Near East Foundation

Shant Mardirossian, Chair
Mr. Mardirossian has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Near East Foundation since 2002 and its Chair since 2007. He is a Partner and the Chief Financial Officer of Kohlberg & Company, a middle-market private-equity firm, and serves on the board of directors for several companies controlled by Kohlberg & Co. Mr. Mardirossian was born in Lebanon of Armenian decent and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1969. He is actively involved in international and Middle Eastern affairs. Mr. Mardirossian received a B.B.A. and an M.B.A. from the Lubin School of Business at Pace University. He is also a Certified Public Accountant.

Johnson Garrett, Vice Chairman
Mr. Garrett is a great-grandson of Cleveland H. Dodge, who co-founded the Near East Foundation in 1915 and established a philanthropic foundation in 1917. He has worked as a digital media executive for 15 years, previously working at AOL, Viacom, Excite@Home, Ask Jeeves and most recently, IAC/InterActiveCorp. Mr. Garrett was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a founding member of Network 20/20, a New York based foreign policy group. He graduated with a B.A. from Princeton University in 1991 and an M.B.A. from Columbia University in 1997. Mr. Garrett lives in New York with his wife and two children.

Haig Mardikian, Secretary
Mr. Mardikian is a graduate of Trinity College, B.A, 1969 and Harvard Business School, M.B.A., 1971. He is the owner of Haig G. Mardikian Enterprises (real estate investments), general partner of M&B Development (real estate investments), president/director of Adiuvana-Invest, Inc. (real estate investments) and chair/director of Forward Funds Inc (mutual fund company). He served for many years as a trustee of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and is a trustee of the Herbert Hoover Foundation, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, the William Saroyan Foundation, The Foundation of City College of San Francisco and the International House of the University of California at Berkeley. His father was brought up in an NER orphanage.

Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Ph.D.
Dr. Boroujerdi is an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs where he also serves as the founding director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program and co-director of the Religion, Media and International Relations Program. Dr. Boroujerdi received his B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from Boston University, and his Ph.D. in International Relations from the American University in Washington, D.C. Boroujerdi’s Middle East studies focus is on Iran and political Islam. His current research is on political elitism in post-revolutionary Iran and on the intellectual history of the contemporary Middle East.

Amir Ali Farman-Farma, Ph.D.
Dr. Farman-Farma is currently partner and director at Fortune Asset Management, London. Prior to that, he worked in finance-related positions in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iran. He studied at Harvard University and at Oxford University, from which he received a D.Phil. degree in Politics. He has taught at Harvard University and has published extensively on oil and politics in the Middle East. He was elected a Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum, Davos and participates as a board member of the Flora Family Foundation and a member of The Synergos Institute, both philanthropic foundations.

Linda K. Jacobs, Ph.D.
Dr. Jacobs has been involved with development work in the Middle East for 30 years as a scholar, business executive and nonprofit administrator. She has served on the Boards of several nonprofits as well as a Fortune 500 engineering company, worked in the private sector with the East-West Group, founded a small consulting firm, and previously served as NEF's Chief Development Officer and President. Dr. Jacobs holds a PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology. She is currently writing a book on Iran.

Matthew Quigley
Mr. Quigley is a Senior Managing Director of Blackstone, one of the world’s leading investment and advisory firms. Mr. Quigley is part of GSO Capital Partners, one of Blackstone’s four principal investment units. Prior to GSO, he was employed by Credit Suisse and Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette (DLJ) in their leverage finance businesses. Mr. Quigley also serves on the Board of the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy, a public private partnership with the National Parks of New York Harbor, which include Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Mr. Quigley holds a B.A. with honors from Brown University and an M.B.A. from NYU’s Stern School of Business. Mr. Quigley’s wife Nina is a second generation Armenian.

Soroush Richard Shehabi
Mr. Shehabi joined the NEF board in 2011, bringing with him two decades of experience in media, law, policy and politics, and expertise in energy/environmental security and U.S.-Iran policy. He is CEO of Washington Life Magazine, and a Principal in a 70-year-old business-to-business media information service company. Previously, Mr. Shehabi served the Untied States Department of Justice as a U.S. Trial Attorney in Washington, D.C. Before that he practiced in the Los Angeles-based law firm of Christensen, White, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser & Shapiro. Mr. Shehabi has also worked as a financial analyst for Salomon Brothers in New York, and been actively involved in presidential campaigns since 1988. He is a founding board member of the Iranian American Bar Association and the Iranian American Political Action Committee, and in 2000 was elected a term member by the Council of Foreign Relations. Mr. Shehabi holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a JD from the University of California. He speaks Persian and French.

William Sullivan
Mr. Sullivan is assistant dean for external relations in Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. He works closely with the School’s development team to identify and cultivate new donors — particularly international alumni—to raise funds to support current programs and projects. He also works with individuals and groups of Maxwell faculty members to develop ideas for new projects and programs. From 1989 to 2008, Mr. Sullivan served as director of executive education in the Maxwell School. Under his leadership, executive education grew to become one of the most successful university-based programs of its kind in the United States, with a programmatic scope that spans the globe. In addition to building a portfolio that included 100 full- and part-time students enrolled in the executive M.P.A. program, executive education formed close international partnerships with China, Vietnam, India, Korea, Chile and Mexico. Mr. Sullivan holds an M.A. in political science from Boston College and an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Tarek Younes
Mr. Younes is an entrepreneur and advisor with 15 years experience in asset management. He is currently Managing Director of a small private equity/venture capital fund that invests in global health care service companies with Middle East expansion plans. He worked for 10 years at the Concord Group, a multi-billion U.S. and Middle East asset management firm and one of the largest managers of Egyptian equities worldwide, where he served for four years as a General Partner. Mr. Younes is a member of the investment committee for Concord's private equity funds. He serves on a number of corporate boards of directors, including the Castle Property Fund, a Middle East real estate private equity fund. He holds an A.B. from Duke University; a J.D. from the University of Denver College of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the law review; and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School, with a concentration in Finance.

Charles Benjamin, Ph.D.
President, ex officio

PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL

H.E. Andre Azoulay

Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian

Vartan Gregorian, Ph.D.

Ambassador Richard W. Murphy

Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan

Ambassador Frank G. Wisner

HONORARY BOARD

Shahnaz Batmanghelid

Ronald Miller

David Mize

Abe Moses

John Goelet

Richard Robarts

Timothy Rothermel

Anthony Williams

ACADEMIC COUNCIL

John Kerr, Michigan State University

John McPeak, Syracuse University

Thomas Mullins, Harvard University

Juliet Sorensen, Northwestern University

Michaela Walsh, Manhattanville College, Women's World Banking