Omar is the founder and CEO of Maden, America’s B2B digital marketplace for U.S. manufacturing. Maden was founded to build a single digital index constituting America’s entire manufacturing product inventory, making all U.S. manufactured products discoverable and purchasable at scale. Maden increases capital access for small U.S. manufacturers and mitigates U.S. over-reliance on foreign products. Maden supports U.S. wartime readiness and supply chain resilience in the U.S.–China strategic competition.

An attorney and former U.S. Department of Defense official, Omar spent 18 months in Afghanistan during the surge, advising senior military and diplomatic leaders. Omar then became a counter-terrorism prosecutor, working on motions and appeals in the 9/11 trial and USS Cole bombing trial.

Omar has led investigations overseas targeting captured terrorist network leaders. Detailed to the U.S. State Department, Omar led an interagency group to assess foreign prosecutions of detained terrorist network members. Omar has represented the United States and engaged at the principal-level in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel.

Omar was the GOP nominee for U.S. Congress in California’s 52nd district in 2018, becoming the first American-Muslim GOP nominee for national office in America’s history. 

Omar holds a B.A. in Philosophy from UCLA, M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Public Affairs at Syracuse, M.S. in Public Relations from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse, and J.D. from Syracuse Law School. 

Omar has served over a decade in the U.S. Army Reserve, with both reserve and active duty time, currently holding the rank of Major. 

Born and raised in Southern California, Omar is the proud son of patriotic immigrants who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in the 1970s, pursuing and then achieving the American Dream