Class of 2008 Bios

Marwa Rashid Al Khalifa is a Bahraini artist who has a passion for mixed media art and photography. In order to explore and push new artistic boundaries, Marwa incorporates the use of different materials in her pieces, her work broaching a "spiritual aura" that invites the viewer to meditate and embark on a personal journey.

Marwa has exhibited locally and internationally. She received the Bronze Palm Award in the Fine Art Category at the 3rd Visual Arts Forum for GCC Artists held in Doha, 2015.

She previously worked as Director of The Crown Prince Training Program for Youth where she equipped young Bahrainis with education and training for the workforce. Helping to bridge the private-public school divide among Bahraini students, she worked to prepare and guide prospective college students toward fields that suit their academic credentials, while tying their educational potential to the country’s strategic development goals.

Imtiaz Ali is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Center for Global Policy – a Washington D.C.-based non-partisan think tank working exclusively on issues at the intersection of U.S. foreign policy and Muslim geopolitics. He is currently based in Washington D.C. and working as a public policy analyst and consultant focusing on political, security, development, and media-related issues related to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the wider South Asia region.

Imtiaz was born in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, where he worked for several years as a journalist for local and foreign media organizations such as the Washington Post, London’s Daily Telegraph, BBC, and prominent Pakistani newspapers The News and Dawn. He has written special policy reports for the United States Institute of Peace and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, and his opinion pieces and research articles have appeared in the Foreign Policy, Yale Global Online, the Atlantic, CTC Sentinel of West Point, and the Global Terrorism Monitor of the Jamestown Foundation.

Imtiaz worked at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute as a curriculum specialist (2011-15). He has also served as a Jennings Randolph Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (2009-10), and a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University (2006-07).

Emmanuel "Alex" Asiedu is the Managing Director of STANLIB Ghana Limited and the president of the Ghana Securities Industry Association, the umbrella body for capital market operators in Ghana. He is also the president of the CFA Society, Ghana and chairs the national advisory board of Impact Investment Ghana. Prior to this he held lead responsibility for Ecobank’s investment management portfolio where his team managed retail and institutional portfolios.

Alex is passionate about bringing about change in Africa and is involved in a number of social impact programs and activities that aim at creating positive health and educational outcomes. He has lectured as an adjunct at Ashesi University, a leading Ghanaian university and works with the Share Foundation, a local not-for-profit that supports the educational needs of Ghanaian children. He is a Trustee of the Gaede Foundation supporting local communities with educational and health grants and providing start-up funding for micro-businesses. He also serves on the international advisory board of the West African Centre for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathogens and is a member of the management committee of the School of Social Sciences, University of Ghana, Legon.

Alex holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Ghana, Legon and a master’s degree in Economics from Queen’s University in Canada. He is a Private Investors for Africa (PIA) fellow and a member of the CFA Institute, the global organization at the leading edge of investment management practice.

Sandra Breka is Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation Group at Open Society Foundations. Previously she was a member of the Board of Management of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, one of the major charitable foundations in Europe. There, she spearheaded the foundation’s strategic realignment. Her portfolio included the foundation’s work on Global Issues with a focus on Climate Change, Democracy, Immigration Society, Inequality, Migration, and Peace as well as Strategic Partnerships and the Robert Bosch Academy.

Before joining the foundation in 2001, Sandra served as Program Director at the Aspen Institute Berlin after an assignment with the American Council on Germany in New York. After studies in Germany, France, and the United States, she obtained her M.A. at Columbia University.

Sandra is a Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the European Endowment for Democracy. She serves on the Munich Security Conference Board of Trustees, the Board of the Mercator Institute for China Studies, and the Executive Committee of the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung and the European Foundation Center Governing Council.

Gilbert Doumit is a founding and Managing Partner of Beyond Group Europe, a change-driven international consulting firm that specializes in three integrated practices: Public Policy & Management, Organizational Learning & Development, and Innovation & Technology Integration, with projects in South Asia, Africa, Caucasus, the Middle East and Gulf countries. For the last two decades, Gilbert has been advising policy makers, the United Nations, the World Bank, development partners, and civil society organizations to innovate and transform their social, economic and governance policies, strategies and systems.

At the Yale School of Management, Gilbert has facilitated, for three consecutive years, a leadership development seminar within the Master’s of Advanced Management at the School of Management and within the pre-MBA program at the Yale Center in Beijing. He is also a lecturer at Université Saint Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon, teaching courses on intercultural mediation and social entrepreneurship. He has been interviewed and featured in international policy and media outlets such as the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Carnegie Endowment for Democracy Sada Journal, The Guardian, the Washington Post, CNN and BBC. He is sought after as a public speaker in international conferences such as the Harvard Arab Week, Yale Governance and Local Development Conference, Knowledge Summit in Dubai, World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, UN 70th Anniversary in Beirut, and Global Solutions Summit in Berlin. 

He is a founding member of Injaz Lebanon – a member-nation of Junior Achievement Worldwide, a board member of the Center for Lebanese Studies, the former general coordinator of the National Coalition for Elections Observation, and a former candidate to the parliamentary elections in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, in 2018. He holds a Bachelor’s in Social and Community Organization from Saint-Joseph University, a Bachelor's in Business with a focus on Hospitality Management from Notre-Dame University, a Master's of Advanced Management from Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP), and a Master's of Business Administration from Ecole Superieure des Affaires (ESA).

Jesús "Franco" Gamboa-Rocabado is a professor of political science and development studies at Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, the most important public university in Bolivia. He is also the main advisor in strategic planning at the National Service for Personal Identification, the Bolivian flagship public institution that holds and render the rights for identity in Bolivia.

An influential policy maker at the national level, Franco has dedicated himself to the democratization of Bolivia’s political system through positions with the Ministry of the Presidency, the mayor of La Paz, and Bolivia’s Constitutional Assembly. He also was consultant of the High Court of Electoral Affairs, and helped negotiate political agreements for Constitutional Assembly when Franco was appointed as UNDP representative between 2006 and 2007. He is a widely published political commentator and a columnist for Bolivia’s La Prensa newspaper.

Franco received an Andean scholarship at the French Institute of Andean Studies, the National Research Fellowship awarded by the Strategic Research Program in Bolivia (2013), and the Thirty Years of Democracy Fellowship granted by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (2014). He has a BA from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, an MA from Duke University, and a PhD from LSE.

Peter Gulliver works at Bank Leumi USA as Chief Strategy Officer, where his team leads the bank's corporate strategy development, financial planning and analysis, and enterprise data and analytics. Peter has built his career at the intersection of management advisory and entrepreneurship, with industry expertise in energy, healthcare, finance, and early-stage ventures. He specializes in helping organizations drive growth during periods of rapid change, which has led him to work in sectors like emerging markets and inner cities.

He graduated from the Yale School of Management in May 2009. Prior to receiving his MBA Peter worked in international development, focusing on power and water systems. His long-term goal is to help finance enterprises in frontier markets.

John Haffner is a sustainability executive based in Hong Kong, with an extensive background in Asia, including especially Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. He currently serves as General Manager, Sustainability for a leading commercial real estate company, Hang Lung Properties. He has two decades of experience in cleantech, energy, and sustainability, including senior roles in the electricity sector in both Canada and Asia.

John’s education includes two law degrees from McGill University, and he is called to the bar in the Province of Ontario, Canada. In 2011 John was nominated as an Asia 21 Young Leader by Asia Society. John has more than 20 publications on various topics related to the environment, energy and international affairs, and he is proficient in Mandarin.

Nicola Harrington-Buhay works as an advocate for the inclusion of persons with disabilities, notably to increase their possibilities for decent jobs in the workplace. She also represents the International Paralympic Committee at UNESCO.

Prior to this, Nicola was Deputy Executive Coordinator for the United Nations Volunteers, promoting volunteerism in peace and development. She was instrumental in introducing the United Nations’ first volunteer program for people with disabilities. She was previously Deputy Director of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which fosters peer exchange between emerging and developing economies on effective approaches to development.

Earlier, Nicola spent several years working for the United Nations. She was the United Nations Resident Coordinator to the Republic of Moldova, coordinating UN activities in development and human rights, including engagement with the “frozen conflict" Transnistrian region. She also led the United Nations' policy engagement with the European Union, and she was UN Resident Coordinator in Serbia and Montenegro and Director for Resources Mobilization for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) where she helped attain its highest levels of core resources. She held UNDP management positions in Nicaragua, Malawi, and Argentina. Prior to serving in the UN, Nicola worked for the Bank of England, specializing in financial trade liberalization and building bridges between government and industry positions in international negotiations.

In 2012, she was co-winner of the Haldane Prize for public administration. A national of the United Kingdom, Nicola holds a Master in Public Administration from the Warwick Business School and a Master of Science (Econ) in Politics of the World Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom.

Gavin Hood is currently the Chief of Staff at Palantir Technologies, a Silicon Valley software company that has developed the world's most advanced data integration and analysis capabilities. Palantir's technologies are used in the government and commercial sectors world-wide.

Prior to joining Palantir in 2012, Gavin accumulated more than 14 years of front-line experience as a senior legal and policy adviser. In 2009-2012, he was the first UK legal adviser to the British Embassy in Washington, DC, where he advised on international legal and policy issues, focusing on the national security sphere. He has held a number of positions in the UK Foreign Office, including as the first legal adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. In 1999, he joined the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo, where he monitored and reported on human rights violations and contributed to the development of the justice system and strategies for tackling ethnic-based violence.

His experience in the Balkans led him to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, where he assisted in the investigation of Slobodan Milosevic. In 2003 he became a senior policy adviser to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, where he was instrumental in building the Office of the Prosecutor from its inception and played a major role in advancing the investigations and prosecutions in Northern Uganda, Darfur, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Stephen B. Kaplan is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. His research examines the politics of global finance and development, the political economy of Asian-Latin America relations, and Latin American politics. His book, Globalization and Austerity Politics in Latin America, explores the relationship between global market indebtedness and national economic policy making. The book offers important lessons for understanding the ongoing economic crises in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the politics of reform in developing countries.

Stephen was the recipient of the 2010 Mancur Olson Award for the Best Dissertation in Political Economy and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Niehaus Globalization and Governance Center at Princeton University. He holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and an M.S. from Georgetown University. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked as a senior economic analysis at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with responsibilities for both East Asia and Latin America.
 

James Kondo is Chairman of the Board of the International House of Japan, a nonprofit funded by the Rockefeller Foundation that promotes cultural exchange and intellectual cooperation between the peoples of Japan and other countries. James is also President of Asia Pacific Initiative, Co-Chair of World Economic Forum Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Japan, Co-Chair of Asia Society Japan Center, Co-Chair of Silicon Valley Japan Platform, Visiting Professor at Hitotsubashi University, Visiting Professor at Keio University, and Senior Advisor at Geodesic Capital.

Previously, James was Vice President of Twitter Inc. and Chairman of Twitter Japan, Special Adviser to the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan, on the faculty at the University of Tokyo, and a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. He studied at Brown University, and graduated from Keio University and Harvard Business School. He has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Dr. Precious Lunga is CEO and Co-Founder of Baobab Circle, a health technology company delivering innovative health solutions via phones across Africa.

Previously she was at Econet Wireless where she co-founded the mHealth business unit using technology to deliver health services using mobile money micro-payments. Prior to that, she worked at UNAIDS Geneva where she was involved in spearheading the implementation of HIV prevention programs. She was also strategic advisor to the UK's second largest charitable foundation, funding programs across Africa and India.

As a vocal advocate for the right to health and education, Precious has succeeded in bringing together diverse stakeholders, including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities, and trial participants, who included approximately ten thousand African women in anti-HIV microbicide trials while she was at the UK Medical Research Council. She has been featured at the Women of the World festival and media programs including the BBC World Service Forum Programme and Sky News.  

Felix Maradiaga is an academic, political activist, and former presidential candidate. In June 2021 he was arrested and held in solitary confinement in Nicaragua by Ortega’s regime, sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for the alleged crime of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity." In February 2023, Felix was released from captivity and flown to the U.S., along with 221 other political prisoners from Nicaragua, where he was reunited with his family.

After serving as the youngest-ever Secretary General of the Ministry of Defense, Felix has dedicated himself to strengthening peace, democracy, and the rule of law in Nicaragua. A recognized international expert in civil society and leadership development, he seeks to heighten international awareness of what he sees as Nicaragua's worsening political climate and human rights violations, and to help resource key human rights and pro-democracy organizations.

He is a widely published thought leader, educator, and political commentator, and in addition to his pro bono work with civil society, Felix is also an advisor and consultant to private companies in Central America. He is a 2009 Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum and in 2010 was inducted into the Aspen Global Leadership Network. In 2015, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs honored him with the prestigious Gus Hart Fellowship for his outstanding contributions in social entrepreneurship and social innovation in Central America.

Orzala Nemat is Director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) and an Afghan political ethnographer and a senior teaching fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She has two decades of experience in development practice, research, programmatic review, and academia.

She is the founder of Humanitarian Assistance for Women and Children of Afghanistan, was a guest scholar at the Cher Michelson Institute in Norway, and has worked with different international organizations including ICCO in the Netherlands as its country representative in Afghanistan. Orzala has served on the boards of national and international development organizations in Afghanistan and is currently a trustee of Afghanaid, a British charity working in Afghanistan.

Orzala has published various papers and book chapters focusing on examining different aspects of Afghan women’s lives and matters of peacebuilding, civil society, and local governance. She has written editorials and blogs for the Guardian and Open Democracy and is a frequent commentator on Afghanistan for the BBC World Service and Al Jazeera English. Her work has been recognized by Amnesty International’s Italian Section (2000), and she was a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2009). Orzala holds a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS and her research focus has been on local governance relations that emerge as result of external interventions in the Afghan localities.

’Dapo Oyewole is Special Adviser on Development Planning & International Affairs to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He previously served as Special Adviser to the Minister of State for Finance in Nigeria, responsible for policy and international cooperation.

Earlier, he served as Technical Adviser to two Ministers of National Planning (NPC) in the Presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The NPC is the country’s central think tank on strategic development and policy planning and serves a central advisory role to the President. At the NPC, his responsibilities spanned international cooperation, donor coordination, national development strategy, policy formulation, performance monitoring, and evaluation and speech writing, amongst others.

’Dapo was previously was Head of research, policy, and strategy at the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development’s technical assistance program in Nigeria. Until 2009, he was the Executive Director of the Centre for African Public Policy and Strategy and was also Head of the Centre for Democracy & Development in the UK. He has been a consultant and advisor to several multilateral bodies including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Commonwealth. He has led several policy initiatives and development projects and, for over a decade, been a key analyst and commentator on African and international affairs for international news agencies such as CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera, Reuters, and the Financial Times.

’Dapo studied at the University of South Africa, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is member of the Africa Leadership Network, the BMW Responsible Leaders Network, and is also an Aspen Institute Alumnus. He is a writer and regular speaker at international fora on global development, diplomacy, and governance issues, with particular emphasis on Africa. 

Adi Pundak-Mintz is Founder of Canaan Partners Israel, a venture capital fund in Israel, which is one of the world’s largest venture capital markets. An expert in seed investment and entrepreneurship, he has overseen transactions totaling over $1 billion.

Adi has also helped finance socially responsible start-up businesses including Galil Software, a Nazareth-based company with over 100 employees that creates career opportunities for Israeli Arabs who might otherwise encounter difficulties finding employment in their field. Adi is also an Advisory Board Member of Tzeva, a non-profit organization providing access to quality education to all children, attempting to eliminate social gaps. He is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and mentor to startups in the social and for-profit sectors. He is part of Hasadna, a public knowledge workshop to make government more transparent, and University of the People, the world’s first tuition-free online university.

Andriy Shevchenko is a prominent Ukrainian politician, diplomat, journalist, and civil activist. In 2015-21 he served as the Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada. Prior to that, he was a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament, winning seats in 2006, 2007, and 2012. He served as the Chairman of the Free Speech Committee and the 1st Deputy Chairman of the Human Rights Committee.

Andriy is the author of the Law on Access to Public Information and was an active participant of the Euromaidan Revolution of 2013-14. As a seasoned journalist, he helped to establish the 5th Channel, the first 24/7-news channel in Ukraine, and became the face of the 2004 Orange Revolution for viewers.

Prior to this, Andriy was a leader of the journalists' movement against censorship, and in 2002, launched the Kyiv Independent Media Union, becoming its first chairman. In 2005 he received the Press Freedom Award from Reporters Without Borders (Vienna).

Oya Ünlü Kizil is a top executive of Koç Holding, the largest conglomerate in Turkey and a flagship of the Turkish economy. Serving as Director of Corporate Brand, Communications, and External Affairs, she takes an entrepreneurial approach to positioning the Koç brand vis-à-vis changing local and international trends.

Previously, she served as the first woman and the youngest chief of staff to the Turkish Minister of Economy, Kemal Dervi?. Her experience in government, international organizations, and the private sector give her a multifaceted vision of today’s global challenges.

Jingjing Zhang is a prominent Chinese environmental lawyer and a lecturer in law at the University of Maryland School of Law. She is the director of the Transnational Environmental Accountability Project and the founder of the China Accountability Project. She works on cutting-edge transnational environmental and climate lawsuits in the international development arena. Her team tests various legal avenues to ensure Chinese companies under China’s Belt and Road Initiative comply with environmental laws and international human rights norms in Africa and Latin America.

Through her work as the inaugural litigation director of the Beijing-based Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims between 1999 and 2008, Jingjing won several milestone environmental litigation cases in the Chinese courts. She also worked for Natural Resource Defenses Council China Project and PILnet, the Global Network for Public Interest Law, Beijing office.

Jingjing earned her Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and her law degrees from Wuhan University and China University of Political Science and Law. She was an Open Society Fellow (2016), a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School East Asia Legal Studies (2013-14), and Yale China Law Center (2009).