An expert in the field of international justice, Prince Zeid played a central role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court. In September 2002, Prince Zeid was elected the first president of the governing body of the International Criminal Court, at a time when the Court was only a plan on paper. Prince Zeid also served as a political affairs officer in UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia from February 1994 to February 1996, and, having worked intimately with peacekeeping issues for over the last decade, his knowledge of peacekeeping is extensive.

Prince Zeid holds a B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from Cambridge (Christ’s College). In 1989, he also received his commission as an officer in the Jordanian desert police (the successor to the Arab Legion) and saw service with them until 1994.

Amer Hadidi has served as an incumbent Minister of Industry and Trade in two consecutive governments. Alongside his position as Minister he also holds the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of many satellite institutions including Jordan Investment Board, Insurance Commission and the Jordan Enterprise Development Corporation. Minister Hadidi’s Ministry’s mandate is to formulate an economic policy, support national industries and increase their competitiveness, increase Jordanian exports and opening new markets, attract foreign investments, integrate Jordan with the world economy and foster economic growth.

Hadidi, is a strong believer in the important role of the private sector in economic growth, as a mantra of his ministerial administration he developed a mandate promoting public- private sector partnership interactions on multiple levels. He formed the Economic Consultative Council, in which private sector stakeholders shape policy and strategy in partnership with the Ministry. This participatory approach has led to an increase in Jordan’s competitiveness and international market integration, through management of resources, enhancement of knowledge economies as drivers of sustainable and real economic growth. This also led to the high levels of inward FDI, new market entrances and increased overall trade levels enjoyed by the Jordanian economy today.

Amer Hadidi also served as a Secretary General of the Ministry of Transport, during which he set the strategy for the Transportation Sector in the Kingdom, and supervised its implementation. He was also the Executive Director of the Public Sector Reform Administration., in charge of the implementation of the Public Sector Reform Program and was also part of the team that worked on the expansion of Jordan’s Queen Alia International airport through a public private partnership including French partners such as Aero ports de Paris.

Prior to that, Hadidi headed the Industrial Development Directorate at the Ministry of Industry and Trade and served as a senior economic advisor to the Minister of Industry and Trade. He played a leading role in the negotiations of many free trade agreements that Jordan signed with many countries such as: Singapore, Turkey, Aghadeer (Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco) and Canada.

Holder of a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bridgeportin Connecticut, USA, Hadidi worked in many technical assistance and development programs that aim to support the SME’s including the Industrial Development Bank. Minister Hadidi’s technical experience, negotiation style and consensus reforms continue to push forward Jordan’s economic modernization and integration into the global market through Public-Private sector partnership..

H.E. Mr. Fakhoury received his BSc in Biomedical Engineering and his MSc in Engineering Management from Case Western Reserve University. He has a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1990-1992) and an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University (1996-1998). In 2002, he was awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship. H.E. Mr. Fakhoury is a board member of many prestigious organizations and national committees in Jordan. He also held Chairmanship position or board membership of several strategic PPP companies in Aqaba.

In October of 2008, he was awarded Al Hussein Medal of the Second Order by His Majesty King Abdullah II in recognition of his dedicated efforts towards economic development and investment attraction.

Juma held prominent positions in the past as Chief Executive Officer of Batelco Jordan, the country’s second fixed line operator and the leading data communication provider. In addition, Marwan was the Chairman of the local chapter of the Young Arab Leaders Organization, the region’s leading youth NGO. He also serves on several prominent boards including the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development, the Jordan Education Initiative, the King Abdullah Award for Excellence in Government Performance and Transparency and the Jordan Commercial Bank. Juma served on the “National Agenda’s” Royal Steering Committee entrusted with developing the country’s strategy for the coming ten years.

Marwan Juma was also reelected in mid 2009 as the Chairman of INTAJ, Jordan’s Information Technology Association but resigned following his appointment as Minister of Information and Communications Technology in late 2009. He is a founding contributor to Jordan’s national initiative for establishing Jordan’s IT Industry, known as the “REACH Initiative”. The REACH Initiative is a five-year action plan to advance Jordan’s nascent IT sector, and strengthen its position to compete in local, regional, and global markets.

Holder of a Master in Management degree from North Carolina State University in the United States, and two Bachelor degrees in Business Management and Economics, Marwan has been an active player in Jordan’s Information Technology sector since 1990. Upon completing his studies, he joined Ideal Group, (the Apple Computer and Compaq distributor in Jordan), and moved up the ranks to become Vice President. In 1995, he took over as the General Manager of NETS, Jordan’s first e-mail and second Internet Service Provider. Six years later, NETS, and a second data provider, Firstnet, and Bahrain Telecom, a regional leading telecom provider completed the first IT merger in Jordan and formed Batelco Jordan.

An outspoken character, Marwan has lobbied long and hard towards the establishment of a world-class telecom infrastructure in Jordan, and has been an ardent supporter for increased private-public partnerships to further enhance and accelerate the country’s modernization and economic development.

Prior to joining JIB, Mr. Sunnaa has founded, partnered in, and ran a number of successful companies in various sectors; IT, Telecom, retail, and commercial real estate development; of which are, EIRAD (Est. Amman 2007), Hidhab Amman (Est. Amman 2006), Synapse (Est. Dubai 2005), and Advanced Technologies ( Est. Dubai 2002). Mr. Sunnaa also held several senior executive positions with leading national and multinational IT companies such as Silicon Graphics Inc. (U.S.A.), Electronic Concepts (Saudi Arabia), Intershop Communications (Germany), and Ideal Dimensions (Jordan), where he headed projects in various fields such as Defense, Oil and Gas, Telecommunications, Entertainment, and Research and Development, for the Middle East region. Mr. Sunnaa holds a BSc in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University, NY, U.S.A. (1989).

Mr. Malhas began his professional career in 1984 where he held IT managerial positions for several Jordanian establishments. At the age of 25, he became the Technical Advisor to the Director of Public Security in Jordan between (1988-1992) on the national security project known as Command and Control (C3I). He later founded IdealSoft and led a team of professionals to produce successful large-scale software solutions catering for Hospital Management and Health Insurance Administration throughout the region. He was one of the founders of National Health Insurance Administration Co. in 1999, the first company to use smart cards for health claims adjudication in the region.

Mr. Malhas founded IrisGuard Inc. (www.irisguard.com) in 2001 where he remains today as it CEO. IrisGuard Inc. is considered a world-leader in the field of Iris Recognition Technology; under his leadership, IrisGuard is credited to successfully taking Iris recognition from the uncertainties of labs and theories to the realities of the world. With offices in the London, Geneva, Dubai and Amman, IrisGuard Inc. has customers in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. Mr. Malhas pioneered the concept of employing Iris recognition to secure mass-transit national borders prior to September 11th 2001 in the UAE. More recently, he lead IrisGuard successful deployment of the world’s first iris implementation at banks and ATM machines where customers use only their iris to draw money from their account (Cairo Amman Bank – Jordan.)

Mr. Malhas is the principle designer of the Iris Farm Architecture – IFA® that revolutionized the process of national Iris recognition solutions. His close collaboration with Professor John Daugman of Cambridge University - the inventor of Iris Recognition technology – and similarly distinguished world-renowned professors and scientists in the field of optical and pattern recognition resulted in the world’s most accurate and most scalable Iris architecture; designed to provide real-time response to iris searching and enrolments in projects involving millions of records at national borders or thousands of ATM machines and Internet Home Banking users; the architecture continued  development included the release of the world’s first Iris-enabled web interface in 2005. The UAE Iris Expellee Tracking System, deployed in UAE in 2001 is not only the first such project but also remains the largest and most successful Iris deployment in the world.

With his diligent involvement, IrisGuard Inc. manufactures quality Iris cameras out of its UK Laboratories that are well received throughout the world. The IG-H100® camera system has rapidly captured accurate iris images of more than 18 million people from 200 nationalities; it has been independently evaluated by the International Biometric Group – IBG (New York) and found to be the world’s most accurate and fastest Iris camera on the market today. The recent addition include the IG-AD100® dual-eye camera system that produces pristine images of both irises simultaneously. More cameras are planned to suite the various user requirements around the world.

In 2008, Eng. Saqer launched Extensya, a leading provider of BPO in the region, and he was it’s chairman. And he was also a co-founder and the chairman, of Shira for Real Estate Development and Investments, which is a public shareholding company incorporated in 2006.

In 2003, Eng. Saqer held the position of CEO at Fastlink, recently Zain Jordan, where he led the company and positioned it as the leading mobile service provider in Jordan with a regional reputation of excellence. Under his leadership and with his strategic insight the company's market share reached 70%, its subscriber's base increased from 600.000 to 2 million and its profits witnessed an increase of 500%.

Prior to this and in 1998, Eng. Saqer was the Vice-President and Head of the Technical Department at LebanCel1. With his technical and managerial experience, he was appointed as International Operations Manager for installing GSM networks in Iran and Armenia.

Between 1994 and 1998 Eng. Saqer worked as Business Development Manager for Motorola CIG in Lebanon, where he was responsible for the GSM unit with a remit of responsibilities in Jordan, Palestine and Syria.

Previously, Eng. Saqer held a senior position of Head of Technical Department at Safeer Integrated Systems, a Motorola agent in the UAE. In 1982 he worked at UAE's Itisalat Telecommunications Company where he held several technical and managerial positions.

Eng. Saqer is a M.Sc holder in Telecommunications Engineering.
Eng. Saqer is a member of several Arab and international professional associations and organizations.

Global Head of Cash Management

and Trade Finance, Arab Bank

Global Head of Cash Management

 and Trade Finance, Arab Bank

Ms. Nadya Talhouni is the Global Head of Cash Management and Trade Finance for Arab Bank.
Ms. Talhouni is also board member of Turkland Bank (T-Bank) in Turkey, a member of the Financial Institutions Group Credit Committee, and other committees in the Bank.

Prior to joining Arab Bank in 2002, Ms. Talhouni worked at Citibank N.A from 1992-2002 as a Relationship Manager / Resident Vice President in the Financial Institutions Group/ Securities Business Manager, and was a member of the Credit Committee.

Ms. Talhouni has a Bachelors degree in Economics from Bryn Mawr College, PA, USA.

For over a decade K&M has been a technical, financial and legal advisor to the Ministry of Energy and Minerals Resources on the first and second private power stations in Jordan: the Amman East Power Stations currently in construction and the Al-Qatrana plant in negotiations with the investors. Recently K&M was honored with an award from National Electric Power Corporation (NEPCO) to provide similar services of the third private power station in Jordan. The three projects represent a private sector investment of nearly a billion dollars Prior to founding K&M, Mr. Kappaz was Vice President and General Manager of Bechtel Power International Operations.

Mr. Kappaz holds a bachelor of science in industrial engineering and operations research from Polytechnic Institute of New York and a master’s in business administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California. He has also completed post-graduate work at Stanford University and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Mawajdeh worked with several United Nations agencies and international NGOs. His research interests led him to also work as a regional coordinator of the Reproductive Health Working Group, housed in the Population Council, Cairo, Egypt.

In 2003, Dr. Mawajdeh was entrusted with the establishment of the Jordan Food and Drug Administration where he was the general manager for four years. He then became CEO of the International Pharmaceutical Research Center which is FDA approved and the leading CRO in Jordan.

In 2007 he joined the Jordanian Government as Minister of Health and in April of 2009 he joined Hikma.

Dr. Khleif serves on many local, national, and international committees and as a cancer vaccine expert for a number of national organizations. From 2002 to 2006, Dr. Khleif served as the Director General and CEO of the King Hussein Cancer Center as part of an agreement between the NCI and Jordan. During this time, Dr. Khleif led the development of the only cancer center in the Middle East into an internationally recognized comprehensive cancer center of excellence. In 2007, Dr. Khleif was appointed the Director of the King Hussein Institute for Biotechnology and Cancer. This appointment was the result of a new agreement between the NCI and Jordan to develop this new institute as a comprehensive cancer center and biotechnology research hub.

Dr. Khleif's research focuses on integrating translational basic laboratory research and clinical trials to understand the interaction between tunor cells and the immune system and to develop cancer vaccines. His laboratory's emphasis is on the preclinical identification of potential new vaccine targets, the development of improved and more effective methods for vaccine delivery, an expanded understanding of the mechanism of immune response in vaccinated patients, and the incorporation of these findings into clinical trial development. His research has a special emphasis on viral and cellular oncogene antigenic potentials.