Opportunities & Challenges for Women on Boards

Speakers for this event

• Ambereen Mirza

  Ambereen Mirza

  President, OPEN Global

  Ambereen Mirza, an entrepreneur, educationist, and international development executive is the President and Chief Executive Officer of OPEN Global, a nonprofit founded 25 years ago as the Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America with just 7 Charter Members. Today it has blossomed into OPEN Global, one of the most powerful Pakistani diaspora networks of entrepreneurs and professionals across a diverse range of sectors worldwide. Ambereen first volunteered at OPEN’s $50K Business Plan Competition held in Boston in 2001. At the time, OPEN had its presence only in Boston! Over the past two decades, she created virtual hybrid and in-person programming, developed partnerships, raised sponsorship, and recruited members and volunteers. Ambereen holds a Master of International Public Policy degree from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and a BA in International Relations and History from Tufts University. She has always been passionate about International Affairs and socio-economic development. After Tufts, Ambereen joined Morgan Stanley, where she acquired her Securities licenses and training in the financial services industry, along with client relationship skills that proved valuable to her consulting engagements and volunteer activities. She left Morgan Stanley to consult with entrepreneurs, investment publications, international development firms, and nonprofits. She has advised on business planning and fundraising strategies. Her clients have included J.E. Austen & Associates, who retained Ambereen to work with early-stage companies from the Information, Communications, and Technology (ICT) sector at the International Business Development Center, an incubator in Cairo. Her work for nonprofits includes writing strategic plans, creating partnership agreements with Fortune 500 companies, and drafting fundraising proposals. Ambereen has built relationships and partnerships across multiple ecosystems, and has written on a range of topics, such as private equity investment in Pakistan for the Economist Intelligence Unit. Having worked in a number of roles within the international development sector, Ambereen has long championed social entrepreneurship as a method to address systemic problems in society. Her projects have spanned the healthcare, education, and financial inclusion sectors across MENA, Southeastern Europe, South and Central Asia, and the Caribbean. Boston GreenFest awarded her the 2019 Green Initiative Leadership Award for her work supporting natural disaster programs from Texas to Haiti all the way to Pakistan. Ambereen loves to mentor and teach. She taught undergraduate, graduate, and executive level courses on entrepreneurship, corporate citizenship, civic engagement, and business ethics, including "Innovative Social Enterprises” for Tisch College of Civic Life and the Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts University. Students learned how to write a business plan, an elevator pitch, and develop a fundraising strategy. While mentoring student entrepreneurs at Tufts, she mentored entrepreneurs at Root Cause, a nonprofit accelerator in Boston. During her term as OPEN Global President and CEO, Ambereen has further strengthened the OPEN brand, expanded its leadership team and geographic footprint, revived the tradition of the exclusive OPEN Global Charter Member retreat after a 4 year pause, and launched programs and initiatives, including its first virtual mini-MBA and a monthly book club.

  President, OPEN Global

• Aneela Haider

  Aneela Haider

  Regional Counsel, Sutherland Global Services

  Aneela Haider is an experienced attorney, a business advisor, a mentor, and a mom of four. Aneela is certified in-house counsel by the Association of Corporate Counsels and is head of legal for the Middle East and North Africa region at Sutherland Global Services. She sits on the company’s board in Saudi Arabia. Aneela has 10+ years of onshore experiences in Saudi Arabia. She initiated a soft skills training program at Prince Sultan University School of Law (Riyadh) during her tenure at DLA Piper. She also lectured at the PSU School of Law on Women in Law. Other speaking engagements include digitizing legal departments and online cross-border team collaborations. She has contributed to Global Merger Control Handbook as an author on Saudi laws and is the country representative (Saudi Arabia) for the Association of Corporate Counsel - MENA Chapter. Aneela earned her BSc from Cornell University and her J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law. She is a winner of CALI and WIKINS awards. Aneela is admitted to Maryland State Bar.

  Regional Counsel, Sutherland Global Services

• Farah Ali

  Farah Ali

  Vice President, Technology Growth Strategy, Electronic Arts

  Farah Ali is Vice President Technology Growth Strategy at Electronic Arts. Prior to joining EA, she served as co-founder and CTO at FreightWeb, a venture capital-backed logistics tech startup working to optimize partial truckloads. With a sustained focus on deep technical roles, Farah began her technical career as an engineer at Microsoft after graduating with a degree in Computer Science. She has held senior engineering leadership roles at Microsoft, eBay, and Electronic Arts. Her engineering experience is both deep and diverse: she has worked on everything from shrink-wrap products to online services, large-scale distributed systems, and machine learning & AI. Her passion for innovation, entrepreneurship, and learning has led her to be involved in the startup community through investing, advising, and board service. She is a board advisor at the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington, a technical advisor at Madrona Venture Labs, a Strategic Venture Advisor at Embedded Ventures, and is on the boards of several private companies and startups (Sofy, Aboveboard, Dalix, MoveIt). It is also this passion for learning and making an impact that has her teaching as an Affiliate Instructor at the University of Washington. Farah believes strongly in paying it forward and in making an impact by championing causes close to her heart. She is the founder and president of the non-profit One Good Act, an organization focused on empowering those living below the poverty line, and a co-founder of Pakistani Women in Computing, where she works as an advocate for underrepresented populations in STEM fields.

  Vice President, Technology Growth Strategy, Electronic Arts

• Henna Inam

  Henna Inam

  CEO, Transformational Leadership Inc, Author of Wired for Disruption

  Henna Inam is an executive coach, global speaker and the author of the book Wired for Disruption. A 20-year veteran of Fortune 500 companies she has seen first-hand the pressures of leading in times of disruption. Her book details the five shifts in agility and 15 Agility Accelerators (tools and practices) to help activate our innate agility and be a force for good in times of disruption. Her neuroscience-based research shows that agility is already built into our DNA. In the book, she shares how these shifts are within our control and promote well-being to help us thrive in the future of work. Together, we can create workplaces and a world that work better for all.

  CEO, Transformational Leadership Inc, Author of Wired for Disruption

• Reshma Hyder

  Reshma Hyder

  Chair of the board and interim CDO, ZenSpace

  Reshma Hyder serves as Chair of the Board and interim CEO at www.zenspace.io , an on demand workspace solution in the hybrid work space. She completed her board term at Edvon Robotics recently which is an edtech startup in Pakistan. She has an extensive background in Finance with a former career in financial services industry as a licensed professional with New York Life. She is a Women & Youth initiative advisor and advocate for women in STEM. Reshma is a charter member at the OPENSV chapter and has been with Open since it’s inception. She confounded ocial enterprise NISA and several technology startups around lifestyle and edtech serving digital natives. Reshma has lived in the Bay Area for over 30 years and has lived through the semiconductor boom, the internet and real estate boom to being a part of several national community faith based organizations such as CAIR, ING, IMRC,etc. Reshma has been the longest serving executive board member at her local public school PTA spanning 23 years that has helped her serve in diverse board positions. She has also been the first female elected on the board of directors of a Bay Area masjid. She is a mother of 6 and mother in law of 3 and a proud grandma to two. She mentors Muslim youth on academic and career pathways as well as startup founders as strategic advisor and angel investor. As a technology advisor, Reshma continues executive educational programs and recently completed a data science and data visualization certificate from UC Berkeley. She holds a certificate in non profit and Govt accounting from USC, a BSC in Accounting and Finance from San Jose State and BSC I Biochemistry from Aligarh Muslim University, India.

  Chair of the board and interim CDO, ZenSpace

• Zahra Shah

  Zahra Shah

  Expert Member, Technology Advisory Panel (TAP)

  Zahra Shah serves as an Expert Member of the Technology Advisory Panel (TAP) at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) - U.K. privacy regulator. She is the Co-Founder, Non-Executive Director & Investor at Seers (privacy & consent management platform). She also serves as a Senior Board Advisor & Investment Committee at TeamUp Ventures (venture capital fund focused on tech ventures in the MENA region). She has a background in Management Consultancy with over a decade of experience at Accenture within the Financial Services – Capital Markets practice area. She helped global Investment Banking clients (e.g. Credit Suisse, UBS, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds Banking Group) on high-impact, strategic projects to achieve compliance with various regulatory requirements (e.g. KYC, AML, Basel 3, MiFID, Cross Border Sanctions etc.) through the application of innovative FinTech & RegTech solutions. She also serves as a Trustee of the British Pakistan Foundation, Board Advisor to TeamUp Angels, Co-Chair for TIE London Women and leads a Europe-wide female founders support group initiative as a Google female founder alumnus. She is a frequent speaker at global conferences on topics such as: child privacy, cybersecurity, privacy and compliance, technology, RegTech, FinTech, entrepreneurship, women in technology, women empowerment, rights of underrepresented communities etc. She has spoken at various global conferences including: FinCrime World Forum Global Conference, PrivSec Global Conference, London Tech Week, FinTech Week London, Google Women Techmakers European Conference, AMCOB Global Conference, Channel 5 Immigration Debate, Women Tech Quest Global Conference etc. She has served as a judge at the Entrepreneurs Collective London Pitch Competition and has also been featured in Sifted, eWEEK UK and Compliance Week for her contribution to the RegTech and FinTech sector as a female leader from an ethnic minority background. She has an MSc. Analysis, Design & Management of Information Systems and an MBA (Essentials Certification) both from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She recently completed the Financial Times Non- Executive Director Diploma.

  Expert Member, Technology Advisory Panel (TAP)