PEOPLE

Talal Abu-Hassan has served as Program Officer for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for CIPE, affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, he has handled numerous projects in the region. He was formerly attorney and Director of the Middle East-North Africa region for the International Law Institute, headquartered in Washington, D.C. He has worked with the UNCTRAL (The United Nations Commission for International Trade) overseeing the research and final authorship of the Yemeni Arbitration Code. He worked for UNICEF in Lebanon in 1998 to establish the worldwide standard for the Children’s and Women's code. In 2004 and 2005, he represented the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at the OECD meeting for MENA, highlighting MEPI's project at the global level. Mr. Hassan also provided the first corporate governance code for theMiddle East region which was published in 2005 by the Egyptian Institute of Directors. He has supported the Lebanese Transparency Association in providing the first corporate governance code for SMEs Lebanon, and he supported the creation of the first corporate governance association in Jordan in 2005. He contributed to a highly respected book on the subject entitled "Corporate Governance in Jordan in 2005." He authored a survey of the acceptance of the Egyptian draft code for corporate governance; this survey included all major NGOs in Egypt from the North, in Alexandria, to the south of Egypt, in Asut, where he met with different NGOs and businessmen to evaluate the draft code. Mr. Abu-Hassan has lectured at universities, including American University in Washington, and lectured on corporate governance seminars in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt. Mr. Abu-Hassan graduated from Egypt from the Law School in 1993, and received his M.B.A. in 2001 in the United States. He is the recipient of advanced training certifications in corporate governance, international consulting and procurement, and negotiating skills from Georgetown's ILI Institute.

Niranjan Adhikari is an attorney with specializations in international law, and international development law and policies. He was a law clerk at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the Netherlands. He has worked for the Ministry of Law and Justice of Nepal as an intern where he conducted legal research and drafted legal memoranda for government agencies on multimillion dollar complex project finance and public-private partnership deals involving large foreign financial institutions, and also researched the matters of public international law, syndicated financing, equity investment, power purchase agreements, rules of government procurement, and government contracts. For a brief period he was a researcher at the Centre for Civil Society, New Delhi, India. He was involved with various organizations and has contributed in the filing of international cases. Mr. Adhikari has extensively participated in international programs, including the summer course of the Xiamen Academy of International Law, Xiamen University, PRC China, summer course of the Hague Academy of International Law on the private international law in the Hague, the Netherlands, summer course at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and in India. Mr. Adhikari was a member of the moot court team of the Kathmandu School of Law to the Sherman & Sterling international rounds of Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition in Washington D.C in 2007 and has volunteered as a team-coach and judge for the subsequent years.
Mr. Adhikari holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Kathmandu School of Law. At Berkeley Law, he was the associate editor of the Berkeley Journal of International Law and member of the International Law Society. He was also a Graduate Student Researcher for a distinguished professor at the law school. At the Kathmandu School of Law, he was the President of the International Law Society and Secretary General of the University Student Association. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the journal published by student association of the university. Mr. Adhikari is a member of American Bar Association, American Society of International Law, Energy Bar Association, and the Nepal Bar.

Parashu Nepal is an experienced training and executive education expert. He has founded a training organisation, International Development Institute (IDI) to cater capacity building and institutional strenthening needs of private and public sector agencies in developing and emering economies. The primary focus areas include financial sector reform, private sector development, trade policy, rule of law and good governance. Previously, Mr. Nepal worked as project manager administering global projects for a wide array of multilateral agencies, including the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, USAID, and the World Bank. He served as a Project Manager for International Law Institute in Washington, D.C., providing project management and business development support to ILI’s technical advisory projects and executive education programs in the areas of banking, finance, capital markets, pension reform, trade policy, anti-corruption, procurement. Prior to joining ILI, Mr. Nepal served as a Project Coordinator for the Intrados Consulting Group in Washington, D.C., providing management support to an various donor funded projects in the areas of finance, trade and privatization. Responsibilities included managing all aspects of the business development, proposal preparation and project management. Before joining Intrados, he worked as an manager at Standard Charted Bank in Kathmandu, Nepal where he was responsible for reporting branch performances to its head-quarter and he established two bank branches in western Nepal.
Mr. Nepal has Masters in International Management (MIM) from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona. He has an Undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Strayer University in Washington DC. He also has Bachelors degree in Economics and Mathematics from Tribhuban University in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Solomon Nuamah is an experienced commercial banker and has excellent senior line management experience. His experience spans; strategic to operational issues, strategic formulation, portfolio evaluation and management, a broad background in banking from front office corporate banking activities, through to risk-based responsibilities such as operational risk, credit approval, internal ratings, etc. Prior to this, Solomon worked with the agricultural development bank in Ghana, opportunity international savings and loans ltd, as a manager, Ghana International Bank in London as an intern and currently a director of Akoti Rural Bank Ltd.
He holds BA (Hons.) In Business Administration from the University of Greenwich in London, MBA-Finance from the University of Leicester in London, Graduate Diploma in Banking and Financial Services from Boston University in USA (Massachusetts) and ACCA student at the London School of Accountancy and Management.

William O’Field is a Certified Elections/Registration Administrator, United States Electoral Specialist, and Faculty Adviser with a 13 year career with the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics (DCBOEE). Mr. O’Field served as the DCBOEE spokesperson and coordinator of the DCBOEE voter education and outreach activities. In addition, he supervised polling pace staffing for the District of Columbia’s 143 voting precincts including poll worker training and recruitment for up to 2,300 poll workers. During his tenure at the DCBOEE, Mr. O’Field served six years as Co-Chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Elections Officials Technical Committee. In that capacity, he led representatives from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia in a forum for the exchange of ideas and information sharing and coordination among the three jurisdictions. Prior to his appointment to the DCBOEE, Mr. O’Field was involved in the District of Columbia’s local political scene and served on the staff of two at-Large City Councilmembers of the Council of the District of Columbia. In addition, he served as the Council’s Clerk of the Committee on Education and Libraries. He was an Education Specialist for the President of the District of Columbia Board of Education and has taught English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at the University of the District of Columbia and at the Language, Education, and Technology Center in Washington, D.C. Mr. O’Field is the President of WRO Consulting Services counting among his clients the International Foundation for Electoral Services, The Washington Center, and Sign Language USA. He currently serves as Executive Director of the District of Columbia Democratic State Committee and writes on his Blog at http://electioneducationinc.blogspot.com.
A native of West Virginia, Mr. O’Field received a Bachelor’s Degree in Secondary Education and Journalism from Fairmont State College in Fairmont, West Virginia and took additional courses at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. He holds the Certified Elections/Registration Administrator status from the Election Center in conjunction with Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.