Mustafa Faruqi, Chair
Head of Reward and Workplace Relations, Tesco
“I joined Muslim Aid so that I could support others who didn’t have the same chances in life that I was given. Any one of us could be affected by poverty or afflicted by natural disasters so I believe it’s incumbent upon those of us who are more fortunate, to help those who are in need. It’s a real privilege to be able to use my skills to be of service to Muslim Aid who provide relief for some of the most vulnerable people in the world.”
Mustafa is the Head of Reward and Workplace Relations for Tesco which is the largest private sector employer in the UK. Prior to this, he has worked for a number of prominent companies in both the private and public sector including British Airways, Heathrow Airport and Network Rail. His career in human resources has specialised in negotiating with trade unions, implementing workplace change, developing HR policies and managing employee casework including employment tribunals.
Mustafa graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in organisational psychology from City University, London where he also acts as a mentor for BAME students. He has previously served on the workplace advisory committee of the University of West London, providing HR advice to the board and vice chancellor of the university. He is also an employer panel member for the Central Arbitration Committee which is a tribunal of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that resolves collective workplace disputes involving trade unions.
Faria Ali, Vice Chair
Senior Associate at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
Faria Ali, is a corporate lawyer with considerable experience of working for leading international law firms such as Slaughter and May and Herbert Smith Freehills. In addition, she has worked extensively both nationally and internationally with organisations such as the United Nations and the British Red Cross, to promote human rights. This has been in parallel to the work she has done to promote access to the legal profession through Law Link, an organisation that she founded in 2017.
Shahar Zainuddin, Treasurer, Finance Trustee and Chair of the FAC Committee
Corporate advisor in Risk Management, Sustainability & Restructuring
Shahar is a partner with Arabesque Holdings, UK based in London where he is the CEO of Arabesque Q3:17 and responsible for their business and operations in Malaysia for Arabesque Group. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant .
Shahar has also served as CEO of the largest development bank in Southeast Asia, and was also a Board member of an Islamic Commercial Bank. He was previously the Regional Head of Compliance and Financial security for Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank in the Middle East and Africa. He has also served with AAOIFI, and oversaw the development and implementation of Islamic accounting, auditing and Shari’a standards globally. His area of focus is sustainability, risk management, and Islamic finance. He is also a consultant to The World Bank.
Andleen Razzaq, Trustee
International Licensed MasterCoach and Certified Business Coach-Consultant, trainer and educator
Andleen is an international Licensed Master Coach and Certified Business Coach-Consultant, trainer and educator. She has lived and worked in the UK, Singapore and Malaysia and works with clients ranging from corporate executives to those who are change agents in the world.
She was also the lead trainer for the UNHCR-NAWEM (National Association of Women Entrepreneurs in Malaysia) Refugee Micro Entrepreneurship Development Programme based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Andleen currently runs a number of humanitarian projects to create sustainable long term solutions for refugees who have limited access to education and work opportunities, with a focus on supporting single mothers.
She is a former Senior Adviser to the UK Secretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government where she worked with diverse communities to develop inclusive cultures through policy work. She is also a Principal Lead Facilitator for two nationwide projects that seeks to train women to take on leadership positions within their communities and to specifically train Black, Indigenous and People of Colour wanting to work in political office.
Andleen is the founder of a number of charities, including The City Circle, a safe, independent and inclusive space for communities to self-critically discuss and debate issues that concern them and where she initiated its flagship project, The Saturday School. She is a former trustee to Al Manaar, the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, it's mission was to serve, educate, empower and inspire people to play an active and positive role in building cohesive and sustainable communities at a spiritual, social, economic and cultural level. She is co- founder of Critical Xchange in Singapore, a platform that seeks to create a progressive, dynamic and globally integrated professional community for expatriates and Singaporeans to mutually develop and benefit both communities.
Andleen has engaged in global community development with a passion for education, gender equality and self growth for more than twenty years and remains active in a number of philanthropic ventures.
Sara Pantuliano, Trustee
CEO of the Overseas Development Institute
“I am proud to be joining Muslim Aid as Vice-Chair of the Board. Muslim Aid works in some of the world’s most brutal crises, partnering with local organisations to provide life-saving support and long-term opportunities to the world’s most vulnerable people. Muslim Aid has a well-established presence in countries affected by armed conflict and violence, such as Sudan, Somalia and Syria, which have long been a focus of my work. I very much look forward to working with Muslim Aid to further and evolve the agency’s efforts in the face of today’s changing humanitarian and development landscapes.”
Sara Pantuliano is a Managing Director at ODI, where she has led the humanitarian team for six years.
Sara is a member of the Global Future Council on the Humanitarian System of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Managing Editor of Disasters Journal, a Trustee of SOS Sahel and IRIN news, and has served on a range of advisory boards, including Oxford University’s Refugees Studies Centre and the UN Association of the UK.
She previously led a high-profile UN response in the Nuba Mountains, acted as an observer at the IGAD Sudan peace process and lectured at the University of Dar es Salaam. She has written extensively on Sudan, conflict and humanitarian affairs.
Mohammed Abdul Aziz
Director, Aziz Foundation
Mohammed Abdul Aziz completed his LLM at UCL and was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in 1996. He worked as a teacher, police officer, and a lawyer. Abdul Aziz has also served as a Council Member of Liberty and a Trustee of the Book Foundation and the East London Mosque & London Muslim Centre.
Abdul Aziz was the founding CEO of FAIR (2000-3) and the British Muslim Research Centre (2003-5). He has also served as a Commissioner at the Commission for Racial Equality (2003-7) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (2005-7) and on the Commission for Equality & Human Rights Taskforce and Steering Group (2003-6) and the TUC’s Commission on Vulnerable Employment (2006-8). He was elected Chair of the European Network of Racism (ENAR) for 2007-10 and Vice-Chair of the Equality and Diversity Forum for 2010-14. During this period, he was also a Director of FaithWise Ltd and a Consultant Senior Advisor to the UK Government on Race, Faith & Integration (2004-11). He has also sat on two national Honours Committees at the request of the Cabinet Office (2005-11).
Abdul Aziz was a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University (2010-12), Director of the Centre for Policy and Public Education at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge (2012-15) and an Associate Member of St Edmund's College, Cambridge (2013-15). Between 2013-16.
Saima Raza-Nevinnykh
Assistant Director for Helpline Contracts and Partnerships
Saima currently works for an anti-racism and anti-hate crime prevention charity as an Assistant Director leading on contracts and partnerships. Her background is in campaigning (Palestinian self-determination, modern slavery, climate change), working as an advocate for victims of human trafficking, as a researcher, movement building/engagement, community development and project management. She has worked in over ten countries including Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in refugee camps on the Greek Islands and the territory of Kashmir. In a previous role she supported an INGO as the Programmes Manager, Global Programmes Department, overseeing the Middle East programme portfolio with a focus on Iraq and Yemen, which involved designing interventions ranging from health, WASH, and shelter to emergency response.
She has extensive experience managing humanitarian and development initiatives in Southern Asia where she’s launched and oversaw over 75 projects. She was formerly an advisor to the Board of Bonyan Organisation, a Middle-East based humanitarian charity and has served on the Boards of Trustees for Stop Hate UK, Migrant Help and Women Working Worldwide. She is also a Fellow with NGO Commeet (Netherlands), a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA) and worked as a Researcher for the Centre for Human Rights, Migration and Multiculturalism in Indonesia investigating the climate change - human trafficking nexus across Asia Pacific.
She is the Founder of the small London-based project Under One Sky which provides story-telling and learning initiatives for refugee children. She holds an LLB Law (Hons), LLM (Masters) Human Rights from SOAS and LLM International Law (Dist.) specialising in international environmental law from Sussex as well as postgraduate qualifications in African Colonial History and Peace & Reconciliation Studies. She has recently completed a Diploma in Global Leadership from the Centre of Executive Education at the United Nations, University of Peace.
Dr. Amjad Mohamed Saleem
Manager: Volunteering, Youth and Education Development
Amjad Mohamed Saleem is a political scientist with extensive knowledge on peace building, humanitarian affairs, South Asian studies, Interfaith Engagement, and development work. He currently works for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies as the Manager of the Global Volunteer, Youth and Education Development Unit and is a former Country Director of Muslim Aid’s offices in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He has also worked in the past with International Alert, KAICIID, Search for Common Ground, Islamic Development Bank, the Commonwealth Foundation, the Cordoba Foundation and Islamic Relief.
Amjad sits on the leadership council of the Joint Learning Initiative for Faith and Communities and is co-chair of their advocacy working group on their Fair and Equitable Work Stream. He was a thematic advisor for the World Humanitarian Summit (2014-2016), the vice chair for the NEAR Network (2016) and civil society advisor to the Commonwealth Foundation (2012-2014).. He is an alumni of the International Visitors Leadership Program, an alumni of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and a Hive Global Leaders Fellow. He has an M.Eng from Imperial College, London, a MBA from U21 Global Singapore and a PhD from Exeter University.
Dr Zaza Johnson Elsheikh
International Academy of Mediators
Dr Zaza Johnson Elsheikh is an accomplished leader in both public and private sectors with more than a decade of experience of founding and leading grass roots based charitable organisations in the UK. Crucially, Zaza’s innovative dialogue-building skills and fund-raising ideas have helped her to swiftly mobilise communities and donors to support urgent humanitarian crises as President of the Sudanese Legal Network and Chair of Gift Foundation.
With the benefit of professional experience as a Medical Doctor (University College London 1994) and as a Solicitor (Hempsons 2004), Zaza is able to rapidly distill, and resolve, complex Commercial, Family and Workplace disputes, as a Mediator.
Additionally, Zaza regularly delivers conflict resolution internationally and is a Faculty member of CEDR and a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators.
Having a mixed cultural (Jamaican-Sudanese) and religious (Baptist-Muslim) heritage and experience of living and working abroad, means that Zaza has lived, as well as professional, experience of inclusion and diversity.
Zaza’s conflict resolution expertise enhances her online delivery of “Exploration of the Quran” for groups of women, forming a vibrant online Al Ihsaan Community. Pre-marital and relationship counselling also form a significant part of her work.
We are a faith-based British international charity that provides help to people who are victims of natural disasters or conflict or suffering from poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, injustice, deprivation or lack of skills and economic opportunities.
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Charity CIO No. 1176462
Serving humanity since 1985.
