Catalyzer Team

During the past 45 years, Ira has propelled business impact as a Transformation Strategist, CEO, Social Entrepreneur, and Educator. Based on management experience spanning business, nonprofit, and education across six continents, he develops methodologies that potentize the TEST Values to empower business transformation. Ira challenges leaders, entrepreneurs, and students to reflect on their assumptions to discover culturally sensitive, sustainable solutions that fuel purposeful action. 

His company, Entwine Digital, works with midsize organizations and multinationals to design values-based digital transformation and train World Class Leaders. At his Catalyzer Lab, he develops VBID (Values-Based, Impact-Driven) Training, a transformative learning platform integrating values with emerging  technologies and human-centered business practices to fuel inclusive, sustainable ventures. As a co-founder of Global Transformation Corps, he redirects entrepreneurship to a stakeholder-centric model with sustainable impacts.

 Earning his PhD at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Ira worked with Dr. Philip Kotler to advance social marketing and business as a catalyst for social change. At University of Lynchburg College of Business, he co-founded the Transformative Leadership Lab to challenge executives to accelerate innovation and change. He co-authored Digital Marketing: Integrating Strategy, Tactics with Human-centered Values (now in 2nd edition) and EMPOWER US! From Crisis) to Strategic Harmony (2020)

As a graduate of The George Washington University School of Business concentrating in International Business, with a minor in Sustainability, I had the privilege of engaging across the globe in emerging markets including China, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia. My diverse background has contributed to a globally-focused business mindset.

I have enjoyed developing my professional and personal skills through actively participating in youth engagement with multilateral institutions at the United Nations, direct involvement with Forbes 30 Under 30, Delta Sigma Pi Professional Fraternity, Student Sustainability Committee (Co-Chair), Student Senate (Secretary), and GW Polo Club.

Grace is a 22 year old Lawyer, a youth advocate and Social Entrepreneur who has a dream of transforming Africa one young person at a time. She is the founder of Vijana Tupo Initiative, an initiative leveraging digital and social media to create sustainable and workable solutions to youth unemployment.Grace is also passionate about youth leadership.She serves as the Manager at Sewa AcademyKenya(sewaacademy.co.ke).

Grace is a Young African Leadership Initiative Alumni, an initiative of the United States Department of State, begun by President Barack Obama in 2010. Through her organization, Vijana Tupo Initiative, she has led a team that has impacted over 6000 young Africans through economic empowerment provided in Vijana Tupo’s FREE resurce centers. She was appointed as the United Nations Association of Kenya Machakos County Coordinator, where she serves young people of Machakos county by teaching them about theSustainable Development Goals.

Recently, she was recognized by The Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs and The Youth Agenda as Top 35 under 35 Youth in Kenya. She was also awarded Youth of the Media Category 2021 by the Youth Agenda.

Grace lives by the principle that we should all leave places/things/people in a better way than we found them.

Tariq is currently the Co-Founder/CEO of Xponential, a “Future Readiness” & foresight platform which enables & executes transformational methodology and concepts to create “exponential organizations” for the future.  www.eqxponential.com and www.xponentialtalks.com. He is also the Founder/CEO of MAD Talks Group in 2016, an integrated digital media and visual storytelling platform, focused on the future of leadership, innovation & 10x thinking. www.madtalks.com                                         

He has worked in top leadership roles for over 20 years in Dow Jones Markets,The Times and Sunday Times  and Bloomberg Media.    

He is a leading financial & tech business professional focused on organisational & business transformation, both business and leadership at board & strategy level for large organisations. He also supports young companies on Fintech & related services, tech & AI & other major tech. & business platforms.  He has helped to launch major products and strategy and is a respected communications expert & marketer.

He also speaks on finance 5.0, energy, technology v humanity, the brain, moon-shot thinking, AI for good & others with practical business solutions.

Tariq  is the founder of 100% MAD, a not for profit initiative to democratize philanthropy using the digital ecosystem. MAD is “Make A Difference”, his mission for humanity.

Aissa Azzouzi has held senior roles over the past 30 years as CFO/COO with publicly listed companies in the IT and Professional Services sectors, as well as senior-level strategic & financial consulting roles with two major Consulting firms he has extensive international experience in Europe, North America, North Africa and Asia.

Aissa is a Chartered Accountant and holds MBAs from INSEAD & EMLYON Business School, an MSc in Decision & Control from Paris Dauphine and a Master in Law from Université  Lyon 3. He is fluent in French, German & English, and is conversational in Arabic.

Snjezana graduated Computer Science and got a Master Degree in using digital technologies in business. She is also a certified international trainer in the field of project and knowledge management and holds an international NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) certificate.

She is author and instructional designer of many game-based learning and e-learning projects with proven ability to develop corporate training programs which target business objectives by increasing engagement and competencies of employees.

Snjezana is TEDx presenter and guest at conferences and events as a speaker or panelist on knowledge management, digital learning, gamification, lifelong learning.

In 2016 she was awarded for women leadership and excellence by national award „Future leaders“. Two times (2014, 2016) she won national human resources reward “Best HR Practice” for projects in the fields of knowledge and innovation management.

For her achievements in the area of digital and social learningin 2016 she was among top ten “Movers and Shakers” list for Europe, selected by Training Press Releases (UK). In 2017 Snjezana has been named on “Platinum section” on World’s annual “Movers and Shakers” list, among 100 the most influential people in digital learning, selected by elearningindustry.com.

He is Board Member of FISB-Malaysia, Senior/Strategic Advisor in IFFCO-UAE, MBDC-USA, C2C Products Innovation Institute-USA, Global Footprint Network-USA. He is a strategic advisor for Middle East and Central Asia on geo-political issues and regional development projects for Global Communicators, Inc – USA.

He is a former member of the Advisory Council of Shaikh Mohammed Technology Park in Dubai, and a former member of the Executive Committee of EAN-international (Int’l Article Numbering Association). His expertise is in international business development, innovation and technology management, and international public relations. He has been living in United Arab Emirates for over 25 years.

 Emad Davis is a Senior Software Engineer, Full Stack Developer, Entrepreneur. He is deeply committed to using emerging  technologies to drive innovation and  transformation.

 Jean Abinader works at the nexus of policy and practice with an emphasis on building resilient and innovative company cultures. He utilizes skills gained through more than 40 years of cross-cultural management education and training experience to enable groups to focus on team and individual development for success.

As the global marketplace becomes more dependent on creating solutions that require working across national, ethnic, and cultural boundaries, his emphasis on realizing mutual interests that build trust and positive results becomes even more critical.

Jennifer Pardee is an accomplished Executive, thought leader and developer with more than 15 years of success across the web design and development, online advertising, healthcare technology integrations, and computer software industries.

Leveraging extensive experience in digital marketing, e-commerce, and a change in markets, she is a valuable advisor for an organization that is integrating systems, undergoing online content development, and video-based marketing. Her broad areas of expertise include going from B2B to B2C, technical SEO and search, e-commerce development, developing revenue streams, content marketing, ERP systems, online marketing, and restructuring.

“Jack is a CEO. Founder Beirut in. He runs small businesses for digital media and business technology in the Middle East, Australia, and the United States.

With a team of dedicated professionals, he   digitally transforms the operations of international clients from both the public and private sectors. His professional approach is human centered. Profit isn’t the greatest concern; it’s more about allowing everyone to grow with and through the business.

As an active member of UN Human Rights office (Geneva), Jack works with a global network of activists to empower minority communities around the world. As co-founder the Assyrian Support Committee in Lebanon for humanitarian support and community development, he works to solidify their digital presence online for greater outreach and empowering the Lebanese workforce

These efforts combine his two serious passions: being digitally creative and helping others. As a  loving father, my family has become the fuel to my dream of leaving the world a (if only slightly) better place than I found it. 

Linda is the founder of The Luminous Conference Center in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Luminous Conference Center is for the purpose of creating even more possibilities for people to share their unique knowledge, gifts and talents to the community in order to benefit others and to enrich their lives.

Bala is a globally oriented educator and entrepreneur who has lived and worked in Asia, Europe and North America. His focus areas are innovation and social entrepreneurship and he is currently an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Hava, a materials science venture that creates advanced fabrics that help people breathe clean air. In addition to these roles, he is a Research Fellow at the U. S Army Research Laboratory.

He was formerly an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary and the Program Director of CEU’s experiential New York City MBA program.; a Visiting Faculty Fellow at the National Defense University; and the Senior Manager of New York University Tandon School of Engineering’s Office of Innovation Development, Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship.

He holds a PhD in Technology Management from New York University Tandon School of Engineering.

As a researcher and PhD candidate in Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech, I apply my data science and modeling skills to inform decisions and develop high leverage policies in service and energy systems. With over six years of experience in this field, I have conducted analysis, simulation, and optimization of complex systems using various tools and methodologies, such as time series forecasting, machine learning algorithms, deep learning, system dynamics, agent based modeling and design of experiments.

I have also collaborated with multidisciplinary teams and external stakeholders on several projects, such as analyzing patient flow at Mayo Clinic’s Emergency Department , analyzing the electricity consumption from off-grid solar systems on Native American reservations (NSF funded), assessing new technologies in marine energy and green hydrogen for US department of energy, winning first place at MIT Innovation and entrepreneurship global challenge, third place in the Deloitte Data Analytics Challenge, and teaching graduate courses in project management, and enterprise information systems.

I am passionate about solving real-world problems, delivering actionable insights, and contributing to the advancement of knowledge and innovation in my domain.