Forum Agenda and Participant Biographies - Brookings Institution

Kalsoom lakhani
UnIted StateS
Kalsoom Lakhani is Director of Social Vision, the venture
philanthropy arm of ML Resources, LLC, where
she administers and provides small but critical seed
grants for start-up social enterprises. She is a managing
editor of and helped launch Think Change-Pakistan, a
blog that tracks the social entrepreneurship and innovation
space in the country. Lakhani also founded
and runs the popular blog, CHUP, or Changing Up
Pakistan, which was established in January 2008 and
aims to raise awareness on the issues affecting Pakistan
through news analysis, interviews, and contributions
by young Pakistanis. She has written for The Washington
Post, the Huffington Post, Foreign Policy’s AfPak
Channel, and Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.
Muslim lakhani
UnIted StateS
Muslim Lakhani is Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer of ML
Resources and ML Private Investments,
LLC. He is an entrepreneur
who has developed several
businesses, including natural resource
projects in the Middle East and South Asia for
over thirty years. ML Private Investments was formed
in mid-2008 at the height of the global financial crisis.
Since its inception, the company has significantly
outperformed market benchmarks. As a result of
its success, ML Private Investments has begun the
process of creating a “New Fund” to select high net
worth individuals. ML Resources LLC was founded
in mid-2007 to review investment opportunities that
provide positive returns in today’s uncertain markets.
The company has also created a self-funded strategic
philanthropic division, “ML Resources Social Vision.”
This spirit of enterprise is based on the idea that risk is
rewarded if greed is not the driving factor.
arif lalani
Canada
Arif Lalani is Director General of the Policy Staff for
the Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade of Canada, and a Senior Visiting Fellow with
the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University
of Toronto. He has served as the Canadian Ambassador
to Afghanistan, Jordan, and Iraq. He has been
posted to Turkey, with accreditation to Georgia and
2011 U.S.-ISLAMIC WORLD FORUM
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Azerbaijan, the United Nations in New York, as an
alternative representative to the Security Council, and
Washington, DC. In Ottawa, he worked at the Office
of the Senior Advisor for the Middle East Peace Process,
as Coordinator for the Balkans and as Director
for South Asia. He was the Founder and Chairperson
of the Foreign Ministry’s Working Group on Relations
with Muslim Communities. Arif Lalani currently
serves on the advisory boards of the Munk School
of Global Affairs, the London School of Economics’
Project on Business Model Innovation and the Canadian
Ditchley Foundation. He has a B.A. from
the University of British Columbia and a master’s in
Management, Organizations, and Governance from
the London School of Economics.
Joseph Evan leBaron
UnIted StateS
Joseph Evan LeBaron was sworn
in as Ambassador to the State of
Qatar on July 18, 2008. A career
member of the United States diplomatic
corps, he has previously
served as Ambassador to the Islamic
Republic of Mauritania. Ambassador LeBaron
joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980 after earning
his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton
University. His first assignment was as Vice-Consul
at the U.S. Embassy in Doha. Later postings included
Amman, Ankara, and Istanbul. He then returned to
Washington to become Lebanon desk officer at the
Department of State.
aaron lobel
UnIted StateS
Aaron Lobel founded America
Abroad Media (AAM) and serves
as the organization’s President and
Chairman of the board, as well as
Executive Producer of America
Abroad and AAM Television. Prior
to founding AAM, Lobel was a Research Fellow at
Brookings, National Security Fellow at the John M.
Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University,
and National Security Fellow at the Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government. At the Belfer
Center, he edited Presidential Judgment: Foreign Policy
Decision Making in the White House. Lobel serves on