Expert Bios

Dr. Ethan Chorin, Founding Partner & CEO

Ethan Chorin (Arabic, French, Farsi) is Founder & CEO of Perim Associates. He is the author of two books, Exit the Colonel: the Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution (PublicAffairs, 2012), and Translating Libya (Darf Publishers, 2015). From 2008 to 2011, he was Sr. Manager for Government Relations and Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Dubai Ports World. As a Foreign Service Officer from 2004 to 2008, Chorin was posted to Libya, Washington D.C., and the United Arab Emirates. ...(read more)

Dr. Dirk Vandewalle, Director & Partner

Dirk Vandewalle (Arabic, French, Dutch, German) is a professor of Government at Dartmouth College, and teaches a course on business practice in the Arab Gulf states at the Amos Tuck School of Business. The author of two internationally acclaimed books on Libya: Oil and State-building (Cornell University Press) and A History of Modern Libya (Cambridge University Press), has written extensively for policy journals and magazines of general interest, including Newsweek, The New York Times, Foreign P ...(read more)

Dr. Hany Besada

Hany Besada is a Senior Fellow, Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa Regional Advisor, African Mineral Development Centre (AMDC) at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow with the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA), an Adjunct Research Professor, Institute of African Studies at Carleton University. He is also a Senior Governance Specialist with Act For Performance in Ottawa. Until very ...(read more)

Ms. Azza Maghur

A senior lawyer with Maghur & Partners in Tripoli, a firm that represents Libyan and international cases, Azza Maghur gained her legal expertise with her father, former UN diplomat Kamel Maghur, on international cases, such as the territorial dispute between Chad and Libya (1996) and the Lockerbie case in the Netherlands (2000). She acted as a member of the inaugural committee within the Tripoli Bar Association that issued the first Libyan human rights report (1998) and as consultant to BNP Pari ...(read more)

Mr. Bashir Elmegaryaf

Bashir Izzat Elmegaryaf is a development professional with wide-ranging experience in finance, development economics and public policy. After graduating from Emory University in 2012 where he received a BA in International Studies and Economics, Bashir joined the Libyan Investment Authority’s (LIA) African Portfolio. Serving as a strategy consultant for the African Portfolio, Bashir was responsible for developing high-level strategy aimed to improve the portfolio’s performance, sustainability a ...(read more)

Mr. Jean-Luc Bernard

Mr Bernard is an experienced development practitioner, with focus on the energy sector environment, industrial issues, monitoring and evaluation. He spent 5 years in the European Commission's Directorate General for Energy, and has been the UNIDO and FAO Representative ad interim in Morocco. In his capacity, he co-chaired the Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group of the UN System in Morocco. Much of Mr Bernard’s career has been spent in Morocco, where he currently resides, and Iran, wh ...(read more)

Ms. Rabea Benhalim

Ms. Rabea Benhalim (Arabic) is a lawyer, with focus on oil and gas finance, and Islamic law. She has been in-house counsel to Maersk Oil on a major Angola oil and gas facility, and worked as a finance attorney assisting major financial institutions with multi-million and multi-billion dollar oil and gas deals. At the Brookings Institution, Ms. Benhalim was Legal Fellow in Governance Studies where she researched and published papers on law and policy related to detention and privacy. She has pr ...(read more)

Mr. Peter Francis

Peter Francis is the founder and president of Global Energy Consultants, which specializes in providing advice to the oil and gas industry in emerging and developing countries. Mr. Francis completed 30 years of service with ExxonMobil in a number of executive treasury and government relations positions in the U.S., Europe and Africa. He has extensive knowledge of working in developing and transition economies; how to influence and build relationships with senior government officials; and develop ...(read more)

Mr. Cyril Kormos

Cyril Kormos (French) is Vice-President for Policy at The WILD Foundation, where he conducts research and advocacy on a range of issues including wilderness law and policy, climate policy, conservation finance and biodiversity offsets. He is a specialist in conservation issues in Africa, and has done extensive fieldwork in Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau and Botswana. Mr. Kormos also serves as Vice-Chair for World Heritage for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Commi ...(read more)

Ms. Thelma Tajirian

Ms. Thelma Tajirian (Arabic, French and Armenian) is an international finance and development professional with 25 years experience in the US, Canada and emerging markets. Much of Ms. Tajirian’s career has involved taking new initiatives from ideation to strategy to revenue generation and sustainability. Most recently Ms. Tajirian worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), where she was Program Manager and Product Leader providing advisory on access to finance services in six countri ...(read more)

Mr. Geoffrey Milton

An expert in emerging markets and bank regulatory matters, Geoffrey Milton began his career with Bank of America in 1969 after graduating with a Degree in Economics from London University. From then until 1983 his responsibilities took him, via London & Manchester, to the Middle East (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia & Cairo) for 6 years. He was CEO & a Director of Misr America International Bank in Egypt (1979-1983). He chaired the American Business Group in Cairo, was a Member of the Founding Committee o ...(read more)

Col. Wolfgang Pusztai, Sr. Associate

Mr. Wolfgang Pusztai has both a military and an academic background in strategy. His education includes a Master of Science in Political Science from the University of Vienna and a Master of Science in National Security Strategy from the National War College in Washington, D.C. ...(read more)

Mr. Mark Hope

Mark Hope has spent 28 years in a number of senior positions at resource-focused multinationals with operations in Africa and the Middle East, in Libya, Nigeria, Gabon, Angola, Mozambique, Kenya, Iran, and Sao Tome e Principe. Born and raised in East Africa, Mr.Hope successfully built five companies, which have together employed more than 1,000 new staff. From 2005-2010 Mr. Hope was Vice President and Country Managing Director for Royal Dutch Shell in Libya. This followed an appointment a ...(read more)

Amb. Lange Schermerhorn

Ambassador Schermerhorn’s 35-year Foreign Service career included economic, political, staff, and program direction assignments in the Department of State, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Iran, the United Kingdom, Belgium (twice) , and lastly as Ambassador to the Republic of Djibouti (1998-2000) during which the year-long Arta Somalia reconciliation conference sponsored by the Government of Djibouti took place. Since retiring in 2001, she has continued her interest in Africa and the affairs of the Horn, ...(read more)

Dr. Robert Springborg

Robert Springborg (Arabic) is a leading expert on Egypt, and the Egyptian military. He has held a number of senior academic appointments, including the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, where he also served as Director of the London Middle East Institute. Before taking up that Chair he was Director of the American Research Center in Egypt. From 1973 until 1999 he taught in Australia, where he was University Professor of Midd ...(read more)

Mr. Francis Ghilès

Francis Ghilès is a trilingual (English, French and Spanish) journalist and political analyst who through eighteen years with The Financial Times reporting on international capital markets and North Africa has built up extensive experience and high level contacts throughout the Western Mediterranean, the UK, the USA and Japan. He has been Research Assistant to Pierre Mendès France (MP and the Mayor of Grenoble), Co-founder of the annual Mediterranean Gas Conference, and founder of the North Afri ...(read more)

Ms. Noura Abdi

Noura Abdi (Somali, Arabic, French, Portuguese) is an environmental and development professional, focused on disaster risk management, water resources and forced migrations. She has consulted regularly to both the Djiboutian government (Executive Secretariat for Disaster Risk Management, or SEGRC)) and the World Bank on issues related to vulnerability, urban and disaster risks management. Ms. Abdi has held a number of practical fellowships from “Centre d’Etudes Géographiques de l’Université d ...(read more)

Dr. Mohamed Mufti, Sr. Associate

Dr. Mohamed Mufti (Arabic, English), is a Libyan public intellectual, physician and author. He has been a practicing physician in Benghazi since 1984, and has written nine notable books on Libya’s politics and social history. His most recent book is “Thakirat al Nar”, diaries of the Libyan Revolution (2015). He is a native of Derna, and graduated in 1968 from Leeds Medical School in the United Kingdom. ...(read more)

Dr. Peter Vinella, Affiliate

Dr. Peter Vinella has more than 25 years of experience in the financial industry as a consultant and an executive with major financial institutions. His areas of expertise include trading and investment management, risk management, quantitative analyses, operations, trading and investment-related accounting, technology (including software development), trust administration, and fund administration. He has first-hand experience with a wide variety of investment products including equities, debt i ...(read more)

Dr. Jeanette Jin, Affiliate

Dr. Jeanette Jin focuses on engagements in the areas of capital markets, risk management, governance and regulation, valuation, and securities litigation. Dr. Jin was an executive vice president, chief operating officer, and co-founder of Wilmington Trust Conduit Services (WTCS), where she oversaw all aspects of business operations. WTCS provided a broad array of administrative, trustee, custodial, operations, accounting, valuation, and risk management services to asset managers, investment bank ...(read more)