HIA Advisory Board
The HIA Board of Directors is fortunate to have a top-tier Advisory Board. The HIA Advisory Board provides guidance, mentorship, and support for HIA's initiatives and activities.
Cyrus Amir-Mokri
General Counsel, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Corporate and Investment Bank
Cyrus is currently the General Counsel at JP Morgan Chase & Co's Corporate and Investment Bank. Previous to that, he was a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and the Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Treasury Department.
Cyrus was a senior legal and policy advisor to the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He participated in the legislative process that led to the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act and subsequent implementation through rulemaking. He also served as the agency’s deputy representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council and as liaison for inter-agency affairs.
Cyrus is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor given for outstanding contributions by immigrants to the United States. Cyrus is a graduate of Harvard College.
Roy Mottahedeh
Gurney Professor of History, Harvard University
Born in New York City on July 3, 1940, Professor Mottahedeh received his primary and secondary education in Quaker schools in New York and Pennsylvania. Professor Mottahedeh graduated magna cum laude in history from Harvard College, undertook a second B.A. in Persian and Arabic at Cambridge University, and received his PhD in 1970 from Harvard University.
Professor Mottahedeh began his teaching career at Princeton University in 1970, and joined Harvard’s faculty in 1986 as Professor of Islamic History in the History Department. In 1994 Professor Mottahedeh was appointed Gurney Professor of History. He also served as the Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University from 1987 to 1990, and as Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University from 2006 to 2011.
Professor Mottahedeh's publications include Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (1980); The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (1985); The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, co-edited with Angeliki Laiou (2001); and Lessons in Islamic Jurisprudence (2003).
rouzbeh Pirouz
Senior Partner at Pelican Partners
Rouzbeh is a Senior Partner at Pelican Partners, a private equity and real estate investment firm in London. Previously, Rouzbeh was Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mondus, a pioneering electronic procurement business in Europe, which culminated in a share sale to Telecom Italia.
Rouzbeh has been at the forefront of trying to develop world class management education institutions and programmes in the Middle East. Rouzbeh is a Trustee of several UK charities and sits on the Middle East advisory boards of a number of leading think tanks.
Rouzbeh was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. Rouzbeh received his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees at Stanford University and Harvard University, respectively.
Cumrun Vafa
Donner Professor of Science, Harvard University
Professor Cumrun Vafa is Donner Professor of Science at Harvard University. Professor Vafa is a string theorist. His research is focused on the nature of quantum gravity and the relation between geometry and quantum field theories.
Professor Vafa is known in the string theory community for his co-discovery, with Professor Andrew Strominger, that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a black hole can be accounted for by solitonic states of superstring theory, and for expounding the relation between geometry and field theories that arise through string dualities (culminating in the Gopakumar-Vafa conjecture).
rofessor Vafa is a recipient of the 2008 Dirac Medal and currently a trustee of Network of Iranians for Knowledge and Innovation (NIKI).
Roxane Zand
Deputy Chairman at Sotheby's, Middle East and Gulf Region
Harvard- and Oxford-educated, Roxane Zand began a career in museum and arts administration after three years in UNESCO. She left Iran after the Revolution to resume professional activities in London in the field of education and the arts, and as one of the founding members of the Harvard Club of London.
Ms Zand was an officer of the Iran Heritage Foundation before moving to Asia House, as well as a freelance consultant for numerous projects for the British Museum and elsewhere in the art world before joining Sotheby’s in 2006 where she is now Deputy Chairman for the Middle East. Currently she sits on the Advisory Council of the Pictet Art Prize, the Development Board of the University of the Arts London, and has been appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant for Greater London for her services to Middle Eastern art and culture. She is also arts editor for the Encyclopedia Islamica.
At Sotheby’s, Roxane has played an instrumental role in developing and contributing to sales of Arab and Iranian art, and has conducted a number of charity auctions to benefit causes in the MENA region.