Board of Directors

Senior Vice President of Diversity and Justice, The Climate Reality Project

Jamiah Adams is the Senior Vice President of Diversity and Justice at The Climate Reality Project. She previously served as the chief of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Tom Steyer PAC. Prior to her DEI work, Jamiah held digital, communications, and campaign leadership roles at MoveOn.org, NextGen America, the Democratic National Committee, and the NAACP. She has produced educational, advocacy, and documentary media for the internet, television, radio, and film. Her consulting work went hand in hand with a keen acumen for social and digital media strategy as she advised organizations on how to augment their presence in the digital arena, using existing tools, including content management systems, mobile, online advertising, and social media. She began her digital career at CBS Entertainment as a producer and transitioned from there to an outreach director position at Brave New Foundation and Films. She uses her knowledge of production (videos and content), coupled with executive management experience in both the mainstream and digital media to consult for advocacy, faith and policy organizations to improve the lives of working Americans and those who need their cause amplified.

Mustafa Akpinar
Principal, Pinnacle Academy

Mustafa Akpinar has been involved in education, community organizing, and small business ownership in Northern Virginia for two decades. He has worked as a teacher and principal in multiple countries. Previously, he served as the principal of Pinnacle Academy from 2010-2016, worked as a teacher at Prince William County Public Schools from 2004-2010.

Mustafa served as board president of FBI Citizens Academy-Washington Field Office from 2014-2016 and is currently president of the Washington D.C. Community Youth Foundation, a non-profit that provides community enrichment, academic and physical activities, and social life skills for children to become lifelong learners and community leaders. Mustafa is actively engaged in various other non-profit organizations, including the Communities of Trust Committee, the advisory board of the Police Chief of Fairfax County, and the Rumi Forum. He is passionate about education and building connections between public safety agencies and students in the greater Washington D.C. metro area.

Executive Director, Healey International Relief Foundation

Josephine Garnem is the Executive Director of Healey International Relief Foundation. Previously, she served as the Program Manager for Montgomery County Government’s Gilchrist Immigrant Resource Center and the Director of Montgomery Moving Forward, Nonprofit Montgomery’s collective impact initiative. She founded, and until recently lead, the Khalil Garnem Foundation dedicated to promoting equitable health care, education and economic development in Sierra Leone. There, she lead volunteer diaspora medical, surgical, and training initiatives. She comes from the international non-profit sector where she has served as the Strategic Outreach and Partnership Coordinator. Her passion is to strengthen links between communities through partnerships, in order to improve their health and well-being. She has experience working with diverse socio-economic and cultural communities, diaspora relations, diversity and inclusion. Josephine`s work overseas has taught her the importance of diplomacy and team building in multicultural situations and provided her an extensive international experience.

Yasin Kazanci
Manager, USA Cabinet Store

Yasin Kazanci is an experienced manager at USA Cabinet Store with a demonstrated history of working in the retail and wholesale industry. He has a strong sales record with professional skills in marketing management, business planning, retail, market research and operations. He also has a Home Improvement Contractor license from Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation.

Yasin started his BA in Marketing at the University of Connecticut, where he attended for one year, before completing it from the Middlesex University (London, UK). Prior to moving to the UK, he also attended a summer school on Managerial Accounting and Microeconomics at Bogazici University (Istanbul, Turkey).

Upon his graduation, Yasin worked in various businesses in Turkey, ranging from IT (Apple) to pharmaceutical (Eczacibasi) sectors, from energy (BP) to clothing (Rodi) industries in accounting, marketing, procurement, sales and product management, and research and development (R&D) fields.

Ori Z. Soltes
Professor of Teaching, Georgetown University

Ori Z. Soltes is Professorial Lecturer in Theology and Fine Arts at Georgetown University and former Director of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, where he curated over 80 exhibitions on a variety of subjects. He is the author of articles, exhibition catalogs, essays, and books on a range of topics, including Our Sacred Signs: How Jewish, Christian and Muslim Art Draw from the Same Source; The Ashen Rainbow: Essays on the Arts and the Holocaust; Mysticism in Judaism. Christianity and Islam: Searching for Oneness; Tradition and Transformation: Three Millennia of Jewish Art and Architecture; Magic and Religion in the Greco-Roman World: The Beginnings of Judaism and Christianity; and God and the Goalposts: A Brief History of Sports, Religion, Politics, War, and Art.

He also wrote Embracing the World: Fethullah Gulen’s Thought & Its Relationship with Jelaluddin Rumi and Others (2013) and Between Thought and Action: An Intellectual Biography of Fethullah Gulen (2022).