Our Team
Mohamed Abdel-Kader
Principal & Founder
With over two decades of experience, Mohamed Abdel-Kader is a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 companies, leading NGOs and multi-lateral organizations, foundations and educational institutions, and government agencies in addressing their most pressing challenges. He served in the administration of President Barack Obama as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International and Foreign Language Education at the US Department of Education and the administration of President Biden as Chief Innovation Officer & Executive Director of the Innovation, Technology, and Research Hub at the US Agency for International Development.
Earlier in his career, Mohamed led the Aspen Institute’s Stevens Initiative, a global ed-tech program and has also served several postsecondary institutions in international strategy and major gift fundraising roles.
He speaks fluent Arabic and basic Spanish, is an Eisenhower Fellow, a Truman National Security Fellow, and is the author of a children’s book about stereotypes. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Clemson University, a Master’s degree in Higher Education from Vanderbilt University, and an MBA from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Mohamed is a trustee of the Longview Foundation for International Education & World Affairs and is an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University’s Lily School of Philanthropy.
Sarah Hassaine
Advisor
Sarah Hassaine has built a career and brand as an expert in people experience, brand and marketing, and project management. She started off in business strategy consulting with Deloitte and then pivoted into non-profit running multi-million dollar projects and teams across the world. For the last 10+ years she has been in high-tech companies helping executives and people leaders achieve innovation and productivity through work in culture, brand, and engagement both internally and externally. Currently, she is consulting with AI startups and nonprofits on business and marketing strategies. Most recently, she was the Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility & Culture at the digital sleep health company ResMed. Prior, she was at Amazon where she helped with recruiting and retention in Applied Sciences, and then at Qualcomm where she led their conference engagement, affinity group expansion, and designed learnings and inclusion building solutions. Her strengths lie in solving big problems for companies and designing the roadmap and deliverables that will achieve business success.
Sarah is very civic-minded and serves on five nonprofit boards providing guidance and strategic guidance in STEM, equity in the workplace, access, and economic inclusion. She obtained her BA in International Relations from UCSD, her MA in Public Policy from George Washington University and her MBA from the Wharton Business School.