Board of Directors
Samrah Khan is a Head of Saas ISV Alliances at Google where she leads the partnerships between SaaS companies and Google Cloud to serve their customers.
She was previously a Senior Executive and Vice President of Business Development at Instart. There, she drove strategic GTM initiatives and global expansion that led to several new streams of revenue and acquisition for the company.
Prior to that she was at MuleSoft responsible for launching alliances with large consulting firms where she built the practice from zero and fueled the velocity to huge IPO. MuleSoft later got acquired by SFDC in 2018.
Prior to MuleSoft she was an early employee at TeleNav. She held several critical roles in engineering, product management and sales that contributed to the company growth leading to IPO.
She has a Bachelors in Computer Science from Santa Clara University and currently resides in Bay Area, CA.
She is actively engaged in several philanthropy projects, as well as mentor and advisor to many. When she is not keeping busy with work, you can find her scuba diving somewhere around the globe, learning a new language or enjoying a meal with her husband, 2 kids and a dog.
Sarah Karam is a seasoned executive, leading tech & mobile business teams in Beirut, New York, London, and the Bay Area for over 15 years. She is currently the Director of Apps Partnerships at Google, where she leads a team dedicated to enabling business growth and product innovation on Google Play and Android. Before Google, she led commerce partnerships at the award-winning mobile app Shopkick (acquired by SKTelecom) and led the Beirut operations of e-commerce startup GoNabit (acquired by LivingSocial).
Sarah is a graduate from Princeton University and the London School of Economics & Political Science, and is also a certified executive coach. She is the founder of Rise Labs, and is passionate about building high performing & inclusive teams and serving the next generation of leaders.
Saroj Kumar Jha is the Regional Director of the Mashreq Department (Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Iran) at the World Bank Group. He assumed the position on July 1, 2017. Jha brings to the region a vast experience in a critical period of transition.
Jha’s top priorities in his new role are: (i) maintaining a dialogue with all stakeholders to provide overall strategic leadership for the Bank’s engagement in line with the region's emphasis on job creation, sustainable growth, inclusion and governance; (ii) developing a strong analytical program that can inform policy and investment choices; and (iii) building effective, integrated country teams to ensure efficient and high quality support to the client focused on results.
Before this, he was the Senior Director for the Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) Global Practice at the World Bank Group since February 2016. He provided strategic leadership addressing the challenge of fragility, conflict and violence, working across the World Bank Group and in close collaboration with partners.
Earlier, Mr. Jha was the World Bank’s Regional Director for Central Asia based in Almaty from February 2012 until January 2016 where he led the Bank’s strategic engagements in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in cooperative management of water and energy, and regional action on climate adaptation and mitigation.
Khashayar is a Director of GQR, an award-winning search specialist organization uniting the most talented people from STEM backgrounds with pioneering organizations throughout Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific.
After graduating from the University of Surrey with honors in Management, Khashayar joined GQR in London where he leads their EMEA practice and is responsible for GQR’s global growth strategy across the Banking & Finance, Life Science, Technology, and Energy & Engineering sectors.
Born in London to a third-generation Iranian family in the UK, Khashayar has maintained a passionate connection to Iran and the success of the community across the globe.
Khashayar is a Tech enthusiast having previously studying Software Design & Development and is now involved with some crowdsourcing platforms focusing on technology start-ups."