Taseer Badar
Chairman & CEO
INTRODUCTION
Taseer Badar was born with the DNA of an entrepreneur. An immigrant from Pakistan, from an early age Taseer set his sights on a successful business career and to create opportunities. He began several small businesses in high school and college, where he learned how to build trust and exercise financial discipline. After finishing his BA in Entrepreneurship and Finance from Texas A&M University, he joined Morgan Stanley in New York. Taseer’s big picture focus and deep passion for the success of his clients built a tremendous amount of trust. During this time, he realized building an owner-operator private equity firm would yield higher returns, especially one that embodied his strong passion for customer service, drive for constant innovation, a selfless winning attitude and sharp focus on execution.
Taseer formed Houston-headquartered ZT Corporate in 1997 to offer unique investor-owner opportunities to clients. The company has a diverse and dynamic investment portfolio that it owns and operates primarily in the healthcare and automotive space. Its flagship operations include Altus Community Healthcare, a multi-disciplinary healthcare services provider, and ZT Motors, which provides the management expertise and capital to grow retail automobile dealerships. ZT Corporate has grown into a $1 billion business adding 50 plus individual businesses to its portfolio, with offices in Houston, New York City, Century City, Newport, and Los Angeles, as well as an upcoming office in Las Vegas.
In addition, philanthropy and industry development are key aspects of Taseer’s weekly focus to give back to the community ZT serves and inspire the next generation of business leaders. He is a board member for the Boys and Girls Club Southwest Region National Board of Trustees that enables young people to reach their full potential. Taseer also serves under the Dean’s Advisory Board at Texas A&M Mays School of Business, where he is in the position to inspire and empower the next generation of entrepreneurs. To give back to his hometown of Houston, he sits on the Board of Directors for Houston Crime Stoppers that aims to reduce serious crime.
MANAGEMENT APPROACH
Taseer’s management approach entails adapting and evolving to ever-changing to market conditions. Internally at ZT Corporate, he terms his style as “changing the menu.” The approach has overcome enormous challenges to achieve continued portfolio growth year over year. For example, after the introduction of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Taseer’s physician clients suggested an exit from the healthcare vertical, believing Altus Community Healthcare would not survive the regulatory changes. However, Taseer convinced his investors to double down on the opportunity and leveraged the challenge to create an opportunity and established Altus Accountable Care Entity (ACE) with the goal of providing increased quality of care, lower costs and improved patient population health. As a result, Altus has grown by over 300% over the last three years. He also hedged the risk by venturing into non-healthcare verticals such as automotive, real estate and restaurants.
Taseer attributes the success of ZT Corporate and Altus Community Healthcare to the employee empowerment model he champions, believing that true leadership and innovation only comes when his employees share his same passion and enthusiasm for the organization and investors. Breaking from the established corporate norms regarding leadership roles, his portfolio managers are young, dynamic entrepreneurial individuals from diverse backgrounds that play a very key role in the business. Taseer empowers each portfolio manager to build personal relationships with operators and investors, listening, coaching and sharing data-driven insights when appropriate.
Taseer’s original innovative ideas can be illustrated in both his overall go-to-market strategy as well as how he operates his companies. ZT and Altus are built upon an innovative business model that provides a platform to their physicians’ network with true financial security through prudent investment strategies and operational support. This allows physicians to properly manage their practices and provide the best-in-class patient care. Ultimately, ZT and Altus are on a mission to build “healthier communities by empowering physicians,” and are some of the only companies in the United States that provide such comprehensive service offerings to its physician network.
STRONG TRACK RECORD
Financially, the numbers strongly support the incredible level of success Taseer and ZT Corporate have achieved. The company has grown from $28M in portfolio revenues in 2008 to over $1B to date, expanding from a strictly healthcare portfolio to automotive, restaurants and wealth management. This allows ZT Corporate to hedge against the risk and returns associated with healthcare.
GIVING BACK
Taseer’s passion for the community is rooted deep within his businesses and nonprofits. He focuses his philanthropy on key initiatives that deliver lifechanging impact.
Financial giving to local organizations
Taseer provides monthly donations to Shifa Healthcare & Community services, a clinic founded in 1997 as part of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston that provides free social and medical services to the community. He is a regular contributor to Mercy Community Center, which provides a dynamic atmosphere for Houstonians to embrace life and Islam.
Supporting physicians of Pakistani descent
ZT Corporate is a proud corporate partner of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Decent of North America (APPNA), whose nationwide reach allows ZT to provide educational support, charitable donations, and medical assistance across North America and Pakistan. Additionally, ZT Corporate provides two internships each year for children of APPNA members.
Furthering education in Pakistan
Taseer and ZT Corporate are proud contributors to The Citizen Foundation, a nonprofit currently operating 1,567 purpose-built school units in Pakistan’s urban slums and rural areas. Their team educates more than a quarter-million underprivileged children with 50% female enrollment.
Improving local healthcare
Taseer has set up healthcare systems, through Altus Healthcare, to give back and create an impact in communities that may not have access to first- class emergency care or other medical services. To date, the healthcare network has served thousands in communities across Texas and is one of the few care centers that accepts all insurances (including government) and has in-network contracts to reduce the cost of care to the patients. Additionally, Taseer has helped raise funds and made significant contributions to advance his passion for healthcare for all, which also provides millions in free healthcare for local communities. As of 2022, the Altus Foundation has provided over $10 million in healthcare services to individuals in need.
Youth advancement through sport
Taseer also created ZT Athletics, a 501 (c)3 organization with over 100 teams across the United States that provides opportunities and exposure for youth players no matter their financial need. Driven by his love for baseball, Taseer founded ZT Athletics in 2017, where he plays a hands-on role in molding young baseball talent into esteemed professionals, both on and off the field.
ZT Athletics provides a platform for youth athletes to showcase their talent in the sport while embracing the values of discipline, integrity, teamwork and sportsmanship. The players receive training and mentorship by gaining access to high-profile coaches and world-class facilities.
The program operates two premier training locations, Elite Academy (Houston, TX) and ZT Prospects Academy (Anaheim, CA) as well as facilities through ZT Parks (Pep Mueller Park – Houston, TX) and ZT Athletics Nation (Aviator Park – Mckinney, TX).
