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Board of Trustees

SHORT BIOS OF TRUSTEES

 

Linda F. Robertson, Ph.D.

 Chair

Dr. Linda F. Robertson served as the Director of the Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education at Kent State University, Kent OH USA for two decades after being a school principal for 17 years. In this capacity, Robertson hosted hundreds of visiting teachers and professors from around the world in the Aggarwal-Blackburn Visiting Professor Program as well as the US Department of State’s Fulbright Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program and the former International Leaders in Education Program. Her funded development work has been financed by USAID, UNESCO, Turkish National Government, SIDA, and others. She is a founding member of the Tigris Euphrates Initiative for Cooperation, a track 2 diplomacy of academics in water-based development. Dr. Robertson has been named recipient of the university’s 2016 Dr. Daniel Mahony Award for Social Responsibility and Diversity. The award is given annually by University College and the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to an individual or organization that has achieved eminence for distinctive service relating to and/or enhancing diversity in a humanitarian nature, positively impacting the Kent State community.

Dr. Robertson serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of the Cleveland Council of World Affairs, and on Human Resources, Education, and Governance committees as well.   She has degrees from the University of Wyoming, University of Akron, Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, and Kent State University.   Her area of scholarship has been leadership, including university presidential leadership, as well as international and intercultural topics. 

Enver Yucel

 Founder and Vice-Chair

Enver Yücel was born in 1957 in Giresun, Turkey. He devoted all his life to education and considers education as the most important problem that needs to be solved in the world. Enver Yücel is the Chairman of the Executive Board of Bahçeşehir Uğur Educational Institutions, which has established more than 200 K-12 schools in Turkey, an international boarding school in Brockville, Canada, a non-profit university in Istanbul, Turkey, and other education-focused companies like school construction and educational technologies.

Mr Yücel then established non-profit universities in Washington, D.C. in 2014, in Berlin in 2014, in Batumi (Georgia) in 2015, in Nicosia (Cyprus) in 2016, and Plymouth (England) in 2019. He established language schools (Mentora College) in Washington, D.C., Toronto, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolila), Azerbaijan, and Turkey. 

Mr Yucel serves in the boards of these educational institutions. He was granted the award of “Perfection in Education” by the International American Educators Association (PDK) in 2012 for his successes in the design and implementation of innovative and personal education and training programs, and contributions to international education.

Enver Yücel was granted the award of the “Contribution to Global Education” in the UNCA Awards hosted by the United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon in 2014. Enver Yücel, the first Turkish person to receive this award in the world, received his award from Ban Ki-moon himself.

In 2015, Foedus Foundation in Italy awarded Enver Yücel with the “Foedus Special Award” for his contributions to education. In 2016, Yücel had speeches about the refugee problem and discussed what should be done about it during a session within the scope of the 46th year meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He emphasized that education is the solution for this problem. In 2017, Enver Yücel was deemed worthy of the “Leadership in Global Education” award by the Global Education and Research Center (GLOCER) in the USA for his works in the field of education.

Paul Brunson

Board Member

In the last six years, entrepreneur, author, and television host, Paul Carrick Brunson has become recognized internationally as one of the most successful matchmakers and small business leaders. Paul is the founder and chairman of the award-winning matchmaking firm, PCBA. His boutique company of 9 matchmakers, counselors, and coaches is considered one of the leading firms in the sector, receiving the iDate Best Matchmaker and Best Relationship Coaching of the Year awards in 2015. He received an NAACP Image Award nomination for his first book entitled: It’s Complicated (But It Doesn’t Have to Be): A Modern-Day Guide to Finding and Keeping Love. Appearing as the co-host on Oprah Winfrey Network’s Lovetown, USA, Oprah Winfrey notes, “Paul is much more than a matchmaker!” Debuting this Fall, Paul will host and produce a primetime docu-series on ABC. Currently, Paul hosts Our World by Black Enterprise, a weekly syndicated network and cable TV show where he interviews today’s top newsmakers and business leaders. Earlier in the year, it was announced Columbia Pictures secured the rights to Paul’s life story to create a film about him being a pioneering Matchmaker.

Paul’s insights and unique understanding of relationships and personal development have made him a sought-after expert on interpersonal relationships and entrepreneurship, having appeared in over 350 major media outlets around the world – including appearances on Good Morning America, The Today Show, Nightline, CNN, Entertainment Tonight, the Washington Post, Black Enterprise, Essence, Ebony, and more. Awarded the Innovator of the Year by the Jamaican Impact Organization, he is the proud host and creator of the popular, educational #MentorMonday webinar series. During those sessions, Paul – along with other successful guest mentors – offers practical advice for big dreams. An advocate of global awareness and education, Paul founded and chairs a non-profit organization called “Give Love Build Hope” dedicated to transforming schools in rural areas of the Caribbean. He founded and chairs a professional organization called “BLIP – Black Love Industry Professionals.” He serves on the Board of Directors for Bay Atlantic University in Washington, D.C. He also sits on the Board of Advisors for The Matchmaking Institute, the oldest matchmaking professional organization.

Paul is a graduate from both Old Dominion University and the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He resides in Washington DC with his wife of 14 years, Jill and their sons Kingston and Liam.

 

William Hansen

Board Member

Between 1991 and 1993, Hansen served in the administration of PresidentGeorge H. W. Bushas Assistant Secretary of Education for Management and Budget, the chief financial officer for the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to that time, Hanson did a one-year stint as an acting Assistant Secretary for Legislation and Congressional Affairs, also with the Education Department. From 1993 until his appointment to the Department of Education, Hansen was the president and CEO of the Education Finance Council, a trade organization which represents private sector student loan providers with a portfolio of approximately $40 billion.

As Deputy Secretary, Hansen functioned as Department’s chief executive officer, managing 5,000 employees, and overseeing an annual budget of $100 billion. He earned the highest ratings from the Office of Management and Budget for the effective implementation of President Bush’s agenda and was one of the architects of theNo Child Left Behind Act.

Following his government service, Hansen took a board seat with First Marblehead Corporation, a private student loan provider, and he co-founded, with formerU. S. Secretary of EducationRod Paige, the Chartwell Groupa company which, among other things, created and sold materials to assist schools in complying with theNo Child Left Behind Act.

Hansen holds a B.S. in economics from George Mason University and Idaho State University. He has served on numerous boards over the years including the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education, the Student Loan Finance Corporation, Collegenet and the College Access Foundation. He is currently a member of the Romney Institute Advisory Board at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management.  Hansen lives in McLean Virginia, is married and the father of six children.

 

Fred B. Bratman

Board Member

Fred B. Bratman is the senior vice president, corporate communications, and investor relations at the United Rentals since 2013. He served as the vice president – investor relations and corporate communications at the same company between 2001 to 2004 and 2008 to 2013. In the interim, Mr. Bratman was executive vice president of Hyde Park Communications and president of Hyde Park Financial Communications, New York. Prior to United Rentals, Mr. Bratman served as director of marketing and communications for Deutsche Bank/North America; and vice president of Sard Verbinnen, a financial communications agency. Earlier in his career, Mr. Bratman was a financial journalist and editor at McGraw-Hill and Dow Jones.

He holds a Master of Science in journalism, a bachelor’s in history of political ideas from London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Bachelor of Political Science from City University of New York.

 

Joanne Dowdell

Board Member

As a successful businesswoman, Joanne has decades of experience creating jobs, helping build a sustainable future and growing the economy. Between 1989 and 2002, Dowdell worked in the DC area for Congressional Quarterly and FDA News. In 2003, she moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to become Vice President and Director of Corporate Responsibility for Citizens Advisers. From 2008 through 2010, Dowdell was the Senior Vice President and Director of Corporate Responsibility for the Sentinel Financial Services Company in Montpelier, Vermont. She started running for office in 2011.

Joanne has extensive experience in corporate social responsibility and sustainability, corporate communications and business leadership. She moved to New Hampshire nearly a decade ago to work as a senior executive in the socially responsible investment industry (SRI). Joanne led the environmental, social and governance research on companies being considered for investment. Her accomplishments include helping companies improve the transparency and disclosure of business practices, directing capital to community investment vehicles, shining light on human rights abuses and removing toxic chemicals from consumer products and the environment. Joanne has worked with national and international coalitions of labor organizations, business leaders and both public and private sector agencies to advance public policy, SRI strategies and improve corporate social responsibility practices. 

Joanne received her B.A. from the School of Communications at Howard University and is affiliated with organizations that impact a broad range of social issues. She is a member of the board of directors for the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail and served on the board of the Social Investment Forum.

 

Mark Christian Medish

Board Member

Mark Medish has over 30 years of professional experience in policy, law, finance, risk management and strategic communications. Medish served at The White House as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council and at the U.S. Treasury as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs. He also worked at the State Department and the United Nations.

Medish is vice chair and director of Project Associates Ltd., a London-headquartered strategic advisory firm. He is also a founding partner of Mosaiq Law Group, PLLC based in Washington, D.C. He is a co-founder of Keep Our Republic, a 501(c)(3) civic education organization promoting rule of law and democratic culture. His prior leadership posts have included: president of a boutique strategic communications firm based in Washington, D.C.; president of the global private equity division of an asset management company headquartered in Chicago; and equity partner at an international law firm where he led the sovereign advisory practice.

Medish serves on several corporate and non-profit advisory boards. His opinion columns on policy topics appear in leading media outlets. He has participated at Bilderberg, Davos, Milken and other major international conferences. He was as a senior scholar and vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Medish was educated at Georgetown, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. His languages include Russian, German and Danish.

 
 

Tam Nguyen, DBA

Board Member

Tam Nguyen has twenty years of progressive, diversified experience in sustainability, corporate diplomacy, strategy and management, and intrapreneurship. He’s the global head of sustainability for Bechtel Corporation, an international engineering and construction company, and president of bechtel.org, its social enterprise. He formulated Bechtel’s sustainability strategy and directs implementation across the enterprise. He also leads various internal start-ups and initiatives, stakeholder and policy planning on climate change, human rights, and economic inclusion; and supports new business development.

Tam is a member of the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation Advisory Council, vice-chair of the corporate responsibility committee and the Sustainable Development Goals task force of the U.S. Council for International Business, and a board member of Chevron’s Niger Delta Partnership Initiative – a social enterprise he helped create.  Prior to joining Bechtel, he was the global manager for strategic issues, policy and corporate responsibility at Chevron Corporation where he advanced its corporate diplomacy practice, directed implementation of Chevron’s human rights policy and program, and served as the principal advisor to the executive committee on global issues. Concurrently, he chaired the social responsibility working group of IPIECA, a global oil and gas association in London, and led its transformation into the industry’s authoritative body to implement the new United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Earlier in his career he worked for the Asian Development Bank in the Philippines and the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC as a regional cooperation specialist and established the first partnership agreement between the two Banks. Educated in the United States, Europe, and Asia, he’s a graduate of George Washington University, and holds a doctorate in business administration and two masters’ degrees in international business and international development. He was awarded visiting fellowships to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation in Tokyo and the Center for Corporate Responsibility of the Asian Institute of Management in Manila. Tam is currently a Dean’s Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Darden Business School.

 

Adam Saffer, Ph.D.

Board Member

Adam Saffer is an international business and development professional with over 35 years of global investment, development, and executive management experience in frontier and emerging markets. He is known for his skills in helping companies scale, raising local as well as international commercial as well as concessionary finance, and co-creating implementable strategies and milestones to achieve mutual objectives. This includes a distinct focus on human capital development, internal and external strategic and market alignment, tech-enabled solutions to improve efficiency and profitability, and intra-regional trade.

Most recently, he was the Managing Director of the Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Facility, where he built a local team of 40 Nigerians working in 7 regional offices and raised over USD $50 million in debt and equity transactions from bilateral donors (USAID, DFID, EU, GIZ), multilateral development banks (World Bank, IFC, DFC, African Development Bank), and corporate foundations (BMGF, Master Card, Chevron Foundation). Key interventions centered around governance, attracting, retaining, and developing staff with the right skills and temperament, and facilitating relationships with buyers, suppliers, financial institutions, local government, and other stakeholders that are built on respect, confidence, and trust (2018-2020). Before Nigeria, he was in Egypt for 3 years where he ran an entrepreneurship and enterprise development project for USAID and an agricultural export project for the UNIDO.

Throughout his career, Adam’s insights on organizational development, restructuring capital, behavioral change, and operational improvements within enterprises have improved revenues for small and medium size enterprises ranging from USD $5 million – USD $50 million. From 2008-2010, Adam was the President of the Americas for Coffey Ltd., an Australian publicly traded USD $4 billion engineering and development firm (later purchased by Tetra Tech in 2015). In this role, with full P&L responsibility and a target for acquisitive growth in North and South America, he boosted net income by an average of over 20% annually. In South Africa (1997-2002), he was the CEO of ECI Africa, a private consulting firm focusing on creating market opportunities for black-owned SME manufacturing and service firms. Under his leadership, ECI grew from 2 to over 50 full time staff, raised over USD $200 million in blended finance (soft loans, grants, and commercial investments), and created 18,000 jobs.

Adam holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Cornell University, an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and a Ph.D. from Pacific University. He speaks English and French and currently serves on the board of the Global Policy Institute in Washington, DC. He is also the chair of the Abuja International Choir, an avid guitarist, ocean sailor, scuba diver, wood worker, and squash player.

 

Peter Schechter

Board Member

Peter Schechter is a global policy expert, political strategist, and business leader. Peter is an innovative international strategic thinker who has launched organizations that today are leaders in communications, policy, public affairs, and hospitality.  Schechter hosts and produces Altamar, a critically acclaimed global affairs podcast. Guests are policymakers, journalists, and business leaders.  He is an official columnist for BRINK NewsAtlantic Magazine’s political risk platform.  He has been involved in supporting Vice President Biden’s presidential campaign and served on the National Finance Committee for Kirsten Gillibrand for President.  Schechter still consults for a small number of high-level clients.  

 Until 2017, Schechter was the Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives for the Atlantic Council, a prestigious Washington-based think tank. He took a break from politics and communications to join the Atlantic Council in 2013 – initially as the Founding Director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.  In just a few years, Peter grew the Latin America to become one of the most prestigious policy centers on hemispheric affairs. Peter pushed the Council to overcome an elite bias and become a more activist and outward-oriented institution using new media and targeting non-traditional audiences across diverse geographies and issues.  He is the co-founder and intellectual author of Immigrant Food, a cause-casual restaurant company that fuses gastronomy and  immigration advocacy.  The first Immigrant Food location opened in November 2019 to rave reviews in many leading national and D.C.-based media outlets.

Peter speaks six languages fluently and is a sought-out media voice on global issues – in English as well as for Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian media. Schechter spent much of his professional life advising heads of state, political campaigns and business leaders around the globe.  He served as the lead consultant on a number of high-stakes elections – in Latin America, Africa and the former Soviet Union. Schechter co-founded Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates, and, in a few years, it became one of Washington’s premier strategic communications consulting firms.  He left CLS in 2013.

A graduate of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Schechter teaches about the intersection of international business, communications, and politics. He was a visiting professor at Ben Gurion University’s (BGU) Faculty of Business and Management and was appointed to BGU’s Board of Directors in 2012. Schechter was an adjunct professor at George Washington University, and is a published author of two novels with Harper Collins: Point of Entry and Pipeline (Newsweek called it “a rip-roaring novel about terrorism, nuclear plots and presidential dating.”) He helped launch, was a Board member and is a long-time investor in Jose Andres’ restaurant group. He co-owned Agur Winery, a boutique winery in Israel, and co-manages a Virginia goat farm.

 

Ahu Yildirmaz, Ph.D.

Board Member

Ahu Yildirmaz is the Chief Executive Officer of the Coleridge Initiative, a not-for-profit organization, whose goal is to use data to transform the way governments access and use data for the social good through training programs, research projects and a secure data facility. The secure facility was initially built at the behest of the Census Bureau to inform the decision-making of the Commission on Evidence Based Policy.

Previously, as the founder and former Head of the ADP Research Institute, Dr. Yildirmaz created a legacy framework of unique data analyses and insights leveraging company’s administrative payroll data, which included developing the ADP National Employment Report, Workforce Vitality Report and Evolution of Work research series. She is frequently cited by leading business publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reuters, CNBC, CNN, and Forbes.

Throughout her career, Dr. Yildirmaz’s interest in research and data has been guided in their application for public good. Her experience includes several roles with progressing responsibilities at ADP, Johnson & Johnson, and AT&T in the areas of research, strategy, corporate finance, and market insights. She has taught courses in economics and finance at New York University, Manhattan College, and the City University of New York.

Dr. Yildirmaz earned a doctorate degree in Economics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Bogazici University, Istanbul.

Sinem Vatanartiran, Ph.D.

BAU President, Ex Officio Member

Sinem Vatanartıran holds a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership and Administration and has demonstrated a long commitment to education, with her experience in teaching at and leading educational institutions from Pre-K to University. She worked as an instructor at Baskent University, Ankara, Turkey from 1995 to 2000. Since 2000, she has been working at Bahcesehir Ugur Educational Institutions at various levels: In 2002, she established Ugur Career Services Center offering career counseling programs nationwide and training school counselors and leaders on career counseling. Under her leadership, a career inventory test was developed and implemented nationwide that enabled to draw the career map of Turkey. She was then appointed as the high school principal of Bahcesehir K-12 Schools, the largest independent network of K-12 schools in Turkey, and in 2006 Dr. Vatanartiran established the first Science and Technology High School in Turkey. In 2008, she established Turkey’s first Children’s Science Museum, housed at Bahçeşehir K-12 Schools. Today, all Bahçeşehir K-12 School campuses in Turkey holds a children’s science museum. Dr. Vatanartiran was appointed as the Dean of Graduate School of Education, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul in 2012 to 2018. Dr. Vatanartiran has been a prolific publisher in the field of education, including a weekly column in a national newspaper, Vatan. Her scholarly research and publishing focus on higher education leadership, school leadership, educational technologies, educational change and reforms, student achievement, and teacher development. Dr. Vatanartiran is the founding President of Bay Atlantic University.


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