About Us

I was born and raised in Alabama. I graduated from Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA, outside of Washington DC, Rhodes College in Memphis, TN and The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. I always wanted to own a group of restaurants like Houston's until I ran restaurants.

I ended up in Dallas because the statement that a Texas woman can never leave Texas is true. My wife's name is Holly and she is the most patient and understanding woman that I know. We have two twin girls, Kaitlyn and Lauren, who are as independent, compassionate, beautiful and smart as their mom. It is amazing how much life and its priorities change when you have children.

Before J. Hilburn, I spent eight years on Wall Street, working in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Chicago, as an equity research analyst (shorthand for geek). I covered publicly traded restaurants, retail and luxury brand companies from Tiffany to Gap to Starbucks to Nike to Amazon.com.

My job was to meet with the CEO, CFO and COO of these companies, build financial forecasts and then recommend buying or selling the stocks of these companies to mutual and hedge funds. I really loved this job, but I traveled 150,000 miles a year and commuted from Chicago to Dallas every week.

I developed the idea of J. Hilburn on a plane ride from Chicago to Los Angeles, as I read a book called “The Warren Buffet Way” by Robert Hagstrom. In this book, Mr. Buffet states that one of his top three investments of all time is The Pampered Chef. This is mind blowing as some of Mr. Buffet's more notable investments include Coca-Cola, Gillette, American Express and The Washington Post. How in the world could a direct sales company rank up there with those companies? In fact, Mr. Buffet owns seven direct sales companies.

So being a research geek, I researched the Direct Sales industry. I realized that there is a huge credibility issue driven by product, recruiting and culture. So, on our honeymoon, I started to sketch the idea. I was the only guy drinking pina-coladas with a legal yellow pad next to him. Holly got me a matching pocket protector for Christmas.

What if we built a company based on the following principles: culture, quality, value, convenience/e-commerce, and client care. I already knew that the products sold at department stores, especially luxury brands, were over-priced and significantly marked up because the department store and the brand knew that the customer would pay up regardless.

So what if we exposed this mark-up like Amazon did to books. Then what if we built a company that put culture first and focused that culture-centric model on our sales partners and the customer. And then you layer on world class e-commerce where we stay open 24/7 and offer convenience and advice.

And from that J. Hilburn was born.

We know we can build a world class e-commerce platform and we know we can sell the same quality product as the luxury brands, but at a better value. But what makes an exceptional company is that we can build a company where culture matters, where culture drives decision making, and where culture is the top priority. Our culture is built around our sales partners. Our sales partners are what will make J. Hilburn successful. We are building this company together and we are building this company for us.

Veeral Rathod is President and Co-Founder of J. Hilburn. Mr. Rathod is actively involved in product development, retail strategy and business operations. Prior to J. Hilburn, Mr. Rathod was a Vice President at Cogent Partners where he executed private equity secondary transactions. Mr. Rathod began his career in the Mergers & Acquisitions at Credit Suisse First Boston's Technology Group in San Francisco. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a degree in Economics and International Relations. Mr. Rathod is actively involved in several community organizations, including the St. Mark's Alumni Board.