Speaker Bios (Subject to Change)

Ambassador Leslie Rowe serves as Acting Special Representative in the Office of Global Health Diplomacy. In this role, she is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the office, fulfilling the mission to support ambassadors as they engage in diplomatic efforts to advance our global health goals and help countries eventually own their health care response.

As a Foreign Service Officer, Ambassador Rowe has served our nation in a number of positions at posts throughout the globe. From 2010 to 2012, she served as U.S. Ambassador to Mozambique, representing the Embassy on issues relating to global health, regional security, democracy and good governance, food security, and the promotion of bilateral trade.

From 2006 to 2009, she was U.S. Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu and also served as Deputy Chief of Mission from 2003 to 2006 at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

From 2000 to 2003, she served as Consul General in Bangkok, Thailand with regional responsibilities for U.S. Embassies in Burma, Cambodia and Laos. She was Consul General in Lisbon, Portugal from 1996 to 2000 and was the first Director of the State Department's Office of Children's Issues from 1994 to 1996. She also served in the Human Resources Office from 1993 to 1994 and was Country Desk Officer for Chile from 1992 to 1993. From 1988 to 1992 Ambassador Rowe was Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate in Recife, Brazil covering politics, human rights, and economic development in seven states in northeast Brazil. She served as Deputy Consul General at the U.S. Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica from 1986 to 1988 and was a consular officer in Sao Paulo, Brazil from 1984 to 1986.

Ambassador Rowe holds a B.A. from Washington State University, an M.A. from the Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a M.Ed. from Northeastern University. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, France and was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, she was Director of the International Office at Tufts University.

Paula Wilson is President and Chief Executive Officer of Joint Commission Resources (JCR) and its international division, Joint Commission International (JCI). JCR and JCI are not-for-profit organizations working to improve health care quality and patient safety in nearly 90 countries around the world. JCI is leading health care improvement worldwide through its work with The Joint Commission as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety Solutions, through development of international standards for quality and safety and international patient safety goals, and by offering domestic and international consulting, international accreditation, education, publications, Continuous Service Readiness, and e-Learning.

Ms. Wilson has more than 30 years of experience in the health care industry. Most recently, she provided management and strategic planning expertise as a consultant to public, nonprofit and private organizations. She was previously the vice president for policy at the United Hospital Fund, leading efforts to shape public policy changes related to insurance coverage, health care financing and Medicaid. Early in her distinguished career, Ms. Wilson served in several senior positions in the administration of New York Governor Mario Cuomo, including the executive deputy commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, and was responsible for all operational and management activities of a $1.2 billion organization with 7,000 employees. She also served as deputy director of the New York Division of the Budget, and as a program associate for Health and Human Services on the governor's staff.

Ms. Wilson taught courses in financial management and public and nonprofit administration at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, and graduate courses in health care financial management and corporate compliance at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.

Ms. Wilson received her master's degree in social work from the State University of New York at Albany. She is a member of the Board of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation and serves on the finance committee of the Saint Mary's Center, Inc., a nursing home for people with AIDS.

Kevin Ali leads the Emerging Markets organization for Merck, which is known as MSD outside the U.S. and Canada. The organization spans three MSD regions: Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe/Middle East/Africa; and Latin America, and accounts for almost one-quarter of the company’s pharmaceutical and vaccine revenues.

Kevin has held this executive leadership position for more than three years, establishing himself as an industry leader and emerging markets statesman.

Recently Kevin also took on global leadership of MSD’s Diversified Brands commercial business line, which includes many well-established and mature products in the company’s portfolio. They are critical to serving customers and patients not only in emerging markets but around the world.

Prior positions with the company include senior vice president and general manager of the Bone, Respiratory, Immunology and Dermatology (BRID) franchise, which was the company’s largest at the time; senior vice president and managing director of MSD in Germany; managing director of MSD in Turkey; marketing director of MSD in Egypt, and regional product manager for the Middle East region. Kevin began his Merck career with in 1988 in California.

Kevin holds an MBA from Santa Clara University in California, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Development Studies from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Soren Bo Christiansen is President of MSD's Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) Region. Since 2011, he has been successfully leading the 1.6 USD billion business with 3200 employees across 84 countries. MSD is a tradename of US-based Merck & Co., Inc.

Dr. Christiansen joined Merck in 1988 and has held positions of increasing responsibility in several marketing franchises. He held the position of Sr. Vice President and General Manager for the BRIE Franchise (Respiratory, Bone, Arthritis/Analgesia, Urology and Sarcopenia) from October 1, 2007 through January 19, 2009. In January 2009, he assumed the role of Sr. Vice President and General Manager for Adult and Adolescent Vaccines. In 2010, Dr. Christiansen's role was expanded to include Pediatric Vaccines and International Commercial Operations.

Dr. Christiansen, a Danish national, holds a Medical Doctor degree from the University of Copenhagen/Denmark and currently lives in Switzerland and the USA.

Mr. Brooks is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Joslin Diabetes Center, the world’s leading diabetes research, clinical care, and education organization. Joslin’s global mission is to prevent, treat, and cure diabetes and its complications. Our efforts improve the lives of people with diabetes or at risk of diabetes worldwide, and we actively work with collaborators across the world to deliver impactful and transformational solutions.

Mr. Brooks is a well-known life sciences executive. Mr. Brooks has co-founded four life sciences companies, including Insulet, a disruptive insulin delivery company. He had been a principal of Healthcare Capital Consulting LLC, which advised early-stage life sciences companies, and he was a founder of Prism Venture Partners, a venture capital firm.

Previously, he was a general manager at Pfizer/Valleylab, where he was responsible for Pfizer’s Hospital Products Group’s minimally invasive surgery and new medical technologies business. As President/General Manager at Pfizer/Strato, he led the growth of a rapidly evolving vascular access medical device business.

A native of Massachusetts, he holds an M.S. in Business and a B.B.A. cum laude from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and he is a Certified Public Accountant.

After completing an extensive clinical and research fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Dr. Hassoun joined the Endocrinology Staff at Mayo.

He is American Board certified in Internal Medicine (1993) & Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism (1995). Subsequently, he was awarded fellowships from the American College of Physicians and American College of Endocrinology. He is also an active member of the American Diabetes Association, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, & Endocrine Society.

In the past decade, his appointments include Chief of Endocrinology, Emirates Diabetes Society Board member, and National Diabetes Control Committee member. He is now working for a leading Center in Diabetes management (Dubai Diabetes Center) in Dubai as a Consultant/Director of Education & Research. Dr. Hassoun has been the president of the AACE Gulf chapter in the year 2013.

Dr. Ibrahim Naguib El Ebrashy is a Professor of Internal Medicine and currently heads the Diabetes & Endocrinology Center, Kasr El-Aini Hospitals School of Medicine, Cairo University. He was graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt in 1982 where he received his MSc in Internal Medicine in 1986, MD in Internal Medicine in 1990 and was working as a resident, lecturer and assistant professor at Kasr El-Aini Hospitals, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University. Prof. Ibrahim received special training on insulin pumps and glucose sensor at Ulm University, Germany 1989.

Professor Ibrahim worked before as a Deputy Director, New Kasr El Aini Teaching Hospital from 2000 till 2004 and then as a General Director from 2004 till 2006. He worked as the Dean of the National Institute for Diabetes & Endocrinology Ministry of Health from May 2007 till July 2011.

He is a member of several association of Diabetes e.g. MGSD and Treasurer of the Egyptian Group for Study of Diabetes. He is member of the Medical Editorial Board of LANCET Middle East and a member of the Egyptian National Diabetes committee MOH; he has several publications in the field of Internal Medicine and Diabetes.

Dr. Madani obtained his MD from the University of Ain Shams, Cairo, Egypt in 1979. In 1987 he obtained his degree in Internal Medicine and his degree in Endocrinology in Munich, Germany in 1988. In 2007, he became a fellow of American College of Clinical Endocrinologists. In 1988–2000 he held several posts in Dubai hospital in the Medicine and Endocrine department, leading to his appointment as Head of Medicine Department in 2000.

In 2003‐2009 he became the Director of the hospital and since October 2009 he has been the Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Hospital. He is also held several posts in national societies including; Chairman of the Cultural Committee; Emirates Medical Association; board member of Editorial Board of Emirates Medical Journal; board member of the Arab Group for Study of Diabetes; Chairman of the Diabetes Society; Chairman of UAE National Diabetes Committee; Secretary General, Gulf Group for Study of Diabetes. He is a member of the ADA; the Arab Group for Study of Diabetes; the AES; and the AACE.

Mr. Hicks qualified as a surveyor in 1981 and became a partner in 1992 of Davis Langdon, a 7,000 strong professional services firm. Initially Mr. Hicks project managed a program of independent hospitals for BUPA across the UK. After spending time in the USA working for an architect-engineer on life science projects, he returned to the UK to run the multi US billion dollar GlaxoSmithKline research campus.

In between commissions for commercial and residential clients, Mr. Hicks developed a hotels and resorts speciality and over the last period has formed AECOM's multi-disciplinary Government & Public Sector offer, before becoming Managing Director of AECOM's program, cost & consultancy group. Mr. Hicks has also worked in the UAE, as well as projects across the world and helped establish the practice's P3 offer internationally.

Mr. Hicks currently leads on healthcare and science for AECOM with particular focus on the EMEA region. Within his practice group, keynote projects include the world's largest independent hospital, The Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi; an all AECOM designed 1500 bed hospital in Saudi Arabia, The King Khalid Medical City. Recent Far East successes include Singapore's Sengkeng Community Hospital and the project management of two public hospitals in Hong Kong as part of their re-provision programme across the region. His team has just been appointed to undertake commercial management for the 600 bed Hillerod Hospital in Denmark. The group remains active in the UK primary healthcare NHS market and in its work for Nuffield Health, as well as for The Pirbright Institute where the world's leading Institute for Animal Health has its second major building program.

At the governmental level, Mr. Hicks sits on the Professional and Business Services Council at the UK's Department for Business Innovation & Skills, a committee jointly chaired by Michael Fallon, Minister of State and whose remit is to advise Government around matters affecting professional service firms. He is also a design panel member on both the World Architectural Networks and the International Academy for Design & Health.

Mr. Hicks refreshed his business skills through Harvard's managing professional business firm program. He has an ability to view problems from a client's perspective and through his experience and leadership provides excellent client service. His strategic and commercial thinking and tactical application are useful skill sets in the firm's senior leadership team.

Marwan Abedin is the Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Healthcare City, the world's first integrated healthcare free zone and the region's premier destination for quality healthcare, medical education and research.

A seasoned finance and investment specialist with over 15 years of experience and business acumen, Mr. Abedin also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Dubai Financial Support Fund (DFSF), an entity formed under royal decree, appointed by the Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and is involved in managing the daily operations of the DFSF under the guidance of its Board of Directors and the Supreme Fiscal Committee.

Mr. Abedin has worked as the Director of Debt Management at Department of Finance – Government of Dubai from 2008 to 2011 and was responsible for the treasury and debt issues related to the public sector entities under the Department of Finance, under the close advice of the Director General; liaising with applicant institutions as well as with Government of Dubai's Legal Affairs Department and external parties.

In December 2011, he was appointed by royal decree by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, Member of the Board of Directors of Dubai Healthcare City Authority (DHCA).

In March 2012, Mr. Abedin was nominated by the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Member of the Board of Directors of Emaar Properties PJSC, a global provider of premier lifestyles.

In October 2012, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Healthcare City by Chairperson of DHCA Her Royal Highness Princess HayaBint Al Hussein, wife of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Mr. Abedin is a graduate in Economics &Political Science from Wake Forest University in the US, and was the first UAE national to be accredited by the NASD as a General Securities Representative (Series 7). He is a Committee Member of the Bretton Woods Committee DC, Economic Club of New York, Association of Corporate Treasurers Dubai. He is also a Fellow of the Wharton Fellows Programme, USA.

Dr. Ghassan Abou-Alfa, associate professor, joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2001. Born and educated in Lebanon, he has specialized in treating patients who have primary liver cancer. Dr Abou-Alfa is the Chair of the National Cancer Institute Hepatobiliary Task Force. His work focuses on investigating and testing novel targeted therapies in clinical studies and advocates for greater awareness of the disease's global impact. He majored in biology at the American University in Beirut (AUB) and earned his medical degree there as well. In 1992, he joined the Yale School of Medicine for postdoctoral training.

Dr. Abou-Alfa completed his fellowship and joined the Yale faculty in 2000. At Memorial Sloan-Kettering he started focusing on primary liver cancer — cancer originating in the liver. Liver cancer affects a diverse population from many cultures and economic backgrounds and is truly a global disease. It is one of the top five cancers worldwide, and mainly affects people in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, where hepatitis B, a major risk factor, is endemic. The disease has its impact on Egypt and parts of the Gulf as well. While it is not common in the United States, its incidence is increasing due to the silent epidemic of hepatitis C virus witnessed in the last few decades, the rise in the number of people with morbid obesity and diabetes, and the persistence of alcoholic cirrhosis — all risk factors.

Dr. Abou-Alfa has taken on an advocacy role because research funding has lagged despite the worldwide impact of this disease. Liver cancer does not have a public-figure spokesperson raising awareness, and there is not much knowledge about it among patients and the public. One step he took to address this was co-authoring, with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center hepatobiliary surgeon Ronald DeMatteo, a book in lay language called 100 Questions and Answers About Liver Cancer, now in its third edition. Dr Abou-Alfa also co-authored a similar book in Arabic with Dr Ashraf Omar from University of Cairo, that is awaiting to be published.

Dr. Abou-Alfa is also trying to advance the field through research. His research focus is on incorporating small biological molecules into standard cancer therapies. In recent years, his group at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center led the initial efforts evaluating sorafenib (Nexavar®) in primary liver cancer. Sorefenib was ultimately approved by the FDA for that indication in 2007. In a trial also led by his group at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, they are now investigating whether combining sorafenib with the standard chemotherapy drug doxorubicin produces an improved outcome. As an institution, they are proud to be the leaders of this first national effort of a large clinical trial in primary liver cancer, which is supported by the National Cancer Institute. Dr Abou-Alfa continues to lead several international efforts and is involved in conducting clinical trials with colleagues around the world, especially in Southeast Asia, which helps to understand the challenges of managing a disease with varying risk factors, in different regions of the world.

Dr. Abou-Alfa has also spearheaded many projects in the Arab World since 2006 under the auspices of the Elmer and Mamdouha El-Sayed Bobst International Center, now headed by former Chair of Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Department of Surgery Murray Brennan. Under the direction of Dr Abou-Alfa, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has established a strong relationship with American University of Beirut, with an ongoing faculty exchange and a monthly video-link conferencing with the AUB physicians, with several of its proceedings are already published in peer–reviewed journals. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center faculty teaches about the state of the art of cancer care in the US and the AUB faculty teaches about the risk factors and treatment practices in their country. This joint collaboration, one of the most sustained between an US institution and one in the Middle East, has led to the development of the first joint tissue bank with a shared database in the region. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and AUB have also joined efforts on a first in its class training course for oncologists in the Arab World, that was offered on competitive basis. The joint program also offers supported fellowship opportunities for excelling medical graduates.

Dr. Samia J. Khoury is currently the Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research at the American University of Beirut. Since October 2011, she has served as the Director of the Abu Haidar Neuroscience Institute, and the Director of the new AUBMC Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Center at AUBMC in Beirut, the first MS center in the region. She is a professor of neurology at the American University of Beirut. From 2009-2013 she was the Jack, Sadie, and David Breakstone professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and served as the co-Director of the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center, Boston since 2001. In 2007, Dr. Khoury was awarded the prestigious Kuwait Prize for Sciences by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences for her work in immunology.

Dr. Khoury received her Medical Diploma from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, in 1984 having been elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society in 1983. She completed her neurology residency at the Case Western Reserve University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio and her fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Neurologic Diseases.

Dr. Khoury is recognized as a world leader in MS and she has trained tens of investigators who are now active leaders in MS and Immunology research. She has published over 200 scholarly articles, reviews, and book chapters. Moreover, she is leading the first National Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Campaign in Lebanon in collaboration with the Ministry of Public health for the year 2013.

Randa El-Sayed Haffar is an AUB trustee since 2011 and an AUB graduate (BA '90). Ms. El-Sayed Haffar is also a director at Citi Private Bank. She previously worked for the Private Bank of Chase Manhattan Bank, Coutts Bank, and the Bank of New York. Ms. El-Sayed Haffar has been a director of the Elmer and Mamdouha Bobst Foundation since 2008 and has been involved in the Worldwide Alumni Association of AUB (WAAAUB) as a member-at-large and a member of its Strategic Planning Task Force. She is a past vice president of the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the AUB Alumni Association of North America and a graduate of New York University (MPA '95).

Dr. Clifford Hudis is Chief of the Breast Cancer Medicine Service and Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City. He is also Professor of Medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College; President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO); and Chairman of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Hudis is a 1983 graduate of the Medical College of Pennsylvania (a combined 6 year BA/MD program with Lehigh University). He joined the MSKCC faculty in 1991, where he is co-Leader of the Breast Disease Management Team. He is also co-Chair of the Breast Committee of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (formerly Cancer and Leukemia Group B). In addition, Dr. Hudis is a member of the Steering Committees of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC) and the North American Breast Cancer Group (NABCG), and a member of National Cancer Institute's Breast Cancer Correlative Science Committee.

Dr. Hudis's research includes the development of a wide range of novel drugs and the study of relevant correlative science endpoints in breast cancer. With his collaborators both at MSKCC and beyond, he has focused his BCRF-supported research on understanding the mechanisms that link diet, obesity, inflammation, and breast cancer risk and outcomes. Building on their discoveries of low grade inflammation in association with overweight and obesity, they are now studying interventions that may reduce the risk of breast cancer and of its return. In 2007, Dr. Hudis was appointed as Chairman of BCRF's Scientific Advisory Committee and in 2012 became Chairman of its Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Marc Harrison is Chief Executive Officer of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. Dr. Harrison oversees the completion and activation of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi – the region's first world-class multispecialty hospital, specifically designed to address a range of Abu Dhabi's most complex medical requirements.

Dr. Harrison joined the staff of the Children's Hospital at the Cleveland Clinic in 1999. Subsequently, he served as Medical Director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), Chairman of the Department of Pediatric Critical Care, Associate Chief of Staff, Director of Medical Operations and Chief Medical Operations Officer. In his most recent role as Chief Medical Operations Officer at Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Harrison grew medical operations from a team of six to more than 1,700 people over a four-year span. He was responsible for streamlining the Hospital Transfer process, creating a variety of clinical services, as well as revamping the day-to-day operations of many aspects of patient care.

Dr. Harrison holds a medical degree from Dartmouth Medical School, a Master's in Medical Management from Carnegie Mellon University and a certificate in Managing Healthcare Delivery from Harvard Business School. Dr. Harrison is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Society of Critical Care Medicine. He serves on the board of directors of the American Medical Groups Association.

Dr. Harrison is an All-American Triathlete and seven-time Ironman. He and his pediatrician wife, Mary Carole, live in Abu Dhabi with their children.

Dr. James Merlino is a member of the Cleveland Clinic's executive team and leads initiatives to improve the patient experience across the Cleveland Clinic Health System. In addition to his work in patient experience, he also leads efforts to improve physician-patient communication, and referring physician relations. He is a practicing staff colorectal surgeon in the Digestive Disease Institute and the founder and current President/Chairman of the Association for Patient Experience.

Partnering with key members of the Clinic leadership team, he helps to improve communication with physicians and employees, and to drive employee engagement strategies. Along with the Clinic CEO, he is co-chairperson of the Cleveland Clinic Diversity Council, and also sits on the professional affairs committee. He is a recognized world leader in the emerging field of patient experience.

Dr. Merlino believes that all employees are caregivers and partners in delivering great patient care to positively impact the patient experience. He believes the guiding principle of ‘Patients First' requires more than world-class clinical care . It requires care that addresses every aspect of a patient's encounter with Cleveland Clinic, including the patient's physical comfort as well as educational, emotional and spiritual needs. Ultimately, he believes Patients First is about treating your patients the way you would want your family members to be treated.

Prior to returning to the Clinic, Dr. Merlino practiced at one of the largest county hospitals in the United States. There he was involved in several quality initiatives, and served as the director of surgical quality. He was instrumental in implementing care paths for the management of complex colorectal surgery patients, and advocated for the implementation of the American College of Surgeons NSQIP program to that hospital.

Dr. Merlino is certified by the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery and the American Board of General Surgery, and he is a fellow of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons.

Dr. Merlino received his undergraduate degree in business administration at Baldwin-Wallace College, and his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in general surgery at University Hospitals of Cleveland, and his fellowship in colorectal surgery at Cleveland Clinic. During his residency, he took a two year research sabbatical to complete an AHRQ funded research fellowship in Health Services Research. Prior to attending medical school he worked in public service and served as a trustee of a large community hospital.

Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic is Chief of Staff and Chief of the Heart & Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. Dr. Mihaljevic oversees all physician activity in Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi's 12 Institutes, and leads day-to-day operations of the Heart & Vascular Institute.

In addition to his position on the leadership team at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Dr. Mihaljevic serves as Staff Surgeon at Cleveland Clinic's main campus in the US – a position he has held at since 2004. Dr. Mihaljevic is also Professor of Surgery at Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western University. Prior to his time in Cleveland, Dr. Mihaljevic served as Director of the Cardiac Surgery Research Laboratory and an Associate Surgeon in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

A native of Croatia, he received his medical degree from the University of Zagreb. Dr. Mihaljevic started his education in cardiac surgery at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. In 1995 he joined the Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School where he completed residency in general and cardiac surgery and served as Chief Resident in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Children's Hospital in Boston. Dr. Mihaljevic is certified by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery. He specializes in minimally invasive and robotically assisted cardiac surgeries, valve repair and replacement, image-guided surgery, heart failure and cardiac transplantation.

Dr. Mihaljevic has been on the editorial boards for a number of medical journals and has authored numerous articles in scientific journals and textbooks. An avid reader, Dr. Mihaljevic enjoys contemporary American and European literature. He resides in Abu Dhabi with his wife and two daughters.

Semih Sen is Associate Director of Mubadala Development Company's Healthcare Unit. He is responsible for Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, National Reference Lab, Tawam Molecular Imaging Centre, Capital Health Visa Screening Centre and Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre, as well as strategy formation and implementation, acquisitions, and technical and commercial development of projects. Mr. Sen also serves as a Board Member of Medical Holding Company, and Chairman of Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Center. He is also a Member of Policy Advisory Committee at Health Authority Abu Dhabi and Executive Committee and other Board Committees of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.

Mr. Sen has a vast experience in healthcare project development and financing on an international scale. Prior to joining Mubadala Healthcare, he served as Director of Business Development at Dubai Healthcare City, a multi-billion dollar healthcare cluster development of Dubai Holding. Previously, he founded Casta, a boutique advisory services and project development firm in Istanbul, Turkey and represented Harvard Medical International as Regional Advisor in Europe and Middle East. Semih has also served as Director of European Business Development for DVI Inc. and served as Board Member of Turkey's first JCI accredited hospital Istanbul Memorial and first full scope cancer treatment facility Acibadem Cancer Center.

In his earlier career he has worked as the Assistant Marketing Director for Siemens Leasing and has helped establish Siemens' first captive financial services company outside Germany. Mr. Sen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bogazici (Bosphorus) University in Business Administration and has attended International Business Strategy Program of London School of Economics, Entrepreneurial Healthcare Management at Harvard University School of Public Health, Private Equity Masterclass at London Business School and Leading High-Performance Healthcare Organizations Program at Harvard Business School. He is married and has 3 children.

Danny E. Sebright was appointed in June 2008 to the position of President of the U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council, the leading advocate for building commercial relationships and expanding business opportunities between the two countries. Since 2002, Mr. Sebright held the position of Vice President at The Cohen Group, an international strategic consulting firm led by former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. Mr. Sebright was responsible for new business development activities, client management, and building the firm's Middle East and India practice groups. Mr. Sebright continueS to be affiliated with The Cohen Group as a Counselor.

Previously, Mr. Sebright served as the Defense Department's Director of the Policy Executive Secretariat for the global war on terrorism from 2001-2002, leading a team responsible for tracking US and coalition actions related to the war on terrorism. During this time, he also participated in oversight of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM in Afghanistan and Operation NOBLE EAGLE, the defense of the U.S. homeland. In this capacity, he was awarded the Department of Defense Exceptional Civilian Service Award for his service to his country.

Mr. Sebright also served in the Office of the Under Secretary for Policy at DoD from 1995-2001, representing Department of Defense positions with other executive-branch policy offices. He conducted bilateral negotiations with foreign officials, including providing the Defense Department policy perspective on the Middle East Peace Process, regional arms sales, and counter-proliferation initiatives. Mr. Sebright cultivated extensive contacts with defense industry officials to coordinate and implement US foreign military sales to Israel and many other countries in the Middle East. Mr. Sebright received the Paul H. Nitze Award for Excellence in International Security Policy for his work on the Middle East Peace Process.

Mr. Sebright began his career in government in 1985 with the Defense Intelligence Agency, living and working extensively overseas in numerous countries in the Middle East, India, Asia, and Africa. Mr. Sebright is the recipient of various DIA and CIA exceptional service awards for his accomplishments. Mr. Sebright was sponsored by the Defense Department to attend the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he completed a year-long Mid-Career Master's Degree in Public Administration in June of 2001. He earned his BA in International Affairs from the George Washington University in 1984 and completed the coursework for a Masters in National Security Policy in 1988. Mr. Sebright speaks conversational French and basic German, Russian, Chinese, and Hebrew.

Mr. Sebright resides in Washington, DC where he is active in local community, arts, and church organizations. Mr. Sebright is a member of the Dean's Alumni Leadership Council at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, of the Luther Place Memorial Church, and of the Board of Directors of the Washington Ballet

Dr. Ajay Singh is Executive Director of the Dubai Harvard Foundation of Medical Research. Dr. Singh did his undergraduate and medical training in England at University College School of Medicine. He moved to Boston in 1987 for his clinical and research renal fellowship at Tufts-New England Medical Center, which he completed in 1992 and joined the faculty at Tufts. In 1998 he moved to the Brigham and Women's Hospital as Clinical Director of the Renal Division and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The Brigham of Women's Hospital is one of the principal teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School. He also serves in the position of Director, Postgraduate Medical Education in the Department of Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Dr. Singh's interests are in clinical research – with a particular focus on chronic kidney disease, and in education both in leading several Harvard CME courses as well as lecturing both nationally and internationally. He is the author of over 100 original contributions and review articles, as well as author/editor of 3 books in nephrology. Dr. Singh is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London UK and has an MBA from Boston University.

Dr. Harry Quon is Co-Director of The Johns Hopkins Head and Neck Cancer Center. A multidisciplinary group (made up of specialists from Surgical Oncology, Medical Oncology, Radiation Oncology and Speech Pathology), Dr. Quon's team provides comprehensive care in treatment and post-treatment services.

Nearly 65,000 patients are diagnosed with cancer of the head and neck in the United States each year. These cancers can affect the nasal passages, sinuses, mouth, throat, larynx (voice box), swallowing passages, salivary glands and thyroid gland. Skin cancers that develop on the scalp, face or neck also may be considered head and neck cancers. Many of these cancers are responsive to treatment.

More than 200 people are treated for head and neck cancer at the Johns Hopkins Head and Neck Cancer Center each year. Each patient receives state-of-the-art treatment as well as rehabilitation and prevention services. Treatment is tailored to the patients individual needs by a team of more than 30 specialists who are the foremost experts in the field.

Dr. Prem Das is the Chief Research Business Development Officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and heads DFCI's Office of Research and Technology Ventures. He is also responsible for growing DFCI's research business development, working with DFCI faculty and Integrative Research Centers to enhance relationships with the corporate sector, generating sponsored research agreements, and commercializing DFCI discoveries.

Dr. Das' background includes managing academic technology transfer offices, biotechnology business development, and basic research. Most recently, he was involved in creating start-up companies and consulting for biotechnology companies and the NCI. Prior to this, he served as Senior Vice President for Technology Alliances at Praecis Pharmaceuticals, where his business development efforts led to the acquisition of the company by Glaxo-Smith Kline.

Dr. Das also has directed the Office of Technology Licensing at Harvard Medical School and the Office of Industrial Affairs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In addition, he has worked at Cadus Pharmaceuticals and co-founded Heartland BioTechnologies. During his academic research career, Dr. Das published in various areas of biology.

He received his MSc in chemistry from IIT/Kanpur in India and his PhD in biological chemistry from MIT.

Dr. Mussaad Al-Razouki is the Chief Executive Office at Kleos Healthcare Corporation a Kuwaiti WLL that provides excellence in strategic planning and management for Middle East healthcare entities including investment companies, clinical service providers (i.e. hospitals), payors (i.e. insurance companies) and government regulatory bodies.

Dr. Al-Razouki has over 15 years experience in healthcare, shifting from a focus on excellence in clinical practice and research to the management and financing of healthcare systems. A graduate of Columbia Business School, Dr. Al-Razouki is the first ever Arab national to receive an MBA in Healthcare Management and Finance from Columbia Business School. An Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon by training, Dr. Al-Razouki has completed clinical rotations at New York Presbyterian Hospital of Columbia University Medical Center, Harlem Hospital, Cleveland University Hospital of Case Western Reserve University and Mass General Hospital of Harvard University.

In 2007, Dr. Al-Razouki joined by the world’s largest and oldest management and strategic consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, which at the time was operating in over 100 countries across six continents with four billion dollars in revenue. Dr Al-Razouki was recruited from New York to the Dubai office, where he built the Middle East Healthcare Practice by leadings a wide variety of projects across all five dimensions of the healthcare economy including:

1. Investors – Dr. Al-Razouki has advised (and co-invested through Kleos) into lucrative healthcare opportunities. The returns of his investments have been consistently above 30% and range from acquisitions of leading regional hospitals, clinics, wellness centers, online healthcare services, to pharma education
2. Service Providers – Dr. Al-Razouki has developed growth strategies for the GCC’s leading hospital brands and has championed due diligences for private equity companies aiming to acquire profitable healthcare assets. Dr. Al-Razouki is considered a Middle East Hospital Expert and Global Health Tourism Expert
3. Payors – Dr. Al-Razouki has continuously pushed the regional thought process on creating novel ways of financing the Middle East’s growing healthcare costs while driving efficiencies through the system. His work on health finance reform led to a rewriting of a new health insurance law for the Kuwaiti Parliament
4. Suppliers – Dr. Al-Razouki has worked with the Middle East’s largest business conglomerates on upgrading their medical technology and equipment portfolios. He has also worked with the world’s leading medical technology and equipment companies on bringing their technology and solutions to the region
5. Regulators - Dr. Al-Razouki has the distinction of having worked with every single GCC Ministry of Health as well as both the Dubai Health Authority and the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi

Dame Julie Moore is a graduate nurse who worked in clinical practice before moving into management. She was appointed Executive Director of Operations at University Hospital Birmingham in 2002. In 2006 she was appointed Chief Executive of the country's 10th biggest trust, one of only two women in charge of a large teaching hospital, nationwide. Dame Julie received the title for her services to healthcare.

Born in Liverpool, Dame Julie had originally planned to study astro-physics but switched to a nursing degree following a six-week stay in a hospital in her teens. Her first job was as a nurse at a hospital in Leeds in the early 80s where she spent 10 years in clinical practice before entering nurse management.

During her time as nurse manager and later nursing director, Dame Julie undertook an MA in Health Services Studies at Leeds University and was seconded to work at the Department of Health on developing nursing roles. After a year in general management, in 1998, she became a director in the newly merged Leeds Teaching Hospitals' Trust. She then moved to Birmingham in 2002 to become the Executive Director of Operations at University Hospitals Birmingham, where she was responsible for the day-to-day running of Selly Oak and Queen Elizabeth hospitals.

Dame Julie was a member of the National Organ Donation Taskforces in 2007 and 2008. In 2009 she was a member of the Nuffield Trust Steering Group on New Frontiers in Efficiency. She is a member of the International Advisory Board of the University of Birmingham Business School, an Independent board member of the Office for Strategic Co-ordination of Health Research (OSCHR) and a member of the MoD/DH Partnership Board overseeing health care of military personnel.

Dame Julie is also a member of the Commission on Living Standards undertaken by the Resolution Foundation and a board member of Marketing Birmingham, a strategic partnership to drive the inward investment strategy for the city. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Dr. Haitham Al-Salama graduated medical school in 2001 from King Saud University. He practiced medicine for four years before spending three years at Cornell University doing biomedical research in the field of psychology, looking at the role of the immune cells-mast cells found in diabetes. He then joined the Qatar foundation to help build the biomedical research infrastructure in Qatar.

Before attending the Harvard Kennedy School, he worked at Sidra medical and research center, which is an academic medical center in Qatar and part of Qatar Foundation where he is the Director of Science Policy and Management. He has served in many national committees in Qatar, including, Qatar Cancer Action Team, the Supreme Council of Health Ethics committee and the biomedical advisory Board of the college of Arts and Science of Qatar University.

Dr. Salama has been awarded the Arab Thought Foundation Prize for Outstanding Talented Youth in 2003 as well as the distinguished student award by the league of the Arab States for being the youngest Arab physician, having graduated from medical school at 19 years of age.

Dr. Bonnie Jortberg holds a PhD and Master's degree in Human Nutrition and is a Registered Dietitian, a Certified Diabetes Educator. Dr. Jortberg has devoted her professional career to doing translational research in disease prevention, specifically, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. She has developed curriculum for cardiovascular disease prevention and implementation of the Patient Centered Medical Home into Family Medicine Residency. She also developed a nutrition and preventive health elective for 4th year medical students and started the Nutrition and Preventive Health Student Interest Group in 2007.

Dr. Jortberg is a faculty member of the American Dietetic Association and has been a key note speaker at several national conferences. She has co-authored a book on physical activity and nutrition. She received the Mencimer Award for Outstanding Student-Athlete while in college, and received the “Teacher of the Year” award for the Department of Family Medicine in 2008. Dr. Jortberg is on the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative Education Committee and developed a PCMH (Patient-Centered Medical Home) e-Learning curriculum that was recently licensed by the American Board of Family Medicine and will be offered to all family medicine diplomates. She recently gave a series of workshops on the importance of primary care and the PCMH to the Abu Dhabi Ambulatory Health Service.

Her current research focus includes implementation of the Colorado Family Medicine Residency Patient Centered Medical Home project. Other research focuses on integrating cardiovascular disease risk assessment and developing patient personal action plans into 3rd year medical student education, and developing a medical student wellness curriculum. Dr. Jortberg has also been involved in research in preventing type 2 diabetes and obesity prevention and treatment. Her professional associations include

• American Dietetic Association
• American Association of Diabetes Educators
• Society of Teachers of Family Medicine

Dr. Calvin Wilson has been involved in the development of family medicine and education in a variety of settings for over 25 years, and in international community and medical development projects for over 18 years. He just retired from the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine as an associate professor of family medicine, and associate professor of public health in the Colorado School of Public Health.

Dr. Wilson has been the Director of the Center for Global Health of the University of Colorado Anschutz Health Sciences Center, which is dedicated to promoting and coordinating a variety of global health-related activities. He has been most recently working in Rwanda as the director of a partnership between the University of Colorado and the National University of Rwanda to develop their newly reopened residency programs and develop a new family and community medicine residency. In the past, He has developed a primary health care continuing education program for the physicians, nurses, midwives, health workers and laboratory technicians of the public sector of Jordan, as well as consulting with the Jordan Medical Council in the development of their national CME initiative.

He also initiated the training of the first primary health care trainers in post-war Iraq, who continued the first phase of primary health care training across Iraq, and continued training in Iraq since November 2006. He developed the first university-affiliated family medicine program in Ecuador, and directed a community health development project on the Onzole River of northern Ecuador. He has been active in the Global Health Medical Education Consortium and as a consultant with the Center for International Health Initiatives of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Dr. Wilson has participated in field research in the management of venomous snake bites, control of onchocerchosis, and in the use of natural folk remedies in the control of intestinal parasites. He has a range of interests in the control of tropical illnesses such as malaria, the effectiveness of community health programs and medical training methodologies across cultures, and in the sustainability of health development interventions in the developing world. For his work he has been awarded the Smilkstein Award in International Family Medicine of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (Oct. 2003), and the Humanitarian of the Year Award of the American Academy of Family Practice (Oct. 2005).

Dr. Carlos Cordon-Cardo earned his medical degree from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and his PhD in Cell Biology and Genetics from Cornell University Medical College. As a physician-scientist, he pioneered molecular pathology into an academic and clinical discipline.

Dr. Cordon-Cardo is renowned for his studies on experimental pathology and molecular oncology. His analyses on drug resistance and tumor suppressor genes have led to extraordinary breakthroughs, establishing new targets for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, thus enhancing the vision of personalized medicine.

He is currently implementing a "systems pathology" platform that uses computational biology to form mathematical models of cancer with the goal of determining clinical outcome. Groundbreaking research from his laboratory has provided novel insights into adult stem cells and cancer, through the recent discovery of a subpopulation of cancer stem cells. Dr. Cordon-Cardo is one of the "Highly Cited Authors" in biomedical sciences, with over 550 peer-reviewed publications. Committed to educating the newest generation of scientists, he has mentored over 75 investigators throughout his career.

Dr. David Sans is the head of Strategic Planning and Business Development at Mount Sinai. Dr. Sans has more than 15 years of healthcare-centric experience in life science corporate development and investment banking. He has held management and executive positions at Novartis, Pfizer, ImClone and Summer Street Research Partners. He has been involved in the launch of successful products like Macugen, for AMD and Erbitux for squamous head and neck cancers.

Dr. Sans holds a Masters degrees in Life Science from Technische Universitat in Berlin, a Masters degree in International Business from Wharton School of Business, a Ph.D. in Life Sciences from ETH in Zurich and Universitat Ramon Llull and MBA in Business Law from Fordham University in New York. He also received the Don Sheehan International Scholarship from Wharton School of Business.

Dr. Samar Alsaggaf has served as academic lecturer and physician with a specialization in anatomy, embryology, histology, and a particular expertise in the development of the nervous system. Moreover, Dr. Alsaggaf is a recipient of a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Saint Joseph University and has been voted as one of the most influential leaders. She is also a recipient of the International Dental Education Award from New York University. During the course of her tenure, Dr. Alsaggaf has been named, “The Mother of Saudi Students,” by Saudi students in the United States. She is also a recipient of many awards from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States. In her current position at SACM, she was voted as best director of the year in 2011 and 2012.

Christian Barry is the General Manager for GE Healthcare. He leads market development for Eastern and Africa growth markets which covers 84 countries spanning the Middle East, Turkey, Africa, and Russia. In this role, he works with Ministries of Health, government, and large enterprise clients to tackle high priority challenges in healthcare quality, access, and cost.

GE Healthcare's $18B global business includes medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services, all targeted to help healthcare systems deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. Mr. Barry and his team have helped create several innovative healthcare programs in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, including the recently created Healthcare Skills Training Institute at King Fahad Medical City, a leading-edge molecular diagnostics laboratory at National Guard Health Affairs, and an MOH breast cancer screening program that has screened over 8,000 women in Riyadh to date.

Mr. Barry is a 12-year GE veteran. He previously directed GE's distinguished Healthcare Institute located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and led Global Services Training and Education. He served as integration leader for Clarient, GE's molecular diagnostics business, and led the Lean Six Sigma function for GE Healthcare's $8B diagnostic imaging business.

Before joining General Electric, Mr. Barry worked for McKinsey & Company as an Engagement Manager. He began his career as a naval officer in the United States submarine force, and served as executive leader of the GE Veterans Network (GEVN) affinity group for military veterans at GE Healthcare.

He holds a B.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University and two master degrees (MBA/MEM) from Northwestern University. He is a past president of the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Istanbul, Turkey.

Nick Microulis founded Strategic Health Ventures LLC in 2013 with the goal of consistently earning a superior rate of return through disciplined investments in companies and products that provide improved healthcare and wellness outcomes. The focus is on innovative technologies that reduce costs, democratize information, and empower patients. The company has offices in New York City and Cambridge, MA.

Previously, Mr. Microulis served as an analyst at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; as a global proprietary trader at Lehman Brothers; and, as an equity arbitrage portfolio manager at two hedge funds. From 2003 to 2012, utilizing a systems-based quantitative trading strategy, he ran Hawkstone Partners LLC.

Mr. Microulis is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

Dr. Laeth Nasir earned his medical degree from the University of Jordan in 1987, subsequently completing a Fellowship from the Department of Surgery at Deaconess Beth Israel Hospital in Boston Massachusetts. After completing a residency in Family Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, he joined the faculty in 1992. He was promoted the rank of Professor in 2005.

In the 2003-04 academic year, Dr. Nasir was awarded the J.William Fulbright Scholarship to teach and carry out research at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan. Over the years he has served as a consultant to a number of organizations, including the World Bank and USAID. From 2009 to 2011, he served as Chairman of the Department of Family Medicine, as well as Acting Chair of Medical Education in the Faculty of Medicine at the United Arab Emirates University in the United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Nasir has written on a variety of topics during his career, and served as Editor In Chief of the Emirates Medical Journal in 2009-2010. He has a special interest in cross cultural aspects of medical care, and is the primary author of the medical textbook, “Caring for Arab Patients; A Biopsychosocial Approach.” He also serves as a co-editor of “Taylors Principles and Practice of Family Medicine.” Currently he is working with Harvard University on a project that explores mental health care delivery in the primary care setting in Middle Eastern countries.

Dr. Stephen Schultz has served as the Family Medicine residency program director at the University of Rochester for the past 12 years, where he is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors (AFMRD). During his tenure as program director, he established a Global Health Track which partners his residency program with a rural community in one of the most impoverished areas of Honduras. The program has traveled to this same community twice a year for over ten years, focusing on addressing the "determinants of health" with interventions which include water filtration systems, improved cook stoves and latrines, school-based fluoride rinse programs, microfinancing, fish farms, and community health worker training.

Dr. Schultz has done family medicine consultation trips to Tabriz, Iran; Hamamatsu, Japan; and Kazan, Tartarstan. He worked with the American Academy of Family Physicians to develop a database of family medicine programs that have global health opportunities for their residents.

His residency program was one of 14 family medicine programs nationwide that participated in a 6 year pilot program called "Preparing Personal Physicians for Practice" (P4) from 2006 – 2012. His program was recognized in 2013 by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of the 31 best models of practice for team-based care in the country with their inclusion in the Learning from Effective Ambulatory Practices (LEAP), a designation only one other residency program in the country received. During his time as program director, he has received over $2 million in grant funding to support educational programs.

Dr. Schultz graduated from the Dartmouth-Brown Program in Medicine. He has received several awards, including the New York State Academy of Family Physicians (NYSAFP) Family Medicine Educator of the Year, AFMRD Program Directors Recognition Award – Silver Level, NYSAFP President’s Award, and three University of Rochester “Human Values in Health Care” writing awards.

Dr. Heitham Hassoun, a leading vascular surgeon, joined Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI) in June 2012 as an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and as the Medical Director for Global Services. In this position, Dr. Hassoun is responsible for providing the medical leadership and direction for international projects, and to serve as the conduit between three primary entities: JHI leadership, JHM Departments, and JHI global partners. The Medical Director works closely with the Global Services Managing Directors, JHI Medical Directors, Executive Director Clinical Quality and Nursing, JHM Physician Leadership and JHI partner CMOs and CEOs to identify gaps, scale resources and deliverables, standardize JHI processes and operations as relates to medical affairs, and ultimately to ensure JH standards of excellence and best practices across our global network. The Medical Director also works directly with the President, Global Ventures and the regional Managing Directors to assess and implement global business development opportunities and processes as they relate to clinical assessment and modeling, medical affairs, education, and research.

Dr. Hassoun brings with him a wealth of experience in global health care consulting, including business development, clinical planning, knowledge transfer, physician governance and interdisciplinary program development. Dr. Hassoun began his academic career as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he received the jointly sponsoredNational Heart Lung and Blood Institute and American Vascular Association Lifeline Clinician Scientist Career Development Award. He was also part of the initial Johns Hopkins Medicine International management team at Tawam Hospital in the United Arab Emirates, serving as chief of surgery and director of vascular interventional therapy.

Most recently, Dr. Hassoun served as a Weill Cornell Associate Professor at the Methodist Hospital Physician Organization and the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center in Houston, Texas. He also served as a medical director for Methodist International, directing clinical and educational activities at affiliates and partners in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Dr. Hassoun earned his undergraduate degree from The Johns Hopkins University and his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Randall Burt is also director of the Familial Colon Cancer Clinic and co-director of the Family Cancer Assessment Clinic at Huntsman Cancer Institute. He is a member of the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program. In addition, he is a professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He holds the D. Keith Barnes, MD, and Ida May "Dotty" Barnes, RN, Presidential Endowed Chair in Medicine. Dr. Burt is a gastroenterologist with primary interest in familial risk and inherited syndromes of colorectal cancer. He and members of his group have demonstrated that inheritance is a critical determinant in colon cancer, possibly playing a role in up to a third of all cases. In 1987, a group led by Ray White, PhD and Dr. Burt, discovered the chromosomal location of the gene for a dangerous inherited colon cancer syndrome called familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). Soon after, the sequence of the gene and mutations responsible for the syndrome were identified by this group. It soom became apparent that this gene was an early mutation in the large majority of colon cancers and premalignant adenomatous polyps. An important outcome of this research is that genetic testing soon became available to identify persons with the inherited syndrome.

Dr. Burt looks for new gene mutations that cause predisposition to common colon cancers, by utelizing the Utah Population Data Base, a data base that combines the Utah Cancer Registry (a SEER registry) and the Utah genealogies. Large families (up to 20,000 persons) are available in this resource for gene discovery. As part of a large, randomized, controlled study, he researched the impact of diet on the occurrence of colon cancer, and now directs a chemoprevention study involving subjects with familial adenomatous polyposis. Dr. Burt also conducts research in each of the inherited colon cancer syndromes, including familial adenomatous polyposis, Lynch syndrome (hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer), Peutz-Jegher disease, familial juvenile polyposis syndrome, Cowden syndrome, serrated polyposis syndrome (hyperplastic polyposis syndrome) and others. These studies involve clarifying the phenotype and the molecular-genetic aspects of these diseases.

Clinical care for persons with these syndromes, including genetic testing and endoscopy, is a major part of Dr. Burt's academic practice. The determination of famial risk including appropriate risk stratification and screening, is also a part of both research and clinical care. Extensive use of the Utah Population Data Base is used in these investigations to precisely determine colon cancer risk in families without one of the known interited syndromes.

Dr. Burt received his medical degree from the University of Utah in 1974. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Washington University and Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, and completed a fellowship in gastroenterology at the University of Utah School of Medicine in 1979.

Dr. Sweetenham's clinical research focus is on malignant lymphomas and the use of stem cell transplantation. He has been principle investigator on national and international trials in lymphoma and is currently a core committee member of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Lymphoma Committee and ECOG national principle investigator for studies in Hodgkin lymphoma. He serves as chairman of the Clinical Trials Committee of Leukemia and Lymphoma Research, UK.

Dr. Sweetenham attended medical school at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, UK, and trained in oncology at the University of Southampton, UK. In addition to his responsibilities at Huntsman Cancer Institute, he is currently is a professor of medicine in the Department of Hematology at the University of Utah and a member of the Experimental Therapeutics Program. He has served as director of the Hematologic Malignancies and Blood and Marrow Transplant Programs at the University of Colorado; associate director for clinical research at the University of Arizona; vice chairman for clinical research at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute; professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine; and medical director of the UCSD Nevada Cancer Institute.

Joan Hankin is currently the World Wide Healthcare Marketing Manager at Intel Corporation. She is a Masters prepared Nurse Practitioner from the US. Over the past 13 years, she has focused her healthcare experience in the technology field. Before coming to Intel Corporation, her technology experience was at such companies as HP, Sun Microsystems and Web MD.

Prior to her technology focus, Ms. Hankin worked at both Stanford University and the University of California San Francisco Medical Centers. There she held clinical positions, clinical management and Marketing and Strategy. She obtained her BSN from SUNY Brockport in New York and her MSN from San Francisco State University and Family Nurse Practitioner certification from the University of California Davis Medical School.

Paige Peterson, working extensively with the Huntsman Cancer Institute, focuses primarily on cancer research and patient needs: a cause close to her heart. Born in Marin County, California, Ms. Peterson is a renowned American painter and bestselling author and illustrator.

Bill Keppler serves C3 International as a Senior Associate, promoting trade and commerce between the United States, Arab, and Middle East countries. He represents C3 with senior government officials and business leaders, both U.S. and international, as well as helps in conceiving, developing, planning, organizing, and coordinating Summit programming, outreach and participant recruitment initiatives.

Previously, Mr. Keppler was a career Foreign Service officer where he served in many diverse positions -- both in the United States and overseas -- encompassing international trade, policy planning, press and public diplomacy, legislative affairs, protocol, executive management and administration, and, arms control. His overseas postings include Thailand, Brazil, Switzerland, Armenia, and the Philippines, as well as temporary tours of duty in more than 40 countries on six continents, including the Middle East. He had the privilege of providing direct support to three U.S. Presidents, and served on the staff of six Secretaries of State. In 2002, he was elected and served two terms as the Chairman of the Secretary's Open Forum, promoting informed foreign policy deliberation, decision-making, and implementation. As Chairman, he served directly under the Secretary of State.

Subsequent to his diplomatic career, Mr. Keppler has served as the International Affairs Director at the World Affairs Council-Washington, DC; Director of Government Relations and Global Events at the International Road Federation; and as the President of his own consulting firm, International Solutions, Inc. His Capitol Hill experience includes service on both Senate and House Committees, and on a senior Senator's staff.

Mr. Keppler earned a Master of Business Administration degree in Government-Business Relations from George Washington University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Villanova University.

Dr. Emad Rizk is president of McKesson Health Solutions, a division of McKesson Corporation that delivers intelligent healthcare solutions that enable payers and providers, to come together to transform the business and process of healthcare.

In 2013, Dr. Rizk was named one of the 50 Most Influential Physician Executives in the United States by Modern Physician, making it the fifth year that he has been recognized by this publication. He has also been counted among the Top 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare; and named one of the nation's Top 25 Leaders in Disease Management by Managed Healthcare Executive.

A sought after healthcare industry expert, Dr. Rizk brings over 25 years of experience working with payers, physicians, hospital systems and pharmaceutical organizations. He provides the healthcare industry, both the commercial and government sectors, with transformational strategies and operational execution expertise through healthcare information technology. Dr. Rizk is focused on helping providers and payers implement a new delivery and financial payment processes in the new world of volume to value. In his previous position as the global director of Deloitte, Dr. Rizk led medical cost and quality management practice across all industries. He also spearheaded the largest redesign of care management and delivery models among health plans and providers nationwide.

Dr. Rizk has served on many healthcare boards, including the National Clinical Advisory Board and National Quality Review, and currently serves on the boards of DMAA: Care Continuum Alliance, National Association for Hispanic Health, University of Miami, University of North Texas, Accuracy, and Managed Care Magazine.

A senior scholar professor at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, he has an extensive portfolio of published journal articles and books, including his contribution to The Wisdom of Top Health Care CEOs, a collection of interviews published in 2003. His book The New Era of Healthcare: Practical Strategies for Providers and Payers centers on methods to forge a partnership between providers and payers focused on clinical, administrative, and economic alignment to bring about more efficient, cost effective care.

Dr. Mounes Kalaawi is the CEO & co-founder of Clemenceau Medical Center affiliated with Johns Hopkins Medicine International. In 2000, he started working on the set-up and foundation of the CMC project and identifying the opportunities and challenges of the center's new concept of healthcare delivery to Lebanon and the surrounding region. CMC is an ultra-modern hospital located in Beirut,Lebanon designed and operated with the highest standards. It's mission is caring, safety and excellence. CMC is Joint Commission International accredited and one of the top ten world's best hospitals for medical travel.

Dr. Kalaawi is also the Chairman and CEO of Clemenceau Medicine International (CMI), an organization whose main duty is the advancement and spread of the Clemenceau Medicine's mission and concept of patient care regionally and internationally. CMI's target is to plan and operate with strategic partners the most state-of-the-art healthcare institutions network in the region. CMI is devoted to transfer the knowledge and expertise of the best in the world to the Middle East, making hospitalization more rewarding.

Dr. Mounes Kalaawi a surgeon, trained and certified by the Royal Colleges of Surgeons in Glasgow and England, certified in Medical Management from the American College of Physicians Executives and awarded MBA from the University of Massachusetts in the United States.

Ronald Lavater joined Corniche Hospital, Abu Dhabi as Chief Executive Officer in January of 2009 as part of the Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHMI) executive team that manages the hospital, which is owned and operated by Abu Dhabi Health Services Company.

Ronald Lavater has been Chief Executive Officer of Corniche Hospital, the largest maternity hospital in the UAE), and one of three hospitals managed by Johns Hopkins Medicine International, since January 2009.

During Mr. Lavater's tenure at Corniche Hospital, the hospital has been re-accredited by Joint Commission International and the World Health Organization, won the 2010 Arab Health Award for Excellence in Patient Centered Carem, and received official recognition by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists as a teaching hospital. Lavater has overseen the expansion of clinical services for women including the development of uro-gynecology care, on-site mammography screening and the construction of a new off-site outpatient center. Under Mr. Lavater's leadership, major hospital renovation projects have been initiated and completed, including the expansion and upgrade of the UAE's largest neonatal intensive care unit to 65 cots, meeting international patient standards.Public health programs have also been a focus for Mr. Lavater with the opening of the first Infant Safety Center in the UAE in 2010 responsible for educating parents on infant car safety and distributing free car seats to all Corniche Hospital newborns.

Prior to joining JHI, Mr. Lavater worked for more than 12 years with HCA; the largest for-profit healthcare company in the United States, with 170 owned and operated hospitals. Lavater held several roles in hospitals across the U.S. including Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Lavater holds a bachelor's of science in political science from the University of Florida and a master's in public administration and healthcare management from Florida State University. Lavater is a Fellow with the American College of Healthcare Executives and an active member in the Middle East & North Africa ACHE chapter

• Led Al Rahba Hospital successfully to the JCI reaccreditation (2009 & 2012)
• Catalyst for the creation of Abu Dhabi Trauma System Initiative, Currently the Co-Chair.
• Developed and Implemented in 2009 an Early Warning System – Rapid Response Teams that has been adopted by SEHA macrosystem. This won the 1st ever Platinum Award (2012).
• Shortlisted twice by the Abu Dhabi Medical Distinction Award for the Health, Management and Administration in 2011-2012.

Burak Malatyali oversees a range of activities for Johns Hopkins Medicine’s international and domestic/out-of-state patient services business lines: strategic planning, operations and business development activities. He is responsible for JHI’s administrative functions, including information technology and human resources.

Burak joined Johns Hopkins in 2004. Immediately prior to his current role, he worked as a director in the system planning and development group—tasked to develop and implement growth and expansion strategies for Johns Hopkins Medicine’s hospital and ambulatory network. He was involved in negotiations and integration planning with various health care institutions, physician practices and other entities.

Burak spent the first six years of his career at Hopkins with Johns Hopkins Medicine International in roles of increasing responsibility on all business lines. He was very involved in managing and expanding client relationships—conducting due diligence, strategic planning and consulting—for JHI projects across the globe including in Turkey, Bermuda, Canada, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Chile. He served in the interim management teams of Hopkins-managed hospitals, responsible for the transition of these hospitals to permanent JHI management staff. He was actively involved in developing strategic business plans for Johns Hopkins Singapore International Medical Centre, Al Rahba Hospital (United Arab Emirates), and Anadolu Medical Center (Turkey). He continues to oversee JHI’s affiliation relationship with Anadolu Medical Center. He served on the Johns Hopkins University’s International Affairs Coordinating Committee from 2006-2010.

Before joining JHM, Burak worked at Ata Invest in Turkey and Accenture Consulting in Germany where he had the opportunity to broaden his experience in finance, information systems and consulting. Mr. Malatyali holds a master’s in business administration degree from Morgan State University and a bachelor’s of Management Information Systems from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Dr. Keith McNeil is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of lung transplantation and pulmonary vascular disease. Dr. McNeil was appointed as chief executive in November 2012. He joined CUH from one of the largest health services in Australia - Metro North Health Service in Brisbane – where he had been CEO since 2008. As CUH chief executive, Keith oversees how the Trust is managed, ensuring patients receive high quality safe care. His role also means that he is accountable for the financial management of the Trust and for its strategic development.

Dr. McNeil spent two years as a senior transplant fellow at Papworth Hospital and a further five years working jointly at Papworth and CUH as a cardio-pulmonary transplant and respiratory physician and director of the pulmonary vascular disease unit. During this time, he was pivotal in establishing the UK's centre for pulmonary endarterectomy at Papworth and was an adviser to the Department of Health on pulmonary hypertension.

D. McNeil began his chief executive career in 2007 in his native Australia at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, a 980-bed teaching hospital, one of the largest teaching hospitals in the southern hemisphere. In 2008 he was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Queensland.

Dr. Basil Matta is a consultant in Neuro-Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Cambridge University Foundation Trust Hospitals (CUHT), and Associate Lecturer, University of Cambridge. He has also been a Consultant at Addenbrooke's Hospital, part of the Cambridge University Foundation Trust Hospitals, in Cambridge since 1996.

He is currently the Divisional Director for Emergency and Perioperative Care, and the Associate Medical Director. Dr. Matta is responsible for all Adult Critical Care Services at CUHT, which include one of the largest Neuro-Critical Care units in the UK, where more than 500 Neurologically injured patients are cared for annually resulting in the introduction of protocols for the management of these patients which have been widely adopted in many national and international units. His area of responsibility involves a large neurosurgical workload that includes intracranial surgery as well as simple and complex spinal surgery.

Dr. Matta is the the past president of the Neuroanaesthesia Society of GB and Ireland, and the past president of the International Society of Neurosurgical Anaesthesiology and Critical Care. He has authored many chapters and lectures regularly at national and international scientific congresses on General Anaesthesia, Neuro-Anaesthesia, Critical Care and, in particular, on the management of patients who have suffered neurologic injury. He is one of the editors of the main British textbook on Neuroanaesthesia and has over 70 peer-reviewed publications related to the subject. Dr. Matta is also a founding member of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine.

Debora Guthrie is the Founder and CEO of Capitol Health Global and its related Capitol Health entities. Capitol Health is a market leader in investing in, building and advising innovative health care services companies.

Founded in 1995 by Ms. Guthrie, Capitol Health has made successful investments in, and built companies across, the full range of investment stages- from start-ups to late stage companies. Complementary to its core investment business, Capitol Health also provides strategic advisory services to health care services companies at the Board of Directors level. These strategic advisory services are focused on the globalization of selective innovative health care delivery models working in partnership with the public sector as global health care enters a new era.

Capitol Health's focus has always been on value creation and investing in innovative health care delivery models. The firm's investments have been in the areas of outpatient surgery, women's health, orthopedic services, revenue management, contract research, staffing, transcription, e-health, wellness and prevention, elderly care, mental health telecare/telehealth and biomedical engineering services.

Ms. Guthrie has had a highly focused 30-year career in private and public investing and financing of health care companies. Ms. Guthrie served as a Director of AmSurg [NASDAQ: AMSG] from 1996 until 2009 when she stepped down to advise the Company on its international expansion efforts. AmSurg is the leading publicly traded outpatient surgery center company. She also served on AmSurg's Audit and Compensation Committees. In 2009, she was appointed to the board of directors of TBS Group S.p.A. [MILAN: TBS] where she sits on the governance and control committee. She also serves on the Boards of Directors of WIN Healthcare and OrthoNet, both private health care services companies in Capitol Health's portfolio.

Prior to the formation of Capitol Health’s first fund in 1995, Ms. Guthrie was the President of Capitol Health Consultants, Inc., a venture advisory company which she founded. Ms. Guthrie was a Special Limited Partner and Director of Health Care Investments at Nazem and Company, a New York City venture capital company, where she was responsible for sourcing a number of successful investments including Genesis Health Ventures, Inc. and Oxford Health Plans, Inc. Ms. Guthrie also held senior positions in health care investment banking at E.F. Hutton & Company; L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg & Towbin; and J.C. Bradford & Co.

Ms. Guthrie served as a Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for International Private Enterprise. She also served as a Director and Vice Chairman of the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies ("NASBIC"). Ms. Guthrie currently serves on the Board of Visitors of the Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt University and participated as a World Thinker and panelist in the 2007 United Arab Emirates Festival of Thinkers.

Ron Bruder is an American entrepreneur and advocate for increased youth employment opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa. He is the founder of Education for Employment (EFE), a network of affiliated locally-run nonprofits which create public-private partnerships with employers to train youth in technical and soft skills and place them in jobs. The network has local affiliates in Jordan,Palestine, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia and capacity-building support organizations in the United States and Spain. In 2011, Mr. Bruder was named on the TIME 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Mr. Bruder began his career as a serial entrepreneur with businesses in real estate, travel, pharmaceuticals and energy. In 1977, he founded The Brookhill Group, which owns and manages properties throughout the US with a focus on creating investment partnerships to develop or redevelop shopping centers, office buildings and multi-family homes.

Mr. Bruder was an attendee at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At the World Economic Forum in Tianjin in 2012, he was named a Schwab Foundation Global Social Entrepreneur for his work in founding EFE. He has served as a delegate of the Council on Foreign Relations to the Jeddah Economic Forum, and a contributor to the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar. He is frequently invited to share EFE's best practices at major international conferences and has addressed audiences at the Clinton Global Initiative, World Economic Forum and the United Nations, among others.

Nicola Pangher, Chairman of Tesan S.p.A. Tesan is a company dedicated to providing Telehealth and Telecare services through its e-health centre, which is fully integrated in the social and health care environment of the patient on the global market.

The Tesan Telecare service, which includes a preventative check carried out once or twice weekly, is provided to over 38,000 users. The activity is closely coordinated with the social and health care directors at the regional level. The e-health centre is becoming the single point of access for a larger number of patients: more than 1,600 access primary care support service on a daily basis, which includes telephone consultations with GPs and paediatricians, set up of actual face-to-face visits and teleconsultation with specialists. The e-health centre manages the primary care out-of-hours services for almost 187,000 patients. All these activities are managed in collaboration with local health authorities (similar to PCTs), who supply the GPs and consultants participating in the system. The e-health centre also supports "choose and book" activities for a population of 800,000.

The aim of the e-health centre is to offer the general population access to health and social care services, activating a more concentrated response for frail and chronically ill people. In particular it provides Telehealth services to a total of more than 5000 patients. The company is a fully owned subsidiary of the Italian AIM listed TBS Group, operating in 12 countries, offering clinical engineering and e-health services to public and private health providers and local authorities. In 2010, it had consolidated revenues of €190.7 million and a staff of more than 2,000. Mr. Pangher is also a member of the TBS Group Board, where he holds the position of General Manager and is in charge of all operations for the existing UK, India and China companies and for the development of the activities in the Middle East.

Kevin Bolger trained as a nurse at East Birmingham Hospital in the early eighties then worked in clinical haematology, respiratory and acute medicine. As a ward manager he gained a Masters in Business Administration.

His career then moved away from clinical responsibilities into general management and operations including managing a variety of areas, from Theatres to Accident and Emergency. He moved to the Trust in 2001 as Group Manager for Neurosurgery and Trauma and after 12 months was promoted to Director of Operations for Division Three.

In 2006 he became Deputy Chief Operating Officer and was made Chief Operating Officer in June 2009, responsible for the day-to-day running of the Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak hospitals.

Mr. Bolger led the historic, safe and successful operational transition of two hospitals into the UK’s largest single site hospital between June 2010 and April 2012. He oversaw the hospital going live as a Major Trauma Centre in March 2012 and in September 2012 was appointed to the new position of Executive Director of Strategic Operations to lead Regional and National service redesign and further develop the Trust’s international work

Dr. Mark C. Rogers has a combined academic, medical and business career. As a physician, he received his M.D. in 1969 (cum laude) and trained sequentially in Pediatrics (Harvard), Cardiology (Duke), and Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine (Harvard). He has boards in 3 specialties and founded the specialty of Pediatric Intensive Care at Johns Hopkins in 1977 where he arrived as Assistant Professor and, two years later, was Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. During his approximately 15 years at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Rogers wrote or edited 12 books translated into multiple languages, authored over 150 papers, was chosen as a Fulbright by the country of Slovenia, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, was selected by the World Health Organization to help develop the specialty of Pediatric Intensive Care in underdeveloped countries,was selected for inclusion in Who's Who in America, and received numerous other awards. Johns Hopkins named the endowed Chair in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine as the "Mark C. Rogers Professor." The "Textbook of Pediatric Intensive Care" has been renamed "The Rogers Textbook of Pediatric Intensive Care" in his honor.

At Hopkins, he was asked to be Associate Dean in charge of the $150 million practice plan and related business activities of the Medical School. In turn, this led him to get an M.B.A. at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania which led him ultimately to the role of C.E.O. of the Duke Hospital and Health Network at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

At Duke, Dr. Rogers ran an organization with approximately 8000 employess and a budget of over $650 million dollars. His work was selected as a case study by the Harvard Business and Public Health Schools for his innovative approach to an academic medical center in the era of development of capitated care. In addition, articles on his work appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He also was involved in the founding Board of the NASDAQ company Entremed featuring the anticancer work of Dr. Judah Folkman. Following approximately 5 years at Duke, Dr. Rogers was recruited to become Senior Vice President of the NYSE company Perkin Elmer, and was involved in the transition strategy that resulted in the reforming of the company from a DNA sequence manufacturer to a company that sequenced the Human Genome under a reformatted organization now referred to as Celera.

Dr. Rogers next joined a New York based private medical investment firm, which recruited Dr. Rogers as President. During his time there, Dr. Rogers was founder and Chairman of PolaRX, a company that developed and received F.D.A. approval of the drug Arsenic Trioxide for acute promyelocytic leukemia in a record time of under 30 months from initiation of clinical trials. Dr. Rogers sold the company to Cell Therapeutics, a NASDAQ company specializing in cancer therapies for $100 million . Dr. Rogers has also served, among other companies, as founder, Chairman, and C.E.O. of Innovative Drug Delivery Systems, a pharmaceutical development company with three drugs in Phase II studies in the field of pain which went public and was acquired for approximately $230 million.

He also was founder and Chairman of Aptamera, a pharmaceutical development company in the area of oncology that was acquired by a London public company. In addition, he was founder and Chairman of Cardiome, a NASDQ listed cardiac company. That company was founded privately but had reached an $800 million dollar market cap on NASDAQ before Dr. Rogers left to begin other activities. He is currently Chairman of the Board of Linus Oncology, a topoisomerase oncology company that he founded which is getting ready to begin phase II clinical trials, and Vestion, a cardiac stem cell company beginning phase I clinical trials funded by the NIH.

Dr. Rogers has a family Foundation that supports education of underprivileged youth and recently was appointed by Congress to join their "Special Committee on Support of NIH Research" along with the former Director of the NIH, the former Commissioner of the FDA, and the former Secretary of HHS.

Furthermore, Dr. Rogers has a decades long experience working in the Middle East which includes as U.S. Consultant to Kuwait for restoration of health care for children after the Gulf War; as Visiting Professor in various medical schools in Saudi Arabia; and as consultant and a team coordinator for medical care for His Royal Highness King Fahd after a development of an acute medical problem.

Dr. Hajjeh is currently the Division Director, National Center of Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases (CDC), which provides technical and policy support for bacterial vaccines in the US and globally.

During 2005-2009, Dr. Hajjeh was the director of the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI)'s Hib Initiative, a consortium that included Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO), which resulted in introducing life saving Hib vaccines in 73 countries to millions of children.

During 2003-2005, Dr. Hajjeh was the director of the Surveillance Program at the U.S. Navy Medical Research Unit-3 (NAMRU3) in Cairo, Egypt, where she worked closely with the WHO and many countries in the Middle East to set up systems for laboratory-based disease surveillance and outbreak response. She continues to be very involved in global vaccines and child health issues, as well as public health issues in the Middle East. In 2012, she was part of a team of authors who published the first book on “Public Health in the Arab World” (Cambridge Press).

Dr. Hajjeh did her undergraduate and medical studies at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon (AUB). During 1988-1993, she trained in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, and is board certified in both. She then joined the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) at CDC for a two year training, and has been at CDC since. She is a Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Visiting Professor of both Medicine and Public Health at Emory University.

Dr. Hajjeh has published over 125 peer-reviewed papers, and many book chapters, and serves as a reviewer for multiple journals. She is a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), a member of the executive board of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, and serves on multiple national and global public health and infectious diseases committees.

Mathew Taylor is Senior Healthcare IT Strategist and Architect at Intel Corporation. He joined Intel in 1997 and works with Healthcare providers, payers, technology solutions providers, academia, and government agencies on computing solutions for life science and mobile health in the US and emerging countries. He recently led Intel's 1Mx15 Health Program, part of the UN's Every Woman, Every Child Initiative, to build technology/healthcare capacity for 1 million healthcare workers in developing countries.

Prior to Intel, he has also held roles specifying managed datacenter solutions, was Intel's primary technical specialist for the US Federal Government and Department of Defense, and led the team to enable Intel's secure distribution system for electronic classified documents.

Mr. Taylor holds a triple degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon.

Dr. Elisa Port is a surgeon who specializes in the care and treatment of patients with breast cancer, and those at increased risk for breast cancer. She has extensive experience with sentinel lymph node biopsy, nipple sparing mastectomy, and the newest techniques in breast cancer surgery for both invasive breast cancer and DCIS.

Dr. Port is the author of a variety of publications on the role of sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer, the role of MRI in patients at high risk for breast cancer, and she has received a Komen Foundation Grant investigating the role of PET scanning in breast cancer. She recently completed an NCI funded clinical trial investigating the effects of the COX2 inhibitor, Celebrex, on breast cancer tissue.

Dr. Port is a member of many professional organizations including the Society of Surgical Oncology, the American Society of Breast Diseases, the American Society of Breast Surgeons, and the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group.

Karen H. Bechtel is a Managing Director and head of the Global Healthcare group based in New York. Since joining Carlyle in 2005, Ms. Bechtel has invested approximately $2 billion of equity in healthcare companies around the world. She serves as a member of the Boards of Directors of HCR-Manor Care, Grupo Qualicorp, Healthscope Limited, MultiPlan (prior) Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD) and Lifecare.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Ms. Bechtel was at Morgan Stanley & Co., Incorporated for 28 years. As Managing Director of Morgan Stanley's Private Equity Group, Ms. Bechtel was a member of the investment committee responsible for approving all investments in the $3.1 billion Morgan Stanley Capital Partners IV Fund and led all of the healthcare investments. Ms. Bechtel was also Co-head of the Financial Sponsors Group; head of the Corporate Restructuring Group; founder and head of Princes Gate Private Equity Investors, a $650 million bridge equity fund; and Managing Director in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department.

Ms. Bechtel previously served on the Boards of Directors of Vanguard Health Systems, Inc., Cross Country Healthcare Inc., Southern Care, Inc. and Lifetrust America, LLC. She earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Graduate School of Business and her B.A. in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin where she was Phi Beta Kappa.

Dr. Norbert Goldfield is a practicing internist at a community health center. He has helped form several volunteer organizations including Hampshire Health Access (providing access to care for the uninsured in Hampshire County, Massachusetts where he lives) and the Palestinian Medical Access Partnership, an organization devoted to providing Palestinian children access to medical care and surgery in the United States and Europe when they are unavailable locally. He regularly teaches college courses including Peace-Building through Health and Medical Sociology.

Dr. Norbert Goldfield is also Medical Director for 3M Health Information Systems. For the past 20 years he has implemented payment systems linked to quality throughout the United States and overseas, with both public and private payers. Most recently, he has worked on practical implementation of payment systems for episodes of illness, the “medical home,” hospital readmissions and avoidable hospital complications. His works as an applied researcher in the development of tools for payment of health services and measuring quality of care are used today in many countries throughout the world for quality management purposes.

Dr. Goldfield is a board-certified practicing internist and is fluent in Italian and Spanish. He is also on the board of directors of Health Care for All. His most recent books include: National Health Reform, American Style and Delivering High Quality, and Cost-Effective Care to All: The Scientific and Political Ingredients for Success. He is also editor of the peer reviewed Journal of Ambulatory Care Management.

Khush Choksy is vice president for Turkey, Middle East, and North Africa Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he leads the activities of the department in developing and implementing policies and programs to promote U.S. trade and investment with markets in the region. Choksy manages a team of program and policy experts focused on working closely with Chamber member companies and business and government leaders to advance and broaden commercial relationships between the United States and the region. In addition, he serves as executive director of the U.S.-Egypt Business Council and the U.S.-Bahrain Business Council. He is actively involved in the Chamber’s efforts to lead a Middle East Commercial Dialogue to foster intra-regional trade and investment.

Before joining the Chamber, Choksy was a director at Chemonics International where he led teams in developing economic ties between the United States and the Middle East. He lived and worked in Jordan for seven years, establishing relations with private- and public-sector leaders at a critical time in the U.S.-Middle East relationship on behalf of several USAID programs. He also worked in India, overseeing U.S. government and World Bank-funded projects that helped liberalize the capital markets and financial sectors.

His thought leadership includes presentations at international forums on business reform and U.S. trade and financial sector investment in emerging markets.

Choksy received his M.B.A. in strategic management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. magna cum laude from Hamilton College. He lives with his wife and daughter in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Marc Kerachsky is Global Director, New Market Models for healthymagination which is GE’s $6 billion global commitment to provide better health for more people by lowering costs and increasing access to quality healthcare.

In this role, Mr. Kerachsky is working with various teams and constituents within emerging markets to develop innovative models for healthcare delivery and to tackle some of the most pressing needs and priorities of these regions. Prior to this, Mr. Kerachsky worked in a variety of marketing and leadership roles within the Medical Diagnostics business for GE Healthcare.

He has a B.S. in Biology & Psychology from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a Masters in Business Administration in Marketing from the Fox School of Business at Temple University.

Dr. Lana Shekim is the Program Director for the Voice and Speech Programs in the Division of a Scientific Programs (DSP) at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). She is responsible for the supervision of a comprehensive research program in voice and speech sciences and disorders. She joined the NIH in 2001.

Prior to joining the NIH, Dr. Shekim served on the faculty of the George Washington University in Washington, DC and directed the Speech-Language Pathology Service at the GWU Medical Center. Dr. Shekim's clinical expertise is in the management of individuals with acquired neurologic communication disorders.

Dr. Shekim earned her doctorate from the University of Florida in Gainesville where she examined discourse production in individuals with Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Shekim completed postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuropsychology at Johns Hopkins University. She is a certified member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and a past president of the District of Columbia Speech Language Hearing Association (DCSHA). Dr. Shekim is an Arabic speaker who was born in Beirut-Lebanon to Jordanian parents and is part of the Circassian Diaspora that was settled in the Middle East.

Dr. Muhammad Chaudry a career food technologist received his academic education in Pakistan, Lebanon and the United States with a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

For 15 years he worked in the food industry at various technical and management positions, responsible for total quality, quality assurance, human resources and employee training. For the past 30 years, Dr. Chaudry has been managing halal certification programs for the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA). Under his administration, halal certification by IFANCA has expanded to over 4000 production sites in 56 countries. Halal certified products include meat and poultry, seafood, food products, food ingredients and chemicals, nutritional products and supplements, cosmetics, personal care products, household products, vaccines, food processing chemicals, sanitation chemicals and packaging materials.

He is a member of the Institute of Food Technologists and expert consultant to the World Organization for Animal Health. He has written several articles and papers in technical journals as well as co-authored a book about Halal Food Production published by CRC PRESS. He was an international delegate for food safety workshops conducted in India, under the sponsorship of the United Nations International Trade Center and the American Spice Trade Association.

Dr. Chaudry is experienced in the management of not-for-profit organizations and industrial corporations in a cross-functional environment.

Dr. Michelle L. Niescierenko is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician and director of the Global Health Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. The Boston Children's Global Health Program works to improve child health globally through partnerships for clinical quality improvement, education, research, technology and advocacy.

Dr. Niescierenko has experience in pediatric care and program development in China, Bolivia, Lesotho, Guatemala, Liberia, Indonesia, Turkey and Syria. Through these partnerships, sustainable programs for health system rebuilding and expansion including physician education and care for vulnerable children were developed, including novel models for delivering education, providing care for non-communicable diseases and utilizing social media.

Dr. Mark Rubin received his M.D. from Mount Sinai Medical Center and completed training in anatomic pathology at Georgetown University Medical Center followed by a clinical fellowship in anatomic pathology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His first academic appointment was Assistant Professor of Pathology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, followed by Associate Professor of Pathology with Tenure at the University of Michigan and most recently as Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mark Rubin is one of the foremost academic anatomic pathologists in the United States. He is widely recognized for his clinical diagnostic expertise in prostate pathology. Most recently, he served as Chief of Urologic Pathology at The Brigham and Women's Hospital. He has received the two most prestigious awards granted by professional pathology organizations to young investigators. He was awarded the Arthur Purdy Stout Society of Surgical Pathologists Annual Prize in 2003 and the Young Investigator Award from the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology in 2004, in each case recognizing him as the most prominent pathologist in the United States under the age of 45.

Dr. Rubin is a practicing genitourinary pathologist. The focus of Dr. Rubin's laboratory-based research for the past 10 years has been the development of molecular prostate cancer biomarkers to help distinguish indolent from aggressive disease. In collaboration with Arul Chinnaiyan's laboratory at the University of Michigan, they identified a common recurrent gene fusion between the TMPRSS2 and ETS genes in the majority of prostate cancers. His work relies on close collaboration with researchers in the fields of urology, medical oncology, clinical outcomes, and molecular biology. His laboratory uses a variety of techniques including RT-PCR, laser capture microdissection, high-density tissue microarrays, SNP arrays, tiling arrays, and cDNA expression arrays in combination with clinical and pathology parameters to identify significant associations.

Dr. Cathy Easter has been with Houston Methodist for 20 years. Throughout her career at Huston Medical, she has been responsible for numerous operational areas as well as corporate strategy and business development. She has key responsibilities of establishing short and long-term global strategies for the organization, as well as leading international consulting and management projects. She provides oversight for the delivery of international patient services and education as well as global brand and business development. In addition to her global responsibilities, Dr. Easter is also currently leading strategic initiatives related to market share growth within the United States as well as regional business development and strategic partnerships.

Prior to her current role, Dr. Easter served as Vice President of Operations for Houston Methodist Global Health Care Services and Vice President of Community Development for Houston Methodist. She was instrumental in expanding consulting and management services as well as establishing an office in Dubai Healthcare City, Dubai, UAE. Prior to joining Houston Methodist Global, Dr. Easter served as Vice President of Operations & Business Development for Houston Methodist Hospital. She led the development of the Houston Methodist Outpatient Center, one of the largest in the United States and the development of a patient centered concept, “The Methodist Experience”.

Dr. Easter is passionate about health care access and played a fundamental role in establishing Houston Methodist’s Community Benefits Program and continues to coordinate Methodist’s charity care and community benefits programs today. She developed an employee volunteer program to engage Methodist employees in the greater Houston community and build on the organization’s ICARE values. She continues Board of Director engagement in the local heathcare community and she is a frequent speaker for both global healthcare audiences and patient centered care. In 2004, she was named an "Up and Comer" by Modern Healthcare Magazine.

Dr. Robert Kelly has been at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital since 1982. In 2011, he was appointed President. In this role, he is responsible for ultimate oversight of the Hospital’s day-to-day operations and advancing its Strategic Initiatives. An anesthesiologist, Dr. Kelly has been Group Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Officer at NYP/Columbia since 2007.

Dr. Geoffrey Mann is JMP Product Manager for the health and life sciences industry. After joining SAS in 2000, he helped develop software for use in health and life sciences, including SAS® Drug Development, SAS Clinical Data Integration, SAS Clinical Toolkit and JMP® Genomics. He is an active member of the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Commission (CDISC), where he participates on the CDISC Analysis Data Model (ADaM) Team as the metadata team lead and is a member of the CDISC Integrated Data Pilot Team. In his current role, Dr. Mann seeks to translate needs for visual and statistical discovery software in the clinical segment of both the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

JMP is a business unit of SAS that produces interactive software for desktop statistical discovery. Pronounced "jump," its name suggests a leap in interactivity, a move in a new direction. John Sall, SAS co-founder and Executive Vice President, created this dynamic software and remains its chief architect and leader of the JMP division. Introduced in 1989 with scientists and engineers in mind, JMP has grown into a family of statistical discovery products used worldwide in almost every industry. From its beginnings, JMP software has empowered its users by enabling interactive analytics on the desktop.

JMP products continue to complement – and are often deployed with – SAS solutions that provide server-based business intelligence. The SAS commitment to accuracy, value and quality is evident in every JMP software release. Training, technical support, licensing and distribution are provided to JMP users the world over through SAS. Teams specializing in JMP products are located in the United States, Europe, China and Japan.

Dr. Mann holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Wake Forest University and a PhD in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Ryan Wiley is Vice President of SHI Consulting Inc. With extensive experience in strategy, economic development, opportunity evaluation, implementation planning and public-private partnerships, Dr. Wiley has successfully worked with industry, governments, hospitals, academic institutions and not-for-profit organizations around the world.

The opportunity to work with a diverse cross-section of clients and organizations in the contexts of business, healthcare, science and policy has provided Ryan with a unique ability to envision and unlock the benefits of collaboration in healthcare and the life sciences. He has facilitated and managed effective, innovative partnerships that have opened new markets and leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, and he has worked seamlessly with the public and private sectors on economic development, health research, capacity-building and commercialization initiatives in Canada, the US, Latin America, Europe, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

In addition to his work with SHI Consulting, Dr. Wiley is an Assistant Professor at McMaster University, Director of Women’s College Hospital Foundation, founding Chair of neWCHapter at Women’s College Hospital Foundation, past Chair of New Leaders of Sunnybrook Foundation, Advisor to the Ontario Brain Institute and Vice Chair of Research Canada. Ryan holds a PhD in immunology from McMaster University and has published extensively in the areas of asthma/allergy, immunology, pharmacology and gene therapy.

Engineer Sobhi Batterjee won the Outstanding Contribution of an Individual Award at the Arab Health Congress 2014, in recognition to his outstanding performance, achievements and effective contribution in healthcare sector. Upon receiving the award, Engineer Batterjee expressed his personal satisfaction and credited the 6000 SGH's employees for winning the prestigious award; mentioning that each one of them contributed to improving the healthcare services in the region.

The Batterjee family has been offering healthcare services in Saudi Arabia since 1940’s. In 1988, Engineer. Batterjee and his brother, Dr. Khalid Batterjee, established the first Saudi German Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with a paid up capital of USD 15 Million. Today SGH Group is a USD 1.5 Billion Company that operates 6 world-class tertiary hospitals. Additionally, various projects are both under construction and in the planning stages in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, etc. The vision of the SGH is to build 30 world-class hospitals, 5 integrated colleges and to provide 50,000 jobs.

Dr. Anthony is the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, and currently serves on the United States Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and its Subcommittee on Sanctions. In 2012, he chaired and was the core lecturer in the Council's 26th Annual 10-Week University Student Summer Internship Program's Academic Seminar on Arabia and the Gulf. For the past 38 years, he has been a consultant and regular lecturer on the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf for the Departments of Defense and State. He is former Chair, Near East and North Africa Program, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State as well as former Chair of the Department's Advanced Arabian Peninsula Studies Seminar. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1986, Dr. Anthony has been a frequent participant in its study groups on issues relating to the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf regions and the broader Arab and Islamic world. More recently, Dr. Anthony was elected to the Board of Advisors of the Yemen College for Middle Eastern Studies. For the Fall 2012 semester, in addition to fulfilling his duties as Council President and CEO and Adviser to the Department of State, he was appointed Dean's Chair in International Studies and Political Science at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, where he taught the Institute's first-ever course on "Politics of the Arabian Peninsula" to First (Senior) and Second (Junior) classmen.

On June 21, 2000, on the occasion of his first official visit to the United States, H.M King Muhammad VI of Morocco knighted Dr. Anthony, bestowing upon him the Medal of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, the nation of Morocco's highest award for excellence. In addition to heading the National Council, consulting, lecturing, and serving as an Adjunct Faculty Member of the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Institute for Security Assistance Management (DISAM) since 1974, Dr. Anthony has been an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies since 2006. There, he developed a course for graduate students on "Politics of the Arabian Peninsula," the first such semester-long academic course to be offered at any American university. In 2007, he was Visiting Lecturer at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. In 2008 he was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo's HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin ‘Abdalaziz Al-Sa'ud Center for American Studies.

In 1983, Dr. Anthony received DISAM's Distinguished Achievement Award, one of three granted to American Middle East specialists in the Institute's history. In March 1989, the Kappa Alpha Order's National Executive bestowed upon him its Distinguished Public Service Award for Excellence "through a strenuous and useful Life of Service to others." In 1993, he received the U.S. Department of State's Distinguished Visiting Lecturer Award, one of three awarded over a span of 25 years in recognition of his preparation of American diplomatic and defense personnel assigned to the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf states. In 1994, he received the Stevens Award for Outstanding Contributions to American-Arab Understanding. In May 2008, the Rotary Club of the Nation's Capital bestowed upon him its first-ever Local Giants Leadership Award.

Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in the former People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (1969-1970). In 1971, he was cosponsored by the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the U.S. Department of State as the sole American scholar to observe at firsthand the process by which the British ceased administering the defense and foreign relations for nine Arab states lining the coastal regions of eastern Arabia and the Gulf. His long experience in Yemen led to Dr. Anthony being asked to serve as an international observer in all four of Yemen's presidential and parliamentary elections.

Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been invited to each of the Gulf Cooperation Council's Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC's inception in 1981. (The GCC is comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). Since 1986 and continuing until the present, Dr. Anthony has accompanied more than 200 Members of Congress, their chiefs of staff, defense and foreign affairs advisers, and legislative and communications directors on fact-finding missions to the Arab world. From 1996 until the present, he has also served as the principal scholar-escort for delegations to various GCC countries, Egypt, and Yemen comprised of 132 officers assigned to the staff of the Commander, U.S. Central Command, including Generals J.H. Binford Peay III, Anthony C. Zinni, Tommy Franks, John P. Abizaid, David Petraeus, James Mattis, and Admiral William Fallon.

Dr. Anthony is the author of three books, the editor of a fourth, and has published more than 175 articles and essays, and five monographs dealing with America's interests and involvement in the Arab countries, the Middle East, and the Islamic world. His best-known works are Arab States of the Lower Gulf: People, Politics, Petroleum; The Middle East: Oil, Politics, and Development (editor and co-author) and, together with J. E. Peterson, Historical and Cultural Dictionary of the Sultanate of Oman and the Emirates of Eastern Arabia. Among his more recent publications are The United Arab Emirates: Dynamics of State Formation, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), 2002; "The Future Significance of the Gulf Cooperation Council," in Global Strategic Developments: A Futuristic Vision, Abu Dhabi, UAE: ECSSR, 2012; "The Intervention in Bahrain through the Lenses of its Supporters" and "Challenges Facing NATO in Afghanistan, Libya, and Iraq," all four published by ECSSR in the Summer and Fall of 2011; "War with Iran: Regional Reactions and Requirements," published by Middle East Policy and the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, 2008; "Strategic Dynamics of Iran-GCC Relations," in Jean-François Seznec and Mimi Kirk, eds., Industrialization in the Gulf: A Socioeconomic Revolution, New York: Routledge, 2011; and "Measuring the Iraq War 'Accomplishments' Through the Lens of Its Authors: A Preliminary Assessment": a revised and edited version of an address presented to the Axis for Peace conference held in Brussels by Voltaire Network, 2005, published by the National Council.

In addition to being the founder and chief facilitator and moderator of the Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference, now in its 21st year, Dr. Anthony has been a founder, board member, and Secretary of the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee; founding President of the Middle East Educational Trust; co-founder of the Commission on Israeli-Palestinian Peace; founding President of the Society for Gulf Arab Studies; co-founder and board member of the National Commission to Commemorate the 14th Centennial of Islam; and founder and former chairman of the U.S.-Morocco Affairs Council. In 2006 he was elected Vice-President and member of the Board of Directors of the International Foreign Policy Association in Washington, D.C.

After completion of his U.S. Army active duty military service, the Commonwealth of Virginia granted Dr. Anthony a four-year State Cadetship Award which allowed him to enroll at Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he received his Bachelor's Degree in History. At VMI, he was elected president of his class all four years in addition to serving as president of the Corps of Cadets' Government General and Executive Committees during his First Class Year. He later earned a Master of Science Degree in Foreign Service (With Distinction) from the Edmund A. Walsh Graduate School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where, in addition to holding one of three University Scholar Awards, he was inducted into the National Political Science Honor Society. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and Middle East Studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C., where he held a National Defense in Foreign Language Scholarship for Arabic, was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, and was appointed in 1973 to SAIS' full-time faculty while still a student. For nearly a decade, Dr. Anthony taught courses on the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf States at SAIS. He has been a Visiting and Adjunct Professor at the Defense Intelligence College, the Woodrow Wilson School of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia, the Universities of Pennsylvania and Texas, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and a regular lecturer at the National War College.

Dr. Anthony passed his proficiency exam in French at the Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in 1966. He passed his proficiency exam in Arabic at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 1969 following study there as well as at Princeton University and the American University in Cairo's Center for Arabic Study Abroad.

Dr. Anthony is married to Cynthia Burns McDonald, Director of the Washington, D.C. Office of the American University in Cairo, and has twin sons.

Dr. Kuo is the Chief Operating Officer of the IES Diagnostics that is developing molecular immune diagnostics tests for use in personalized medicine. IES's proprietary technology from the FDA makes use of this natural enrichment to achieve high sensitivity and specificity for gene transcripts and the expression of genes responsible for auto-immune diseases as a primary focus, though can be used for cancers and other diseases.

Dr. Kuo is a well-known in the life science ecosystem. Dr. Kuo has founded the Laboratory for Innovative Translational Technologies to provide the Harvard biomedical research community with early access to enabling leading edge translational technologies, which was an integral part of the Harvard Catalyst Clinical and Translational Science Center at Harvard Medical School. The model was a collaborative one that interfaces between academics and industry, and its goal is to build communities including public private partnerships around a myriad of technologies in one place and put them to use in the hands of inventors and thought leaders to accelerate the translation of laboratory research in therapeutics and diagnostics into the clinic.

He has initiated and participated with the FDA in a large-scale comprehensive study evaluating the clinical utility of gene expression technologies, both were published in Nature Biotechnology. Dr. Kuo's clinical and translational initiatives has expanded globally in developing countries such as Brazil, China, Mongolia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and South Africa with the hopes to create a framework to accelerate the understanding of mechanisms of human disease and its heterogeneity of expression, to catalyze the identification and development of biomarkers that aid in this process, and to speed the development of therapeutics in patients. Dr. Kuo has also instructed in the Innovation for Economic Development program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Kuo has also been an active member of NIH/SBIR grant review study section for the past 7 years and a peer reviewer for the Qatar National Research Fund for the past 2 years. He sat and advised on the Public-Private-Partnership and Translational CTSA Key Function Committees at the NIH and sits on numerous Scientific Advisory Boards including the Framingham Heart Study, ShanghaiBio, Exosomics, HansaBioMed and Gene Expression to name a few. Dr. Kuo is on the editorial board of several international journals and is Editor-in Chief of the Journal of Circulating Biomarkers and NanoBioMedicine (which he both established). He is also a founder and Trustee of the Otto Heinrich Warburg Cancer Research Foundation, focused to foster, fund, and realize biomedical scientific research aimed at advancing knowledge in science and discovering effective and affordable cancer treatments with a focus on cancer metabolism.

Previously, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Developmental Biology at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and Director and founder of the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science – Laboratory for Innovative Translational Technologies at Harvard Medical School. And prior to leaving Harvard Medical School to industry was the recipient of the prestigious Young Mentor Award.

Ransel Potter has been a guest speaker at financial events in the Middle East and the United States. His contacts throughout the Middle East and the United States are with the top global financial institutions; high net worth families; and, government representatives, including several Sovereign Wealth Funds. He is currently licensed with a Series 7, Series 66 and Series 3.

The founder and Managing Director of COPARA, he continues to build a rewarding career spanning three decades, and multiple industries, including many noteworthy achievements. His abilities to lead, strategize, develop business and maintain relationships have all contributed to his success.

Mr. Potter founded C3 Summit LLC in 2010. The mission of C3 Summit is to ensure that both US and Arab businesses grow and prosper by providing unique and valuable commerce opportunities. By creating a global forum for both the US and the Arab world to explore private/public sector growth and employment generation, C3 Summit hopes to encourage each region to open new opportunities to enhance the welfare of freer trade and the exchange of knowledge transfer and best practices in both commerce and healthcare.

Prior to founding C3 Summit, Mr. Potter has been marketing financial instruments in the Middle East under the umbrella of Copara. He personally negotiated with Value Line the international distribution rights regarding both terms and conditions. In less than 11 months, Mr. Potter established several funds. One funded and managed by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (the 50th strongest bank in the world). He also was successful in marketing a high yield fund for Thomson Reuters with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. The other, The National Investor, a top boutique investment banking house located in Dubai. He was also responsible for engaging with the Abu Dhabi Investment Company (Invest AD) an assignment to incorporate a quantitative ranking system, with a $30 million GCC/MENA fund, managed by Invest AD.

Morgan Stanley recognized the value of Mr. Potter's experience and relationships and, in 2007, they invited him to join the firm. Until December of 2010, Mr. Potter served as a Senior Partner on their Private Wealth Management team responsible for identifying viable business opportunities among high net worth clients, families, hedge funds and foundations. His introductions had been a cornerstone of the team's success producing more than $250 million of net new assets in 36 months. In 1992, Mr. Potter founded Kinloch Marketing and occupied the role of CEO until 2007. Kinloch designed and brought to market sales lead generation and management systems for the Insurance, Banking and Energy industries. Kinloch's success was a direct result of his leadership and a network he established with senior executives of Fortune 1000 companies.

In 1990, his previous achievements were recognized by Flair Communications and he was asked to run their NY office. He merged R.N. Potter Associates with Flair's New York office and built that regional office in to the largest of their five domestic offices, leaving in 1992 to establish Kinloch Marketing. He formed R.N. Potter Associates in 1984, a marketing and sales organization, which he headed until 1989. During that time, Mr. Potter personally initiated, negotiated and developed one of the largest independent contracts for advertising billboards with the Penn Central Corporation.

In 1980, Mr. Potter, together with a partner, started On Line Media, an innovative supermarket ad company. Within three years, they took On Line Media public, raising capital and watching the stock soar. Upon selling his shares of On Line Media in 1984, he formed R.N. Potter Associates. Mr. Potter, a graduate of Syracuse University, has six children and, with his wife, lives in East Hampton, NY.