Refugees and Migrants: Economic and Social Integration

Speakers

• Salim Salamah

  Speaker

  Founding Member , Network for Refugee Voices

  Salim Salamah is a Syrian Palestinian activist and migration expert. He is a co-founder of the Network for Refugee Voices (NRV), a refugee-led initiative working towards inclusive, sustainable and effective refugee policy. He is also co-founder of The Palestinian League for Human Rights – Syria (PLHR). PLHR is a non-profit that monitors and documents the situation of Palestinian refugees in Syria with the aim of promoting the rights of stateless Palestinians. Born in Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees in Damascus, Syria, 1989, Salim studied Law at Damascus University until 2012, but was forced to leave Syria before completing his degree. In 2013, he moved to Sweden, as a political refugee, where he studied at the Malmo Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare. In 2015, Salim worked as an advisor to the UN Secretary General’s Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security. Salim currently lives in Oxford, United Kingdom, where he is in the process of completing his Masters in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. He also runs a personal blog covering Syria and how he envisions tomorrow’s world.

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• Susan Myers

  Moderator

  Principal, SEM Strategies

  Susan has served as Strategic Advisor to Goal 17 Partners, a non-profit organization that provides a platform for private-private collaboration toward sustainability, equality and accessibility since January 2020. She also serves as an adviser to the UN World Food Programme and a social impact firm, 196, where she advises corporate clients on their strategies on the Sustainable Development Goals and multilateral engagement. Susan’s current work builds on a 20-year long tenure working with the UN and the global policy-making community, most recently as Senior Vice President of the UN Foundation where she managed the organization’s unique relationship with the UN and led its presence in New York. Susan has worked with leaders from the UN, government, business, civil society and academia, brokering partnerships and building efforts to drive progress on global development and the SDGs. She is also active in her local community as a Board Member of Community Lifestyle in Hoboken, NJ.

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• Sana Mustafa

  Speaker

  Founding Member, Resourcing Refugee Leadership Initiative

  Sana Ali Mustafa is a feminist human rights activist and movement leader fighting against oppression in Syria and around the world. Sana is CEO of Asylum Access where she leads the organization’s work on refugee rights and refugee leadership, and she is the first and only female CEO of an international refugee rights organization with lived experience of forced displacement. Prior to joining Asylum Access, Sana led global efforts for representation and inclusion of forcibly displaced persons. She is an active public speaker, board member of Karam foundation, and member of Syria’s first Syrian women’s political movement.

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• Premal Shah

  Speaker

  Co-Founder & President, Kiva

  Premal helps lead Kiva.org —a crowdfunding website that connects people through lending to alleviate poverty. Since 2005, over $1B in philanthropic loans has been crowdfunded to millions of underserved entrepreneurs in 90 countries — with a 96% repayment rate. The site has been named as one of Oprah's Favorite Things and a Top 50 Website by TIME Magazine. Premal's inspiration came while volunteering in India while on leave from PayPal, where he had been an early employee. Premal began his career as a management consultant and graduated from Stanford University. He’s passionate about making it easier for anyone to discover their own power to make real impact. He serves on the Board of VolunteerMatch.org & Watsi.org — a crowdfunding for developing world health care site. For his work as a social entrepreneur, Premal was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and selected to FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 40 under 40″ list.

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• Robert Annibale

  Speaker

  Global Director of Inclusive Finance, Citigroup, Inc.

  Bob Annibale Global Director, Citi Community Development and Inclusive Finance Bob leads Citi’s partnerships with global, national and local organizations to support inclusive finance and community development through economic empowerment. He also leads Citi’s commercial relationships with microfinance financial institutions, corporations, investors and municipalities, working across Citi’s businesses and geographies to expand access to financial services in underserved communities. Since joining Citi in 1982, Mr. Annibale has held a number of senior regional and global treasury, risk and corporate positions in Athens, Bahrain, Nairobi, London and New York. Bob serves on the U.S. FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs Advisory Council on Financial Education and Inclusion. He serves as a Founding Member of SAGE’s Housing Advisory Council supporting the senior LGBT community, and serves on the board of the Citi Foundation, Accion International and the Bedford Stuyvestant Restoration Corporation. In 2014, Bob was honored by the Obama Administration as a White House Champion of Change for his work leading Citi’s programs promoting immigrant integration and citizenship in the United States. His leadership contributed to Citi’s recognition by Euromoney as the inaugural “Best Bank for Financial Inclusion” and “Latin America’s Best Bank for Sustainable Finance”. Bob was individually recognized by Euromoney as a “Global Impact Banking Champion”. In 2018, he was again named by the Financial Times as one of the OUTStanding Top 100 LGBT Business Leaders for the fifth consecutive year. Bob, a U.S. and U.K. national, holds a B.A. in History and Political Science from Vassar College, New York, and an M.A. in African Studies (History) from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies.

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