Col. David Des Roches
ديفيد دي روش

David B. Des Roches is Associate Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at National Defense University, where he specializes in countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf Cooperation Council Regional Security, Border Security, Weapons Transfers, Missile Defense, Counterinsurgency, Terrorism and emerging trends. 

He joined NESA in 2011 after serving the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy in numerous positions, including as Director of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, the DoD liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, the Senior Country Director for Pakistan, the NATO Operations Director (where he drafted the NATO comprehensive approach directive), the Deputy Director for Peacekeeping, and the spokesman for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.  Prior to that, he served in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy as an International Law Enforcement Analyst and Special Assistant for Strategy. 

Professor Des Roches holds advanced degrees from the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies and Kings College London, which he attended as a British Marshall Scholar.  He also holds an advanced degree from the U.S. Army War College, and a bachelor of science degree from the United States Military Academy, West Point, where he was selected to Phi Kappa Phi. He is also a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute, the US Government education center for senior civil servants. He is a non-resident academic fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a non-resident senior fellow at the Gulf International Forum, and senior international affairs fellow at the National Council on US Arab Relations. 

Dr. John Duke Anthony
د. جون ديوك أنثوني

Dr. John Duke Anthony is the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. On June 21, 2000, H.M. King Muhammad VI of Morocco knighted Dr. Anthony, bestowing upon him the Medal of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, the nation of Morocco's highest award for excellence. Dr. Anthony currently serves on the United States Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy’s Subcommittee on Sanctions.

Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been invited to each of the Gulf Cooperation Council's Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC's inception in 1981. (The GCC is comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates).

Dr. Anthony has annually chaired and served as the core lecturer in the National Council’s 10-Week University Student Summer Internship Program’s Annual Academic Seminar on “Arabia and the Gulf” since it was launched in 1986. For the past 43 years, he has also been a regular lecturer on the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf for the Departments of Defense and State. Dr. Anthony is former Chair, Near East and North Africa Program, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State as well as former Founding Chair of the Department’s Advanced Arabian Peninsula Studies Seminar – the U.S. government’s leading educational preparation programs for select American diplomatic and defense personnel assigned to countries in Arabia and the Gulf, the one region to which the United States has mobilized and deployed more armed forces than any other place on three separate occasions in the past thirty-seven years.

A Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1986, Dr. Anthony has been a frequent participant in its study groups and seminars on issues relating to the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf regions, Syria, and the broader Arab and Islamic world. He has served as an Associate Professor, Visiting Professor, and/or Adjunct Professor at the American University in Cairo; Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service; the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies; the Universities of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Texas; the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School; the U.S. Joint Intelligence College; and the Virginia Military Institute. Dr. Anthony continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor at the Defense Institute of Security Cooperation Studies (formerly known as the Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

In 1983, Dr. Anthony received the U.S. Department of Defense’s Institute of Security Assistance Management’s Distinguished Achievement Award, one of three granted to American Middle East specialists in the Institute’s history. In 1989, the Kappa Alpha Order’s National Executive bestowed upon him its Distinguished Public Service Award for Excellence “through a strenuous and useful Life of Service to others.” In 1993, Dr. Anthony received the U.S. Department of State’s Distinguished Visiting Lecturer Award, one of three awarded over a span of a quarter century, in recognition of his preparation of American diplomatic and defense personnel assigned to the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf states. In 1994, he received the Stevens Award for Outstanding Contributions to American-Arab Understanding. In 2008, the Rotary Club of the Nation’s Capital bestowed upon him its first-ever Local Giant Leadership Award. In 2014, he was awarded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Distinguished Service Award at ADC’s Annual Convention.

In March 2017, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, Chair, and General P.X. Kelly, Co-Chair, announced the appointment of Dr. Anthony to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Advisory Committee, emphasizing that the appointment “signals our gratitude for your unique insights and support,” adding that “you join as fellow members celebrated patriotic leaders Senator Bob Dole, Tom Brokaw, Tom Hanks, and Secretary James. Baker.” In May 2018, Dr. Anthony was recognized by the Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman in Washington, D.C. at their Fifth Annual Ramadan Iftar Celebration. The recognition singled out Dr. Anthony’s special contributions as an educator and practitioner of public diplomacy regarding the Arab countries, the Middle East, and the Islamic world.

Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (1969-1970). Beginning in 1993 and continuing through 2006, his long experience in Yemen led to his being asked – consecutively by the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and the Government of Yemen – to serve as an international observer in each of Yemen’s first four presidential and parliamentary elections. In 1971, he was cosponsored by the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the U.S. Department of State as the sole American scholar allowed to observe at firsthand the process by which Britain proceeded to abrogate its longstanding treaty obligations to administer the defense and foreign relations for nine Arab states lining the coastal regions of eastern Arabia and the Gulf.

In addition to being the founder of the Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference, now in its 28th year, Dr. Anthony has also been co-founder and board member of the National Commission to Commemorate the 14th Centennial of Islam; a founder, board member, and Secretary of the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee; founding President of the Middle East Educational Trust; co-founder of the Commission on Israeli-Palestinian Peace; founding President of the Society for Gulf Arab Studies; and founder and former chairman of the U.S.-Morocco Affairs Council.

After the completion of his U.S. Army active duty military service, the Commonwealth of Virginia granted Dr. Anthony a four-year, all-expenses State Cadetship Award, which allowed him to enroll at Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in History. At VMI, he was elected president of his class all four years in addition to serving as president of the Corps of Cadets’ governing bodies during his First Class (Senior) Year. He subsequently earned a Master of Science Degree in Foreign Service (With Distinction) from the Edmund A. Walsh Graduate School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where, in addition to holding one of three University Scholar Awards, he was inducted into the National Political Science Honor Society.

Dr. Anthony holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and Middle East Studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C., where he held a National Defense in Foreign Language Scholarship for Arabic, was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, and was appointed to SAIS' full time faculty in 1973 while still a student.
Dr. Anthony passed his proficiency exam in French at the Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in 1966 and his proficiency exam in Arabic at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 1969 following study there as well as at Princeton University and the American University in Cairo's Center for Arabic Study Abroad.

Kirsten Fontenrose
كيرستن فونتنروز

Kirsten Fontenrose is Director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council where she  leads the security pillar within the Middle East programs. This effort focuses on the Middle East and North Africa’s ongoing security challenges, geopolitical competition, and the transatlantic community’s role in promoting security and stability to allow for political and economic development.

Fontenrose has twenty years of experience working with the national security apparatuses of nations in the Middle East and Africa from positions within the US Department of Defense, Department of State, White House, private industry, and non-profit sector. She served as Senior Director for Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council, leading the development of US policy toward nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan. Most recently, she was Senior Vice President for Global Relations at the Sonoran Policy Group.
Previously, Fontenrose led the Middle East and Africa team in the interagency Global Engagement Center, built relationships with military officers and diplomats from the Middle East and South Asia for the Near East Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, which she helped establish. Her career began in the non-profit sector at the National Council on US-Arab Relations, and in the private sector working on US-Arab business projects with Arthur Houghton Associates.

Fontenrose’s editorials have been published in The Washington Post and Al-Anba. She has been interviewed on CNN, Fox News, BBC, MSNBC, PBS Newshour, NPR, and Voice of America and has been quoted in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among many others. She holds a BA in Middle East studies from the College of William and Mary, an MA in Middle East studies from Indiana University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Patrick Mancino
باتريك مانسينو
Executive Vice President & Director of Development of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations

Adnan Abdulaziz Al-Bahar
عدنان عبدالعزيز احمد البحر

Mr. Al Bahar has served as the Chairman and Managing Director of The International Investor – Kuwait, a regional investment bank in Kuwait, since 1992. Mr. Al Bahar began his career with Burgan Bank, before becoming the General Manager of KFH from 1986-1990. Subsequently, he pursued his career in London for two years from 1990 to 1992 as the Managing Director for Al Rajhi Bank of Saudi Arabia. In 1992 he established The International Investor – Kuwait.

Throughout his career, Mr. Al Bahar has served on many national and regional Boards & Committees. He has been a member of the Higher Planning Board, served as Advisor to the Kuwaiti Parliament’s Finance Committee, was a Board Member of Kuwait Stock Exchange, a Board Member of the Kuwait Investment Authority, and a Member of the Executive Committee of the Unit Investment Trust -Islamic Development Bank, Jeddah among others.

Mr. Al Bahar holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Business from the American College in Switzerland and a Banking Studies Diploma from Kuwait.

Dr. Ali Al-Tarrah
د. علي أحمد الطراح

Ali Al Zalzalah
علي عبدالمجيد عبدالرزاق الزلزلة

Hussam Ali Marafi
حسام علي معرفي

Mr. Hussam A. Marafie is the Chairman and CEO of Gas & Oil Fields Services Company (GOFSCO). Prior to assuming these positions, he held a senior management position at Schlumberger as a Wireline Field Engineer overseeing operations in key markets which include Venezuela, Colombia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

He is also a Board Member at Noor Financial Investment Company, Vice Chairman at Grand Oil Company – Kuwait, and Founder of Eastern United Petroleum Services; the first Kuwaiti Wireline Logging Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree with a specialization in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, and was also awarded the Executive Leadership Development Certificate from Stanford University School of Business, US, a Leadership Program Certificate from Harvard Business School, US, and a Program Certificate from Harvard Business School; now known as Harvard Alumni.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al Khalifa
الشيخ / خليفة بن حمد آل خليفة

Marzouq Khaled Boodai
مرزوق خالد عبدالله بودي

Qais Abdullah AlJoan
قيس عبدالله محمد الجوعان

Talal Khalid AlNisf
طلال خالد نصف النصف

Yousef Abdulaziz AlQatami
يوسف عبدالعزيز يوسف القطامي

Naser Salah Boresli
ناصر صلاح بورسلي

Naser Salah Boresli has joined as an advisor in monitoring, auditing and governance affairs.

He has more than 11 years of experience in the field of monitoring, banking and investment companies. He holds a BA in Finance and Financial Institutions.

Higher Diploma in Islamic Finance.

Master of Business Administration.

A Certified Islamic Specialist in Shariah Auditing (CIBAFI).

ICA International Advanced Certificate in Regulatory Compliance

ICA International Advanced Certificate in Anti Money Laundering

Member of the Kuwait Transparency Society

Member of the Kuwait Economic Society

 

انضم الباحث الكويتي ناصر صلاح بورسلي كمستشار المركز في شؤون الرقابة والحوكمة. يملك خبرة اكثر من ١١ عاما في مجال الرقابة و البنوك و شركات الاستثمار. كما اجتاز عدة دورات مهنية تخصصية في المجال المصرفي و الاستثماري و المالي. بالاضافةلكونه محلل فني معتمد (من المعهد الامريكي للبحوث الاقتصادية) يحمل بكالريوس تمويل و منشآت مالية الدبلوم العالي بالتمويل الاسلامي ماجستير ادارة الاعمال واختصاصي تدقيق شرعي معتمد CIBAFI ويحمل الشهادة الدولية المتقدمه في الالتزام الرقابي ICA والشهادة الدولية المتقدمه في مكافحة غسل الأموال ICA عضو جمعية الشفافية عضو الجمعية الاقتصادية الكويتية