Dr. Dell Felder is the former provost and vice president for academic affairs at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. Zayed University operates campuses in Abu Dhabi and Dubai providing baccalaureate and graduate degree programs to more than 3,000 students. Dr. Felder worked with Oklahoma State University to successfully develop and implement an executive Master of Business Administration program for Zayed University. She has made large advances in developing programs for women in the Middle East including working with the RAND Corporation to create a post secondary education project in Qatar.

Dr. Felder has more than thirty years of experience in higher education administration experience. She served as senior vice chancellor of the University of Houston System. She was senior vice president and provost of Eastern Washington University, and was then named its president. At Arizona State University-West, Dr. Felder was dean of the faculty.

While at the University of Houston, she took leave to serve as program director of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory and was associate superintendent in the Houston Independent School District. Dr. Felder earned a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Texas.

Dr. Chester Haskell is currently serving as the Interim Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs and University Provost at Antioch University, USA.  He is also a partner and a member of the Board of Directors of Edu Alliance, USA. He is a member of Board of Governors of Al Ghurair University, Dubai.  He is working with universities in the United States, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Holland, Spain, and Brazil. He was Founding Executive Director of Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs and for 13 years served in several senior positions. He is currently engaged in matters of quality assurance and accreditation, serving as a consultant to the Council of Higher Education Accreditation (US) and the Council on International Quality Group (US).

He has served as a peer reviewer for the WASC Senior Colleges and University Commission (WSCUC) assessing institutions in California and internationally (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, India, Mexico). He has served several years as a member of the international advisory committees of ANECA (Spain’s national accreditation body) and ACAP (the accreditor for the autonomous region of Madrid). He was President of the Monterey Institute of International Affairs, and Cogswell Polytechnical College. H is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Al Ghurair University in Dubai.

Dr. Haskell focus is international higher education, accreditation, organizational management, faculty relations, curriculum development, fundraising, alumni affairs, and external relations. He has led consulting efforts working with universities in several countries including the United States (University of California, San Diego), Mexico (Universidad Anahuac), Holland (University Medical Center, Utrecht), Spain (Universidad Internacional de La Rioja), Brazil (Universidade Tiradentes

Dr. Rania Sanford is a seasoned Stanford University leader and administrator with a career of 25 years. She is currently the Director of Faculty Professional Development and executive coach at the Stanford University School of Medicine after stepping down from six years as the University’s Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity (2013-19).

As Associate Vice Provost and as an executive and leadership coach, she worked with Stanford University faculty and administrative leadership and led the building of Stanford’s faculty leadership development portfolio.  She created Stanford’s University-wide, and nationally-recognized portfolio of faculty development programs, serving 2000 faculty members across Stanford’s 7 schools.

Her career at Stanford included roles as Assistant Dean for Postdoctoral Affairs (2009-12) and Assistant Dean for Academic Services at the School of Education (2004-09). Her contributions span strategic planning and oversight of recruitment, academic and research policy, student services, and financial aid. She consults and presents on the preparation of future faculty, leadership development, curricular change, and organizational development in the US and the Middle East.

Ranis has a Doctor of Education (Ed.D) in Organizational Leadership from the University of La Verne, California; and  M.A. and B.A. in Communication from The American University in Cairo, Egypt.

Dr. Gordon Handke served in the recent past as the Vice President for Finance and CFO at the American University in Cairo.  As an accomplished financial executive, Dr. Handke has over 25 years of international senior management experience in strategic and financial planning, budgeting, modeling, and oversight of decision support and reporting systems.

Prior to AUC, he served as the Director of Financial Services at Athabasca University, Canada; Director of Budget and Planning, New York University, Abu Dhabi; Director of Finance & Budget, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi; Head of Budget and Financial Planning – Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE.

Dr. Handke has extensive experience with multi-unit and start-up operations at governmental and higher education organizations, developing policies and standard operating procedures and providing leadership for financial, administrative, operational, and facility planning and management functions.  He possesses strong management, collaboration, and relationship-building skills focusing on employee success to support the vision and mission of the organization.

Gordon has a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) in Higher Education Management from the University of Bath, the U.K. and an MBA in Executive Management from Royal Roads University, Canada – he was a Chancellor’s Award Recipient – highest academic standing in the program. He also has a Bachelor of Arts (Special), Economics from the University of Alberta, Canada.

In addition to his university degrees, Dr. Handke is certified as a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) with the Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta, Canada, and is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) with the Society of Management Accountants of Alberta, Canada.

Dr. Sandeep Sancheti is known as an institution builder in India.  He is currently the Vice Chancellor of SRM University and earlier he served as the President of Manipal University Jaipur. He served as the 97th President of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), New Delhi in 2018. Prior to these, he has served in public universities – as founder Director National Institute of Technology (NIT) Delhi, Director NITK Surathkal and Director in-charge of NIT Trichy, NIT Calicut, School of Planning & Architecture (SPA) Delhi and also Mentor Director of newly established NIT Goa, NIT Puducherry and NIT Sikkim.

He is the former President of IETE Rajasthan Centre and is currently Vice-President IEEE MTT India Chapter and a Council member of IETE. He is a life member / fellow of IE (I), ISTE and BES (I).  His rise to prominence in such a short span can be attributed to his strong will power, caliber, conviction, dedication and leadership quality.

Dr Sancheti obtained his B. Tech (ECE) from Regional Engineering College, Warangal and M.Sc from Delhi College of Engineering ands PhD from Queens University of Belfast, UK. In his career span of over 34 years, Dr. Sancheti received the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship by ACU, SERC Fellowship by DST, Govt of India in 1998 and UKISTRF award by the British Council in 1999-2000. Besides this, he has 75 research papers in national as well as international journals and conferences to his credit.

Jay Noren M.D. is the Founding Director and Professor-Clinician Executive Master of Healthcare Administration Program, University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine and School of Public Health.

His 40-year career includes President of Wayne State University, Founding Provost of Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, the founding Dean College of Public Health The University of Nebraska Medical Center, as well as the Executive Vice President and Provost for the University of Nebraska. Noren has also served as Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs at Texas A&M University, Interim Chancellor for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and Vice Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin.

He has secured numerous grants for his institutions. Dr. Noren has published numerous papers and books over the years in health and workforce partnerships. Noren was the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow at the National Academy of Sciences and U.S. Congress, and a Churchill Fellow in the United Kingdom.

Ian Barron, MBA FCIS is an experienced Director of Business Services and Chief Operating Officer in the premium International and UK K-12 education sector, offering a strategic planning capability coupled with operational ‘know how’ and financial acumen.

Ian served as a key member of the Abu Dhabi-based Bloom Education corporate team, working with brand partners Brighton College UK and Dwight School New York in the planning and opening of the prestigious dual-school campus in Dubai.  During his seven years with Bloom Education, Ian also held the roles of Bursar and Business Manager at Brighton College Abu Dhabi and Brighton College Al Ain and was accountable for managing a significant annual operating budget.

Prior to his move to Abu Dhabi, Ian was Chief Operating Officer/Bursar of Malvern College, one of the UK’s top-ranked co-educational day and boarding schools. In that role, Ian played a pivotal role in the turnaround of the College’s operations, effecting a transformational impact on the College’s finances, enabling the College to significantly upgrade its facilities to world-class standards and to embark on an international brand expansion programme.

Ian’s career includes over 25 years at Board level as a Company Secretary of major UK public companies

Dr. Natasha Ridge is the Executive Director of the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research. Prior this she was the Acting Director of Research at the Dubai School of Government.

Her research focuses on secondary education in the GCC and examines topics such as boys’ education, teacher quality, curriculum and shadow education. Her publications include a chapter in the 2012 World Yearbook of Education entitled ‘In the Shadow of Global Discourses: Gender, Education and Modernity in the Arabian Peninsula’; a working paper entitled ‘Teacher Quality, Gender and Nationality: A Crisis for Boys’ at the Dubai School of Government and a paper for UNESCO on the gender gap in education and its implications for the UAE. She has presented at numerous conferences in the USA, Turkey, Egypt, Bahrain, Uzbekistan and the UAE.

Dr. Ridge has consulted on curriculum, assessment, training and other aspects of educational policy for the World Bank, UNICEF and USAID, in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Prior to this she worked as Faculty Head of English and ESL in schools in the UAE, Singapore and Australia helping to implement standards based curricula and assessment.