Qatar-UK Alumni Board Members

Emad Turkman MBE is a qualified Mechanical Engineer who graduated from a UK University. Also, he has a postgraduate diploma in Business and Marketing. He started his career working for GKN in the UK and then moved to Dexion Group. In 1988, he was appointed Area Manager for the Middle East based in Saudi Arabia.

In 1995, he moved to Qatar to run Dexion’s distributor, Rumaillah Services. Today, Rumaillah is a group holding with seven wholly-owned companies specializing in trading and contracting. The group employs more than 1500 people and is well known and respected in the country. Rumaillah Group has also nine joint venture companies with well-known international organizations.

In 2010, Rumaillah Group acquired Birmingham-based Apton Partitioning in the UK. In addition to his role as Group CEO of Rumaillah Group, Emad is also the Chairman of Qatar British Business Forum and the Chairman of Apton Partitioning Limited.

In 2011, Emad was awarded an MBE by HM Queen Elizabeth II for his services to promote British businesses and to the British community in the State of Qatar. In 2016, Emad was unanimously elected as Ambassador for Orbis, a sight-saving and international blindness prevention charity based in the UK that operates the world’s only Flying Eye Hospital (FEH).

Emad is fluent in both Turkish and Arabic languages.

Fahad Badar is a seasoned banker with over 21 years of banking experience at Commercial Bank of Qatar, having successfully held several key roles, including EGM Wholesale Banking and EGM Government Sector and International Banking, as well as other senior positions in Retail Banking and Operations across the Bank.

Currently, he serves as the Executive General Manager, International Banking, responsible for the bank’s international lending and financial institutions relationships. He holds an MBA from Durham University, UK, and a Bachelor’s in Banking & Finance from Bangor University, UK. He is also a board member at the National Bank of Oman and United Arab Bank. Fahad is an avid mountaineer and has climbed Everest and many other mountains around the world.

Khalifa Al Haroon is the Founder and CEO of ILoveQatar.net and the I Love Qatar (ILQ) Network, which is Qatar’s first Qatari social website. 

Khalifa, also known as Mr. Q on his blog/vlog, has a background in law, investment banking and social media management. He has launched several YouTube and online shows such as QTips (Cultural), Weekend Round Up (Event Listing), and RaqamiTV. (Arabic Tech Show). Khalifa obtained his law degree from the Anglia Ruskin University in the UK, which is where he set up his first business as a student, gaining great experience which he then applied in Qatar in many successful business ventures.

Nada A. Al-Mahmeed joined Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU’s) College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) as a Senior Project Leader, in 2016. She led strategic planning, stakeholders’ relationships, and marketing & communications on the College level. Nada is currently the Director of Translation and Training Center at the College’s Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII). The center offers a wide range of translation and interpreting services, and a number of professional development workshops for professional translators, interpreters, and commutators. 

Before joining the College, she worked at Qatar Development Bank as a Corporate Planning Supervisor where she had been involved in the planning and strategy execution governance activities for four and a half years; taking the organization from basic planning to full and successful implementation of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Nada’s work influenced the active implementation of the Bank’s strategy and level of corporate and employee performance. 

Nada holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and minor in English Studies from Carnegie Mellon University – Qatar, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Cambridge – UK.

Dr. Noha Aboueldahab is a nonresident fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution and a fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. She is also Co-Chair of the Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Interest Group at the American Society of International Law.

Aboueldahab is an award-winning specialist in transitional justice in the Arab region. Her book,  Transitional Justice and the Prosecution of Political Leaders in the Arab Region (Oxford, Hart Publishing: 2017), is the first in-depth comparative study of transitional justice in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen using original material from interviews she conducted in these four countries between 2011 and 2017.

Emmy-nominated broadcast journalist Osama Bin Javaid has been making complex conflict zones understandable for global audiences for two decades. For the last ten years, he's been working in the Middle East with Doha-based Al Jazeera English. Osama's been reporting on stories from the rise to the fall of ISIL in Syria-Iraq and beyond, Arab Spring, Taliban, Refugee crises, Humanitarian suffering, and the Gulf crisis. In addition to City, University of London, he is also an alumnus of United Nations University, International Leadership Institute.

Osama's work specializes in reportage and investigative pieces for TV and digital platforms on radical groups including ISIL, AlQaeda, and Taliban. Osama has worked on stories in Qatar, Italy, Syria, UK, United States, Kazakhstan, Germany, Iraq, Malaysia, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Oman, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Myanmar, and Austria. He also frequently traveled to the Asian subcontinent and has extensive knowledge of groups and issues in Indo-Pak affairs and the Pak-Afghan-Iran border. He's also helped develop teams and strands for energy reporting on Al Jazeera and produced an award-winning documentary on the politics of oil and Saudi Arabia. 

In addition to speaking to students and providing training at elementary, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels, he's been invited to speak at events for Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and at the City University of New York. Osama is a voluntary adviser for the Business Forum Doha. He is also a board member and co-founder of Green's Better - an environmental awareness initiative. He's an advisor to Agahi - an NGO which creates non-paid communication strategies, content intelligence structures, development collaterals, and tools for diverse sectors and organizations. Osama Bin Javaid was a finalist for Study UK Alumni Awards in the Middle East and North Africa for Professional Achievement.

During his time at the University of Leeds studying BEng Chemical Engineering, Rashid was encouraged to take on volunteer work when he realised the importance of sports in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Rashid became the president of Qatar Students’ Society during his time at Leeds, where he influenced hundreds of Qatari students in the UK.

The dream Rashid created in the UK of promoting sports as a lifestyle through community came true upon his return to Qatar when he became one of the founding members of the Qatar Triathlon club (QTRI), which now attracts more than 500 active Qatari members. Rashid is also an Ambassador for the Qatar Cancer Society. In 2018, he ran London Marathon where he succeeded in raising funds to support cancer groundbreaking research and clinical trials.

Mr. Stephen Meek MA, PGCE is the Director of Qatar Academy Doha. Stephen attended St Andrews and Oxford Universities and the University of California, Berkley in the USA before embarking on a career in teaching. His first teaching post was at Dulwich College in London before becoming the Head of History and then a Housemaster at Sherborne School in Dorset. Stephen was Headmaster of Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex for 9 years before becoming the Principal of Geelong Grammar School in Australia, for the next 13.5 years. Stephen moved to his present role as Director of Qatar Academy Doha in 2019.

While Principal of Geelong Grammar School, Stephen led the introduction of Positive Education at the School. Based upon the principles of Positive Psychology, Positive Education is a whole school approach enabling students and staff to flourish and to make more of their lives. This programme was recognised by Finland’s HundrED, in 2017, as one of the 100 most innovative ideas in education in the world that year. Stephen was a founding Director of the Positive Education Schools Association in Australia and is a Board Member of the International Positive Education Network Advisory Board. Stephen is a former President of the Victorian Schools’ Rugby Union. He was a Founding Director of the World Leading Schools' Association.

Tahani Al-Hajri is a writer, content creator /Social and human rights activist, with a Master of International Business and Finance and a Bachelor of Accounting and business management, from the University of Derby in 2014 and 2013 respectively. She also received her high Diploma in accounting from The College of North Atlantic in 2012. 

Tahani studied with leading business institutions like Babson College, Harvard extension school, and strategyzer (Creators of the Business Model Canvas) and gained more than five years of experience in entrepreneurship and supporting startups to establish their businesses in the market with lower risks. Tahani also coaches and empowers people to make a social impact in their community.

Tahani Al-Hajri was awarded Alumni of the year for educational achievement from CNAQ in 2015 as well as the winner of the British Council’s Study UK Alumni Awards 2018-19 under the category of Social Impact in Qatar.

Mr. Vugar Rustamli in March 2020 joined the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy as a Workforce Planner for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. He holds a master’s degree in Ethics and Integrity from the Swansea University and Project Management Professional (PMP) certification by the Project Management Institute. 

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, he has been working at various international organizations and mega-events as a Project Lead. During those years he efficiently coordinated the projects by being responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the completion of specific projects for organizations. While working under different projects he had focused on project scheduling, business development, risk management, organizational effectiveness, stakeholders’ management, strategical planning, and analysis. He has been part of the organizations from the sectors of multinational entities, hospitality, international sports events, UN bodies, oil & gas, and governmental agencies. During the professional career, he has been part of the business and representation delegations to the countries in the Americas, Western Europe, South-Eastern Asia, and the Middle East. 

Besides his professional background in project management, he was engaged with international NGOs and social institutions’ activities for supporting entrepreneurship, social development, sustainability, education for all, social responsibility, and youth empowerment causes.