Supporting Goal 5 and 6 of The FUTURE ARMENIAN Initiative
About the Program
The Galvanizing Diaspora program encourages members of the Armenian Diaspora to unite and revitalize their communities by creating and implementing small-scale grant initiatives. These initiatives serve the highest purpose of preserving the Armenian identity and fostering stronger bonds with their respective communities. The program aims at motivating Armenians to strive for common goals and develop a deeper connection to their roots. This is a multi-faceted program that helps the Diaspora Armenians not only put into action their ideas for Armenians as a global nation, but also to create opportunities for Armenians living in various parts of the world to communicate, share experiences, and network with each other, thus becoming more empowered.
The global goals of the program are:
- Revitalize the global Armenian nation.
- Organize worldwide networking events.
- Unlock potential of the Diaspora youth.
- Bring Armenians together for achieving common goals.
The proposed project should:
- Address at least one of the six themes below:
- Preserving and promoting Armenian heritage.
- Supporting Armenian culture.
- Promoting Armenian language usage.
- Creating professional development and entrepreneurship opportunities for the youth.
- Establishing closer ties between the Diaspora and Armenia.
- Designing creative projects that strengthen Armenian communities.
- Have a recommended $10,000 budget. It should not be less than $5,000 and more than $50,000. If the budget exceeds $10,000, Grantee should prove to have secured all the remaining funding.
- Be designed to be implemented in 18 months or less.
- Be technically actionable, impactful, scalable, sustainable, and representing good value for money.
- Directly benefit Armenians globally.
- Encourage cooperation between two or more Armenian Diaspora communities around the world.
André Andonian
André Andonian
André Andonian is a senior partner emeritus in McKinsey & Company’s Korea office, where he advises leading companies across a broad range of strategic, operational, and organizational topics, and also mentors senior colleagues across Asia.
In his 34-year McKinsey career, André was a member of the firm’s leadership teams in Europe, the United States, and Asia—most recently serving as managing partner of McKinsey Korea—advising clients across the firm’s Semiconductors, Industrials & Electronics, Automotive & Assembly, and Aerospace & Defense Practices, as well as worked in the biotechnology industry. He also served multiple terms on the Shareholders Council, the firm’s global governance board.
He received an MBA with distinction from the Wharton School of Business where he was a Fulbright Scholar, an M.A. with distinction in economics as well as a B.Sc. in engineering from universities in his hometown of Vienna, Austria.
André is a founding member of both the National Competitiveness Foundation of Armenia and Armenia 2020, a global think-tank, and most recently as Chairman of FAST (The Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology).
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian
Representative of the Armenian Church to the Holy See
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian (baptismal name Sarkis) was born in 1951 in Arabkir, Turkey. He started his religious education at the age of thirteen at the Holy Cross Seminary of Istanbul.
From 1967 to 1971, he studied at the St. James Seminary of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem. His drive for education led him to various educational institutions in the United States and Europe: General Theological Seminary of New York, Saint John’s University of Minneapolis, Gregorian University of Rome, and the Eastern Institution of Oxford.
He delivered lectures in the US, Italy, England, Germany, Jerusalem, and Armenia. He carried out research work at the Yerevan Matenadaran (the archives depository in Armenia where several thousand historical illuminated manuscripts are preserved), Mkhitarists of Venice, and the Gulbenkian Matenadaran in Jerusalem.
His works have been published in different educational and academic periodicals. Together with his education he also assumed pastoral responsibilities in different districts of Istanbul, Jaffa, Haifa and Ramleh, and the United States, including Worcester, Massachusetts, Minneapolis/ St. Paul, Minnesota as well as the St. Vartan Mother Cathedral in New York, New York where he served as Vicar General of the Eastern Diocese and Director of Interchurch Relations.
As the president of the Fund for Armenian Relief (FAR), he has led the effort to develop the free Republic of Armenia and bring humanitarian assistance to its citizens. He is also an Honorary Professor of the Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1990, he was elected as a Primate of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America. In 2018, by the Pontifical Order of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, His Eminence Archbishop Khajag Barsamian was appointed to serve as a Pontifical Legate of Western Europe and Representative of the Catholicos of All Armenians in Vatican (residence in Rome).
Nadia Gortzounian
Co-Founder and Treasurer
Santé Arménie
Nadia Gortzounian enjoyed a 28-year career in the pharmaceutical industry at Merck & Co. in France, spending the last 15 years of her tenure as Business Unit Director for primary care products. Since 2014, she has been collaborating on an M&A and startup development boutique firm in Paris.
Appointed president of AGBU France in October 2015 and president of AGBU Europe in 2016, Nadia has spearheaded the development of strategic objectives for France and all of Europe. She has successfully implemented key initiatives, among them developing leadership programs such as Goriz; establishing new AGBU chapters, including Germany in 2018; and creating a successful Performing Arts Department on the continent in collaboration with AGBU Armenia. In 2016, she shepherded the AGBU France Foundation.
A native of Marseille, Nadia graduated in Medicine from Paris VII University; she also holds an ExecMBA from HEC Paris. Long involved in the Armenian community in France, she is Treasurer and General Secretary of CCAF (Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations in France) and is a member of the board of the Bullukian Foundation in Lyon.
Nadia was elected to the AGBU Central Board of Directors in 2019. She is the co-founder and treasurer of Santé Arménie – French Armenian health NGO created in 2020.
Pierre Gurdjian
President
Board of Directors
Free University of Brussels
Pierre Gurdjian is a Belgian senior professional with extensive experience in executive leadership, governance, and social impact.
He is the President of the Board of Directors of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), one of Belgium’s largest comprehensive universities with 35,000 students, four campuses, 12 faculties and a large academic hospital; Member of the Board of Directors and its Governance and Remuneration Committee at UCB, a listed global biopharma company – leader in immunology and neurology; a Member of the Board of Directors at Lhoist, a family-owned company – world leader in limestone and dolomite production; a Member of the Board of Solvay, a leading listed chemical company; and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel Belgium.
Prior to these roles, Pierre was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. During his 27 years with the firm, he served a dynamic portfolio of leading clients throughout Europe and Middle East, he was Managing Partner of the Belgium-Luxemburg office, and he held international responsibility for McKinsey’s Human Capital practice in EMEA.
Pierre has a passion for human capital development and co-created the Belgium’s 40 under 40 platform that helps equip young leaders who are on a journey to making the world better. He is also often invited to speak about leadership building, with a focus on wisdom, purpose, and legacy.
He is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), and past President of YouthStart Belgium and the Harvard Club of Belgium. He teaches a graduate course on ‘The CEO Perspective’ at the Solvay Business School (ULB) and is involved in numerous humanitarian, philanthropic and entrepreneurial initiatives in Europe and outside.
Pierre holds a degree in Commercial Engineering from the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Sarah B. Ignatius
Writer and Independent Consultant
Sarah B. Ignatius is a writer, lawyer, and independent consultant, who has worked for over thirty years as a non-profit executive director, most recently with the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research in Belmont, MA, during a period of dynamic growth and construction of its new headquarters. Previously, she was the executive director of several non-profits in Seattle and Boston seeking asylum for people who fled from persecution throughout the world, fighting for their human rights.
She also taught immigration and asylum law at Boston College Law School for ten years and worked as a public defender and in private practice. She is the co-author of Immigration Law and the Family (Thomson Reuters). She authored an in-depth report on the U.S. asylum system for Harvard Law School, and her legal articles have appeared in the Harvard Human Rights Journal, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Bender՛s Immigration Bulletin, and Immigration Briefings.
She was selected for the 2023 International Armenian Literary Alliance’s mentorship program to advance her novel-in-progress, The Devil’s Kaleidoscope, historical fiction for middle-grade readers, about a twelve-year old boy, Arakel, who must rely on people he at first considers to be his enemies to survive the Armenian genocide.
In 2015, she was a Somerville Arts Council Literature Artist Fellow. She received the 2015 New England Society of Children’s Books Writers & Illustrators’ Ruth Landers Glass Scholarship for Novel Excerpt. She also received Honorable Mention from the 2014 National League of American Pen Women, Soul-Making Keats Awards. Her short story “Burning Embers” received Honorable Mention from Glimmer Train’s 2013 Short Story Award for New Writers.
She is half-Armenian, born in Boston, and earned her B.A. from Stanford University (Distinction and Honors in Anthropology), and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was Articles Editor for the Journal of Law and Policy in International Business. She enjoys spending time with her husband and son and is privileged to frequently be with her 102-year-old father in Washington, D.C.
Yelena Abovyan
Founding CEO
HENAR
Yelena Abovyan is the Executive Director of HENAR (Health Network of Armenia) Foundation. HENAR Foundation was established to contribute to the transformation of the healthcare ecosystem in Armenia by creating and empowering a network of partners to deliver effectively and sustainably better value, better care, and ultimately better health for current and future generations of Armenians.
Prior to HENAR, since 2016 Yelena worked for the IDeA Foundation in the position of Chief Operations Officer and from 2020, she led its Tourism and Urbanism platform, the TUF Foundation. Yelena managed the sound portfolio of projects, including the regional development programs, overseeing their full lifecycle, from concept ideation to fundraising, execution, and operational management.
She is a Member of the Advisory Board of the Future Armenian Development Foundation.
Yelena has a master’s degree in International Economics from the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) State University, and she currently pursues a master’s degree in Public Health.
Levon Afeyan
Founder and CEO
Seatply Products
Levon is a Canadian industrial entrepreneur of Armenian origin. Born in Lebanon, he moved to Canada at the age of 15. He is the founder & CEO of Seatply Products Inc, Megantic Veneer Company and Green Furniture Concept (North America). He has served on the boards of numerous Armenian organizations in Montreal such as Homenetmen, AGBU, & St-Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church. In 2022, he was appointed to serve as the Honorary Consul of Armenia in the Canadian province of Quebec. He is a board member of the Laval Symphony Orchestra as well as the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
Ruben Hayrapetyan
Co-Founder and CEO
Matena International School
Ruben is the co-founder and CEO of Matena School. Matena is an Armenia-based international business school that contributes to the development of professional skills and leadership qualities through collecting and sharing the best knowledge and the leading world practices for those who permanently pursue improvement and excellence in their professional fields.
Holding a Doctor of Sciences degree in Economics and the title of Professor, Ruben has a background with diverse leadership roles in both private and public sectors, as well as contributions to numerous research projects.
Talar Kazanjian
Board Member
The FUTURE ARMENIAN
Talar Kazanjian has prior experience in non-profits management as well as strategic management of public sector and government organizations in various countries.
During her career, Talar has worked on developing vision and organization strategies, stakeholders’ engagement, and change management operations in the GCC/MENA, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Talar graduated from the Johns Hopkins University – Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Armen Mkrtchyan
Senior Principal
Flagship Pioneering
Armen Mkrtchyan is a Senior Principal at Flagship. He works on a wide range of projects, including health security, institutionalization of AI/ML across the Firm, supports growth of various Flagship portfolio companies.
Armen joined Flagship from McKinsey& Company where he was a Junior Partner and Co-leader of the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility. He led large corporate transformations, client development efforts, and engagements on strategy and operations with a focus on the impact of artificial intelligence in the automotive, aerospace, and hi-tech/electronics sectors.
Prior to this, he was an Assistant Professor at the American University of Armenia. While there, he taught graduate-level software engineering classes and established the Entrepreneurship and Product Innovation Center (EPIC), an incubation center to further the knowledge and practice of entrepreneurship in Armenia. As EPIC’s Founding Director, he crafted its vision and goals and developed partnerships.
Armen was awarded a Ph.D. in Aeronautics & Astronautics from MIT and B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (summa cum laude) from the University of North Dakota.
Hovhannes Nikoghosyan
Executive Director
Armenian Spiritual Revival Foundation
Hovhannes Nikoghosyan is the Executive Director of the Armenian Spiritual Revival Foundation. Between 2018-2021 he was in charge of Strategic Communications and Outreach at the Armenian General Benevolent Union (Armenia). Prior to that, in 2017-2018, he served as Aide to the President of the Republic of Armenia.
Hovhannes is a graduate of the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University with M.A. in International Relations and Ph.D. in Political Science (2011). He has worked as a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington DC), Magdalena Yesil Visiting Scholar at Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University (Durham, NC) and has completed an Advanced Certificate Program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (Medford, MA).
Since 2015 Hovhannes has also taught at the American University of Armenia. His professional focus is on international security, human rights, and armed conflicts.
Audrey Selian
Director
Artha Impact
Audrey Selian serves as Director of Artha Impact (Rianta Capital Zurich), a dedicated advisory to the Singh Family Trust (a single-family office) and is co-founder of Artha Networks Inc. (ANI), a SaaS platform that has been licensed to various ecosystem-building organizations working to support investment discovery and collaboration across various sectors and geographies.
Audrey’s focus within the Artha portfolio has been on the deployment of private capital to high impact businesses serving the underserved in India across sectors including agriculture, water, waste management, energy, health, and education. Audrey has served as advisor to Halloran, is co-founder of ImpactforBreakfast.com, a network of over 3,200 people across 32+ cities and is also co-founder of Impact Hub Yerevan and Baraka Impact.
Audrey holds degrees from the Fletcher School at Tufts University (Ph.D., MALD), the L.S.E. (M.Sc.) and Wellesley College (B.A.). In 2003-4 she was a doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In 2022, she co-edited a book called “The Business of Building a Better World” with Professor David Cooperrider published by Berrett Koehler Publishers.
David Tadevosyan
Director
AIFA (Afeyan Initiatives For Armenia) Foundation
David Tadevosyan is a seasoned engineering, project, and operations management professional with over a decade of expertise in overseeing complex projects, managing production setup and operations within the mining and metallurgy industries.
Having held diverse leadership roles, David served as the deputy CEO at Vallex Mining, acted as the technical director at the Mining and Metallurgy Institute, and held the position of vice president at Super Annotate. Currently, he serves as the director of Afeyan Initiatives for Armenia (AIFA) Foundation.
David holds an M.S. degree in Engineering and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Vasken Yacoubian
Central Board Member
AGBU
Vasken Yacoubian was born in Syria. He became the director of LAYC, one of the largest construction companies in Syria, founded in 1923 as a family business, in 1985. He is also a partner and chief technical director of Puzant & Leon Yacoubian Trading and Contracting in Syria. In 2012, Vasken moved to Armenia and founded Leon A. Yacoubian Contracting LLC (LAYC, Armenia). The company designs construction projects, illumination solutions, and intelligent transport systems.
He is the AGBU Armenia President since 2015 and an AGBU Central Board member and Middle East Coordinator (for Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Cyprus) since 2006.
Vasken serves as a Member of the Board of Trustees at the American University of Armenia, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation, the City of Smile Charitable Foundation, and Byblos Bank Armenia. He is a Member of the Ayb School Board of Trustees since 2015 and a Member of Public Council of Armenia since 2018.
He has a B.A. degree in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Vahan Zanoyan
Writer, Publicist and Economist
Vahan Zanoyan is a global energy expert, writer, traveler, retired executive, and anti-trafficking advocate.
Zanoyan has served as global energy consultant to numerous oil companies, banks, and other private and public organizations throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, and Latin America. He has also served as a senior economic and oil policy advisor to several oil producing governments. He was President and CEO of PFC Energy for ten years, based in Washington, DC; the Chairman and Chief Executive of PFC Energy International in Lausanne, Switzerland; and the founding Chief Executive Officer of First Energy Bank, based in Bahrain. He has also founded and ran several consulting services at Wharton Econometric Consulting Associates.
He has published two volumes of poetry in Armenian, (Վերադարձ, 2010 and Եզրէն Դուրս, 2011); and four novels in English, “A Place Far Away” (2013) and “The Doves of Ohanavank” (2014), both of which were inspired by a chance meeting with a very young victim of sex trafficking; “The Sacred Sands” (2016), which is based on his experiences as a global energy consultant; and “Waking Noah’s Vines” (2019).
Zanoyan was educated at the American University in Beirut and at the University of Pennsylvania. He supports several humanitarian causes, primarily aimed at stopping human trafficking, supporting victims of sex trafficking and domestic violence, and, more recently, promoting Armenian wines and wine tourism in Armenia.