Board of Trustees

Omar Maani is a businessman and reform driven politician serving in the Jordanian house of senate. Mr. Maani also served as Mayor of Amman, the capital of Jordan, for five years from 2006 during which his proactive approach to urban and community planning and development received global recognition. Prior to his tenure, he was the founder and Chairman of Maani Group, a private sector manufacturing group which he led for the past 30 years. In 2005, he was appointed Vice-Chairman of Vocational Training & Employment for the National Agenda.

From 2002-2006 he served as Board Member with the Social Security Investment Fund and was mandated to act as a trustee of the people’s resources. As a committed businessman and entrepreneur with the vision that economic growth can contribute to the well-being of the country, Mr. Maani served from 2000-2002 on the Board of Directors for the Amman Chamber of Industry. He was also among a small group of founding members of the Young Entrepreneurs Association and is a board member of INJAZ, an association that brings business skills to youth in the region. Mr. Maani completed his BSc in Civil Engineering from the United Kingdom and MSc in Construction Management from the United States. 

Bayan Tal is the senior adviser at the Jordan Media Institute where she also manages the Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Program which seeks to integrate MIL into schools and universities and actively engage all sectors of society in the Kingdom.

Tal has more than 40 years of experience in media and communication. She began her career at the age of 17 as a broadcast journalist, anchor, and later executive, during 25 years of service at the Jordan Radio and Television Corporation (JRTVC).

In 2005, she was charged with establishing the Government Communication Department at the Prime Ministry and was part of a team that drafted The National Agenda – a 10-year comprehensive reform program for Jordan. She moved to the Royal Hashemite Court in 2006 as Director of International Media and Communication for His Majesty King Abdullah II. Tal returned to JRTVC in 2010 as the first female Director General, where her efforts focused on applying professional standards and restoring public confidence in the public service broadcaster.

Ghadeer Khuffash is a workforce and women’s rights activist with a passion for EFE’s mission and a long-term, strategic vision for addressing youth unemployment in Jordan and throughout the MENA region. Trained academically as an engineer and prior to joining EFE-Jordan, Khuffash worked as the Executive Director at Luminus Group, and as a Business Acquisition Manager at DAI. She is now the CEO for Education for Employment- Jordan (EFE-Jordan), a nonprofit organization that is part of network affiliates in Washington, Madrid, Dubai, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and Palestine.

EFE-Jordan works on empowering youth with the needed soft and technical skills and then links them with the private sector with jobs, as well as it provides training for self-employment, based on a demand-driven approach. Under Khuffash’s leadership, EFE-Jordan’s team, outreach, and implementing capacity has increased dramatically, and EFE-Jordan’s continues to establish itself as a national leader in creating economic opportunities for unemployed youth in Jordan.

Mr. Saad Nabil Mouasher is currently the Chairman of Jordan Ahli Bank and is focused on World Class Governance Reform, the deployment of a true “shared prosperity” strategy that delivers holistic and sustainable value to all stakeholders, and disruptive innovation that is supported by a continuous learning and agile corporate culture.

Mr. Mouasher is also Managing Partner of AlNabil – a private, holding company with diversified investment interests in financial services, food & hospitality ventures, and manufacturing industries.

Mr. Mouasher is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He is also a member of Endeavor Venture corps as well as the Young Presidents Organization.

In addition, he is an active mentor and start-up investor and focuses particularly on global, innovation-driven start-ups and businesses with positive and disruptive industry potential. Mr. Mouasher is also a founder and/or served on the board of many non-profit organizations, including The Queen Rania Foundation for Education Reform, the Jordan Strategy Forum, Endeavor, and Naua (the region’s first social impact platform focusing on philanthropy and volunteerism). He earned his BA in Economics from North-western University and his MBA from Stanford University.