Who's Who

Raficq Abdulla MBE (Lawyer, interpreter of Rumi and Attar, broadcaster and writer; Chairman of the Trustees of the Festival of Muslim Cultures)

Lord Ahmed of Rotherham

Mahmood Ahmed (Corporate lawyer and former President of the Ismaili Council for the UK; Trustee of the Festival of Muslim Cultures)

Syed Mohamad Albukhary (Founder Director of the Museum of Islamic Art, Malaysia)

H.E. Khaled al-Duwaisan GCVO (Ambassador, The State of Kuwait and
Dean of the Diplomatic Corps of the Court of St James)

Majid Dawood (CEO of Yasaar, Shariah compliance services company; Trustee of the Festival of Muslim Cultures)

Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi (Head of International Development, Al-Khoei Foundation, London; Trustee of the Festival of Muslim Cultures)

Satish Kumar (Editor of Resurgence)

Sarah Joseph (Editor Emel magazine)

Mohamed Keshavjee, Institute of Ismaili Studies

Lord Lamont of Lerwick

H.E. Dr Maleeha Lodhi, High Commissioner for Pakistan

Neil MacGregor (Director of the British Museum)

Professor Azim Nanji (Director, the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London)

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP

Lady Mohini Kent Noon

Sir Gulam Noon MBE (Chairman, Noon Group)

Mushtak Parker (Editor, Islamic Banker magazine)

Mr Risal M. Risaluddin MBE (The Calamus Foundation)

Shahwar Sadeque (Former BBC Governor and former Commissioner of the Commission for Racial Equality; Trustee of the Festival of Muslim Cultures)

Terry Sandell (Director, British Council, Ukraine)

Sir Sigmund Sternberg (Co-Founder, Three Faiths Forum)

Dr Richard Stone (Director of the Stone Ashdown Trust)

Baroness Pola Uddin

BIOGRAPHIES OF TRUSTEES

Raficq Shaikh Abdulla (Chair)

Mahmood Ahmed was born in Kampala and educated in Uganda and England, going on to read law at Oxford University. He subsequently obtained an MBA at the European Institute of Business Administration in Fontainebleau before completing his legal training in London and qualifying as a lawyer in 1980. Now a partner with Evans Dodd, a law firm based in central London, he advises businesses on cross-border transactions, capital raising, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and partnerships. He has over many years combined his professional work with a number of honorary positions in the voluntary sector. He is a former President (1996-2002) of the Ismaili Council for the UK and has extensive policy and managerial experience in the voluntary sector, particularly in community and charitable assignments in both the developing and industrialised worlds. As well as being a Trustee of the Festival of Muslim Cultures, he is currently a member of the Advisory Council of the Three Faiths Forum and a member of the Approval Panel of the Adventure Capital Fund.

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Majid Siddique Dawood

Majid is the founding Chief Executive of Yasaar, the first Shariah compliance services company where the scholars are shareholders and Directors. Yasaar was awarded the Deloitte & Touche award for the most innovative Islamic finance product 2004. Yasaar´s clients include, among others, Bemo Securitization, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Morgan Stanley, Bank of Ireland and Societe Generale. Prior to joining Yasaar, Majid was a Director of MMI plc, a FTSE listed financial public relations company and BRR Investments. He holds a BA (Economics) from the University of Massachusetts. Majid was country representative (Pakistan) for Credit Lyonnais Securities (Asia) Ltd as well as capital markets consultant to Credit Lyonnais and Jardine Fleming. In this role he regularly advised on privatisation and capital market issues.

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Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi

A law graduate, Nadeem has worked in human rights advocacy and humanitarian development since 1991. He is currently Head of International Development at Al-Khoei Foundation, London and New York (where he represents the latter at the United Nations), and is a consultant to HRH Prince El-Hassan bin Talal.

Nadeem is active in promoting interfaith relations and is a member, inter alia, of Amnesty International´s UK Ethnic Minorities Working Group, the Royal Institute for International Affairs, and the Toda Institute, Hawaii. He is also editor of the current affairs Islamic monthly, Dialogue. He has written essays and chapters for, among others, The Yearbook on Islamic and Middle Eastern Law (SOAS, University of London), Orbit (the magazine of Voluntary Services Overseas), The Guardian newspaper, The Independent, Science and Theology News, The Bridge, and Voluntary Voice.

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Mrs Shahwar Sadeque

Shahwar Sadeque is an Educational & ICT Consultant and Managing Director of TriEs Ltd, an educational software company. In her work she is active in promoting the use of ICT to enhance the learning and teaching both in the UK and overseas. Being a British-Muslim originating from Bangladesh, she has an international perspective in matters related to education, social and political affairs in Britain of today. She has a 1^st Class BSc (Hons) Degree and an M Phil in Physics and also an MSc in IT. She spent ten years teaching Physics in a Selective School in Sutton, Surrey; in April 2002 she finished a six-year term as a Governor of Kingston University. Since 1989 she has served in many Public Bodies, often requiring the knowledge and understanding in the field of education and training. She served five years as a Governor of the BBC; was a member of SCAA for its lifetime and a member of NCET; a member of the CRE. Also in April 2002 she has completed her 12-year term as a member of a Housing Action Trust. She is a member of the VAT & Income and Corporation Tax Tribunals. Also in 2004 she completed a six year term as a Commissioner at the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission.

She is a member of the Royal College of Physicians Committee on Ethical Issues in Medicine and is also a member of the Patient Information Advisory Group, Department of Health. She was a member of the Working Party on Healthcare-related Research in Developing Countries, Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

She has been serving as a Special Representative of the Secretary of State at the FCO and has served, from January 1999 until December 2004, as a member of the Lord Chancellor´s Advisory Council on National Archives. She was a Trustee of the Windsor Leadership Trust. She has also been appointed, from 1st April 2000, as a Trustee of the IAS, Immigration Advisory Service and is now its Deputy Chairman.

She has been to Kuwait and Bangladesh to deliver training and seminars with the British Council.

In spite of serving on so many Public bodies, she has maintained her passion and strong commitment to education and the use of ICT in teaching and learning in UK schools.

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David Ure

David Ure was educated at Glasgow Academy and Merton College, Oxford, where he read Modern History.

In August 2004 David ceased working for Reuters Group after a 36 year career there. His remaining relationship with Reuters is representation of the company on the board of Independent Television News.

David joined Reuters, then only a 3 million turnover concern, as a trainee journalist in 1968. From 1977 until 1981 he ran the project which produced Reuters first and still very successful transaction product for the foreign exchange market. In the eighties he was responsible for the Company´s business in Europe, Middle East and Africa (60 per cent of the total). In 1988 he was elected to the main Board, on which he served until July 2000. In the nineties, as one of a small group of directors running the enterprise under CEO Peter Job, he supervised group marketing, product development and technical policy. In that capacity in 1994 he was responsible for the acquisition of Teknekron resulting in 1999 in the float of TIBCO Software Inc, on which board he served for three years. In 2000 he led the project which resulted in the creation of Radianz (the Reuters/Equant joint venture to create a financial market extranet which was recently sold to British Telecom). He was non-executive Chairman of Radianz (2000 to 2004). In 2001, when Tom Glocer took over as CEO of Reuters, he was appointed to his last role, as Strategic Advisor to the Board responsible for group strategy and marketing. Additionally, David chaired the Reuters Foundation, the group´s charity arm.

Outside Reuters, his board experience includes a spell from 1998-2000 as a non-executive director of Woolwich Plc until it was acquired by Barclays Bank. In January 2004 he joined the Board of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. as a non-executive Director and in October 2004 he became Chairman of Iris Financial Ltd., an Apax investment specialising in trading room software. In January 2006, he became Chairman of Neteconomy, a Dutch company owned by Cazenove Private Equity, specialising in risk management in the financial services sector.

MANAGEMENT TEAM

Festival Director: Isabel Carlisle

Festival and Partnerships Coordinator: George Littlejohn

Programme Director Humanities and the Arts: Hammad Nasar

Hammad is responsible for the contemporary visual arts and humanities streams within the Festival. Hammad is an independent curator, writer and publisher working primarily with artists of South Asian origin. His special interest is in the practice of artists trained in the miniature tradition, and he is currently advising the Victoria and Albert Museum on developing a collection of contemporary miniatures. Born in Pakistan, Hammad formerly worked as a banker and strategy consultant.