The people guiding and advising our mission and growth.

Nicole Gresham-Perry invests in public and private companies as Managing Partner at Carpere Group. She also serves as CEO of the global sports memorabilia company, Star Innovations. As a founder of Thinkubator Global, she is committed to embracing globally innovative ideas that promote civil discourse, accessible education, and democratic principles. A former executive at JP Morgan & Brown Brothers Harriman, Nicole spent over 25 years in banking on Wall Street. She serves as a Trustee of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and is on the national Board of Directors of the World Affairs Councils of America (WACA).

Nicole supports the Defending Democratic Institutions project at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and sponsored its first summit, “The Role of Business in Sustaining Democracy”, focused on building national resilience through the reinvigoration of civics education, at all ages, as a national security imperative. She is also a member of Mount Vernon’s Washington Cabinet, where leaders and creative thinkers serve as ambassadors and advocates for non-partisan leadership and public good over private interest. For over a decade, Nicole served on the board of Women’s World Banking (WWB), the largest global organization providing low-income women around the world with the financial tools they need to participate equally in their societies and economies.

She earned her B.A. at Rice University and studied at Sciences Po in Paris and divides her time between New York City, Palm Beach, and Greece.

Bilal Wahab is President of the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), the nation’s first American-style liberal arts university. He previously served as a Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C., where he focused on governance and politics in Iraq and the Kurdistan region.

He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Mason University, an M.A. in International Affairs from American University in Washington, D.C., where he was among the first Iraqis awarded a Fulbright scholarship, and a B.A. from Salahaddin University in Erbil.

Wahab publishes widely in English, Arabic, and Kurdish, and is a frequent commentator on Iraq’s politics and society.

Jonas Horner is the Information Advisor to the United Nations Office of Resident Coordinator for Sudan and a Visiting Fellow of the Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to advising the UN, he writes and provides advisory input on conflict, politics, and regional geopolitics in Sudan and the Horn of Africa.

Prior to joining ECFR, Horner was deputy director for the Horn of Africa and senior analyst for Sudan with the International Crisis Group, the Middle East regional conflict advisor for Mercy Corps, coordinator of the UN task team on conflict prevention, and EU technical advisor on stabilisation and peacebuilding in Sudan and South Sudan. He also ran the UN peacebuilding programmes in Sudan’s border areas with South Sudan, was the Africa analyst with Eurasia Group, and Nigeria researcher for the Small Arms Survey.

Horner has a master’s in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a bachelor’s degree in political science and international relations from the University of New South Wales.

Nilofar Khatib is a UX Design Strategist specializing in digital transformation, AI-driven service design, and government innovation. She has led flagship initiatives across federal and corporate sectors, uniting product strategy, user research, and emerging technologies to deliver measurable impact. Her work includes integrating large language models into public services, advancing national service platforms, and shaping smart city digital ecosystems. Known for clarity, precision, and forward-looking vision, Nilofar is passionate about building systems that enhance accessibility, efficiency, and public trust at scale.

Garrett Nada is an expert on Iran’s politics, economy, military, foreign policy and nuclear program. He also closely monitors the activities and evolution of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias backed by Iran. From 2012 to 2025, he served in various roles at the U.S. Institute of Peace, most recently as a program officer and managing editor of “The Iran Primer” website. Through a partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Nada also managed “The Islamists” website, which surveyed the rise of Islamist groups in the wake of the Arab uprisings as well as jihadist movements. He received his MA from the George Washington University and his BA from Brandeis University.

Elliot Klosterman is a Geopolitical Analyst in the private sector, focusing on global impacts to the aerospace industry. Previously, he served at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) from 2015 to 2025, where he held roles as Division Chief for Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula, and as Senior Arabian Peninsula Analyst. His expertise includes Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s socioeconomic development, and China’s influence in the Middle East. Elliot has briefed Secretaries of State, members of Congress, and the Secretary of Commerce, and contributed to the President’s Daily Brief.

He earned three bachelor’s degrees in Arabic, International Relations, and Intelligence and Security from The Ohio State University, studying Arabic in Cairo and Amman as a Boren Scholar. After graduation, he taught English in Hebron and completed a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 2015.

Peter Salisbury is a researcher and writer, and fellow at Century International. An adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, he studies the political economy of war and peace in the Middle East. Formerly an Emmy- and Canadian Screen Award-winning journalist, Peter was also a senior fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (2016–19) and senior analyst for Yemen at the International Crisis Group (2018–22).

Mylène Tisserant is an independent consultant and political risk analyst with over a decade of experience advising top-tier firms on high-stakes projects across the Gulf and MENA region. Based in Abu Dhabi, she acts as the outsourced “person on the ground” for US and European consulting firms, delivering precise in-country insight, strategic research, and field intelligence. Through her boutique firm, Mytis, Mylène provides tailored political and economic intelligence to multinationals, think tanks, and governance bodies, with a deep focus on Gulf dynamics.

Her portfolio includes contributions to Eurasia Group, Forward Global, the Delma Institute, ADIT, Control Risks, Kroll, Princeps, ENI, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. For more than a decade, she has collaborated with Michael Field on the Arabian Charts, enriching her expertise in Gulf royal families, tribal networks, and regional decision-making. Mylène holds a Master’s in International Security from Sciences Po and a Master’s in Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS, London. She has spent over 25 years exploring the Gulf and Levant and speaks Arabic.

Rachel is a foreign affairs and policy analyst and has worked as a Lecturer in International Relations at Stanford University, a Fellow for the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and for the Education Program with the Council on Foreign Relations. She has expertise on the Middle East and North Africa, including the Gulf States, Sudan, Tunisia and Morocco, as well as on parts of South Asia, such as the Philippines. She holds a BA in Politics from Princeton University, an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics & Political Science.

Stephen Kalin is a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal based in the Middle East, where he has lived since 2009. He also began reporting from Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2025, he taught courses in journalism and Middle East politics at Davidson College, a nationally ranked small liberal arts college.

He moved to Riyadh in 2017 to cover the rise of the Saudi crown prince and the profound social, economic and political shifts underway in the kingdom. He has reported on every major development in contemporary Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors.

Stephen previously worked for Reuters News. In Iraq, he covered the U.S.-backed military campaign to end the Islamic State group’s control of territory. Before that, he covered the Syrian civil war and the rise of Egyptian strongman Abdelfattah al-Sisi. He has reported from more than a dozen countries.

Jean Poe is an independent consultant with over 15 years of experience in banking and international development. She served as a Senior Bank Advisor on the Asian Development Bank’s Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program from 2012 to 2024 where she conducted risk assessments on 140+ emerging market financial institutions across 21 countries. Prior to joining the ADB project, Poe conducted financial risk assessments on financial institutions in South America and West Africa for the U.S. Agency for International Development. She has also served as a Country Development Officer for the Africa Bureau at USAID in Washington, D.C., and as an Associate for Deutsche Bank and a Senior Analyst for Goldman Sachs, both in New York. Poe received a Master of Science from Georgetown University and Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Ph.D., is a fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute and co-director of the Middle East Energy Roundtable. His research examines the changing position of Persian Gulf states in the global order, as well as the emergence of longer-term, nonmilitary challenges to regional security. Previously, he worked as senior Gulf analyst at the Gulf Center for Strategic Studies and as co-director of the Kuwait Program on Development, Governance and Globalization in the Gulf States at the London School of Economics.

Coates Ulrichsen has published extensively on the Gulf. His books include “Insecure Gulf: The End of Certainty and the Transition to the Post-Oil Era” (Hurst & Co., 2011), “The Gulf States in International Political Economy” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), “The United Arab Emirates: Power, Politics, and Policymaking” (Routledge, 2016), and “Qatar and the Gulf Crisis” (Oxford University Press, 2020), and, most recently, “Centers of Power in the Arab Gulf States” (Hurst & Co., 2023). Coates Ulrichsen’s articles have appeared in numerous academic journals, including Global Policy and the Journal of Arabian Studies, and Third World Quarterly and he consults regularly on Gulf issues for government and private sector agencies around the world. Coates Ulrichsen holds a doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge.

Dave Johnson worked for over twenty years in the institutional investment management business and is currently Principal of ZHP Capital LLC. Previously, he served as Chief Operating Officer of a registered investment adviser with over $3 billion in assets under management. Prior to that, he managed fixed income portfolios for a variety of organizations, including mutual funds, insurance companies and institutional pension advisers. Dave received a BA in Economics and Political Science from Iowa State University, and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago. Dave is a CFA® charterholder and earned the CKA® designation. After twenty years living and working in the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, Dave and his wife returned to their Midwest roots to raise their teenage children in the Chicago area. While the children have moved through college and on to careers, Dave and his wife reside in the NW suburbs with their two dogs. Dave is an avid baseball fan, rooting for two teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and whoever plays the Cubs.

William Erich Ellison is a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is also a Predoctoral Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, a research center at SAIS focusing on applied history, statecraft, and grand strategy. William also serves as an Assistant Director at the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy, a foreign policy research institute dedicated to the promotion of applied history and to connecting academics and policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

William’s diverse research interests span across time and space. Regionally, he is interested in the United States, Israel, and Western Europe. Methodologically, he prioritizes applied history, scrutinizing the past in search of lessons applicable to contemporary policymaking.

Prior to his current positions, William completed his Master of Arts in International Relations at SAIS. Before SAIS, William worked for three years at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank. Prior to that, William completed his undergraduate studies at Yale University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in History in 2018.

Kevin G. Bender is a tax attorney with broad and deep experience in a vast range of federal tax matters with a specialty in partnership taxation, particularly as it relates to private equity and specialized real estate transactions. Kevin also has a robust practice advising tax-exempt organizations on federal tax and corporate governance matters. Kevin is an adjunct professor of law at his alma mater, William & Mary Law School, where he teaches a course on partnership taxation.