Letter from ABANA President, Khalid Azim, in Honor of Arab American Heritage Month!

Dear ABANA Members, Constituents, Donors, and Friends,

As ABANA welcomes Arab American Heritage Month and our diverse community celebrates multiple holidays in succession, I thought this would be an opportune time to share with you some exciting updates regarding ABANA and the ABANA Foundation.

Firstly, ABANA has planned two high-profile and impactful events in April, which should not be missed by any members. On April 23rd, ABANA will host its annual CEO Series, which has always featured prominent business luminaries such as last year’s speaker, CEO of Uber - Dara Khosrowshahi. This year, we are honored to host Chris Flowers, the Chairman and CEO of J.C. Flowers & Co.?in addition to having?a very distinguished moderator in Professor Costis Maglaras, the Dean of Columbia Business School.

ABANA will host another high-profile event on April 26th with the Atlantic Council, welcoming their 2024 Cohort of WIn (Women innovator) Fellows and more importantly, celebrating the success and importance of Arab women in business.?Given its rich institutional history, ABANA is aptly suited to organize this event and is proud to have two of its highly accomplished board members, Thana Al-Mufarrej and Heather Ibrahim-Leathers, on the program.?

Finally, on the?ABANA Foundation side, we are happy to announce that with the passing of our application deadline of April 2nd?for the John Mack ABANA fellowship, we have received 98 applications! This?number far exceeded our expectations and we would like to thank everyone who helped us reach this milestone. We are very excited to begin this journey of embracing and positively impacting young lives,?by selecting five highly accomplished and deserving fellows for our inaugural class.

With this said, we ask you to celebrate Arab American Heritage Month with us, not only by joining our events and programs, but by helping us grow our membership and financially contributing to our organization so that we may continue making an impact. We exist for you, but to thrive, we need our community to do what it does best: support and embrace one another.?

Sincerely,

Khalid Azim (ABANA President)