Charles Lynch, Chairman

A management mentor and advisor resource for existing and emerging businesses, Charlie has had responsibility for 70-plus companies, mainly in consumer related businesses, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and hospitality.

Mr. Lynch graduated from Yale University (B.S. Degree) and received an Honorary Degree of Doctors of Laws from Golden Gate University. He is currently is a director of Fresh Choice, Inc. and Spectrum Organic Products, Inc, and is an advisor for the Food Platform of the Shansby Group, an advisor and board member of a number of Startup companies as well as an advisor to Bain Company and Shari's Management Corporation. He is a the former Chairman and CEO of Saga Corporation, Southern Pacific Transportation Company, Kaiser Tech Aluminum and Chemical Corporation, Consolidated Freightways, Industrial Indemnity, Crocker National Corporation and Crocker National Bank, Inc. DHL Airways, In.c W.R. Grace & Co. and Greyhound Lines, Inc. Mr. Lynch is a director of the Bay Area Council. He also is a former chairman of the California Business Roundtable, as well as, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and a former member of the board of directors and chairman of the United Way of the Bay Area.

Edward M. Gabriel

Ambassador Edward Gabriel has an extensive background in international affairs, having convened multilateral policy forums involving national security, environmental, trade and energy issues. He has been active in advising the US Government on Mideast policy matters. From November, 1997-March 2001, he was the US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco. In addition to his current assignments for multilateral corporations concerning international projects, Ambassador Gabriel is also active with non-profit organizations. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and President of the American Task Force for Lebanon. Previously, Ambassador Gabriel was President and Owner of The Gabriel Group; Senior Vice President in charge of corporate affairs for the CONCORD Corporation; and, President and CEO of the Madison Public Affairs Group, Inc.

Maha Ibrahim

Maha is a Principal at Canaan Partners, a top tier Venture Capital Investment firm, where she focuses on infrastructure, software and data-communications investments. Prior to joining Canaan, Maha held numerous roles at Qwest Communications including Vice President of Business Development and Vice President of eBusiness and Internet Operations. Earlier in her career, Maha was a management consultant with both the Boston Consulting Group and Price Waterhouse.   Maha received a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.  

Margaret Randazzo

Margaret is an executive of the Newspaper Division of Knight Ridder, currently serving as the Assistant to the President and Vice President of the Newspaper Division. Prior to this post Margaret held the Vice President/Controller position responsible for all financial reporting, corporate accounting and risk management from 2001 to 2003.  She has also served as vice president and CFO of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (a subsidiary of Knight Ridder).  Prior to her Knight Ridder career, she was a manager in the Audit and Business Advisory Division of Arthur Andersen LLP.  Raised in Duncan, Oklahoma, Margaret graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1990 with a Bachelors of Business Administration in Accounting.  She is a certified public accountant, a member of the International Newspapers Financial Executives and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.  She and her husband live in San Jose, California with their three children.  

Ali Belhaj

Ali Belhaj is the CEO of SOFILOG and a board member of several companies operating in the Real Estate, Citrus and Olive Oil industries. He also manages the Companie Financière d’Investissements, a financial holding company.  Mr. Belhaj is the founder and President of the Alliance des Libertés political party. A former Member of Parliament (1993-2002), and a former mayor of the Dar-Bouazza Casablanca community (1992-94), he is also the President of Maroc 2020, a Casablanca-based Think Tank founded in 1995 to promote democracy, free market economics and a civil society. Ali is also a member of the Mediterranean Development Forum (MDF) Executive Committee with the World Bank, a member of UNDP and of the Global Leaders of Tomorrow organization (part of the World Economic Forum). He chaired the CGEM sub-committee for ethics in 2000. In addition to directing these political and civil society activities Ali continues volunteering on School Boards (incl. George Washington American School in Casablanca) and was the Moroccan Representative at the US National Prayer Breakfast. Ali was educated in the United States and holds a Masters in Business Administration from University of Southern California – Los Angeles (1985).

Khadija Doukkali

CEO of PEVAP, one of Morocco’s largest fisheries corporations (Deep Sea Fishing and Cold Storage), Khadija is a Founder and the Secretary General of the Moroccan Business Women’s Association, AFEM. In addition she is the General Manager of Annamssaouia (food industry), and a board member of several other companies (real estate, agriculture, textiles). Khadija is an Executive Board Member and President of Sea Fish Industries Federation of CGEM, the Confédération Générale des Entreprises Marocaines (the National Moroccan Business Association). She is also the Co-President of the Moroccan-Chinese Business Council and a member of the Moroccan National Foreign Trade Council. With a French and US educational background, Khadija Doukali earned an Executive MBA from Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, a Masters in International Industrial and Financial Strategy from the University of Paris, and attended the School for International Trading in Bratelboro, VT, and Boston University, MA (economics).

Nancy E. Pfund

Nancy E. Pfund is a Managing Director at JPMorgan. She is currently co-head of JPMorgan’s Bay Area Equity Fund, a private equity fund aimed at investing in emerging growth companies located in or near lower-income neighborhoods of the San Francisco Bay Area. Ms. Pfund joined Hambrecht & Quist, now JPMorgan, in 1984 as a securities analyst and later joined its venture capital department as Principal in 1989. In 1988, President Bush appointed Ms. Pfund as a charter member of the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. In 1999, Ms. Pfund was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Congressional Web-Based Education Commission, which issued its report in the winter of 2000.

Prior to joining JPMorgan, Ms. Pfund worked at Intel Corporation, Stanford University, the State of California, and the Sierra Club. Ms. Pfund received her B.A. and M.A. in anthropology from Stanford University, and her MBA from the Yale School of Management. She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and their two children.

Gail D. McClure

Dr. McClure is vice president for programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role she provides leadership for both the Africa, and Youth and Education, programming areas at the Foundation. Her responsibilities include the review, development, and coordination of programming priorities for these areas. In addition, she is responsible for the cross-cutting theme of Social and Economic Community Development. Before joining the Foundation in 1990, she was vice president for social development programs at the Academy for Educational Development in Washington, D.C. She served as associate director of extension and director of communication resources at the University of Minnesota, where she also taught journalism.

For two years, Dr. McClure conducted cross-cultural research on organizational development in higher education at the University of West Indies, Trinidad. Throughout her career, she has worked in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, as well as the United States. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communication and education from Kansas State University, Manhattan, and earned a doctorate degree in higher education and public policy at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.