as important as innovative technologies or lean processes. Great leaders help staff to recognize that innovation helps them too – that it saves them time and effort from doing repetitive, low-level tasks – and that continually improving processes and technologies is the best way to assure future growth, which is in everyone’s interest. Rami sees FGI as creating opportunities for his employees to grow and succeed in their professional lives.

The firm provides its clients with the most comprehensive business-based legal immigration services available while tailoring their service offerings to their individual requirements. Offering a full range of business-based immigration legal services, FGI aspires to be the one-stop solution for all its clients’ global and U.S.-based talent mobility needs. The team of over 150 legal immigration specialists and their affiliated network have enabled FGI to provide effective solutions to all their clients’ objectives.

FGI celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary back in September. Rami attributes his success to the firm’s ability to adapt to a continually changing economic and regulatory environment and to providing top-notch service to clients that yield dependable results. Maintaining a flexible mindset, responding effectively to challenges, and providing transparency to staff and other stakeholders have enabled Rami to build his business even during periods of high uncertainty. One additional related factor: building long-term relationships based on mutual trust. Rami has grown FGI partly due to his solid relationships with clients, community leaders, and business leaders. If Rami had to summarize his ethic for success in just five terms, he would say ”persistence, visioning, integrity, hard work, and giving back.”

Assisting with Unique Abilities

Rami worked on immigration initiatives with former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s administration and specifically developed the criteria for a “Detroit visa,” which was an early version of the Biden administration’s “Heartland USA” visa policy. The Detroit visa would have promoted economic rejuvenation through immigration policy, which Rami has advocated for many years – shaping pro-immigration policies so that economically devastated regions and rural communities can be revitalized through an influx of new talent.

Here’s an example of how Rami and his team have assisted clients. A few years ago, FGI onboarded a client struggling to get approvals for their guest worker (H-1B) visas.. The FGI team assigned to the client undertook a thorough review of the client’s case management practices and analyzed their case filings, contracts, documentation, etc. The team reworked all of the client’s documentation and onboarded their cases into their case management system. FGI then trained the client’s H.R. on all the revised case management processes and ensured continual dialogue with the H.R. to resolve any issues. Thanks to FGI’s intervention, approximately 90% of the client’s H-1B visa petitions are now approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Thanks to Rami’s leadership and vision, FGI has become a one-stop shop for all global and U.S. immigration services. Due to the successful implementation of their global delivery model, FGI has been able to open branch offices in multiple cities in the U.S. and globally, including India, Canada, and Spain. FGI is currently working on various initiatives that, when implemented, will make its services to its clients even better.