Team

Tarek M. Ben Halim is Trustee and founder of Alfanar.  Between 1980 and 2003 Tarek worked at Goldman Sachs; JP Morgan and Credit Suisse First Boston. Currently, Mr. Ben Halim is a non-Executive Director of the MAF Group in Dubai, and an Advisor to the Central bank of Libya. He is a Trustee of Common Purpose International. Mr. Ben Halim received an MBA from Harvard University and a BSc from Warwick University.

Nada Mobarak manages Alfanar in Egypt.  Nada worked for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) where she managed the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, CIDA’s grant making mechanism for NGOs in Egypt. She also carried out assignments for CIDA’s Dialogue Fund and Environmental Quality International. She obtained her MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science from the American University in Cairo.

Siham Bortcosh is Alfanar’s Chief Executive. An experienced voluntary sector professional, Siham worked for VSO in the UK within the international development sector for several years, and undertook a number of freelance assignments for the international division of the British Red Cross Society. A qualified accountant with a corporate sector background, Siham obtained a BA in Mathematics from the University of Oxford.

Heba Elsayed is Alfanar’s Programme Assistant in Egypt. She worked for Global Management Services (GMS) as a recruitment consultant, carried out a research assignment for the Center for Development Services (CDS), and worked for two years as a research assistant in the Economics department at the American University in Cairo. Heba received her MA in International Development and BA in Economics from the American University in Cairo.

Margherita Gatt is the Company Secretary. Margherita has a wealth of administrative and organisational experience, having previously worked for the BBC, the Civil Service, Whitehall, and the National Health Service.  In 2004 she received the Executive Assistant/Personal Assistant of the Year Award from Crone Corkill, one of the leading recruitment consultancies in London.