(WIEF) Foundation has appointed four new members to its International Advisory Panel (IAP) effective from Apr 1, 2011.
The four are from four different countries, reflecting the global reach of the WIEF Foundation as it seeks to bring businesses around the world closer, it said in a statement today.
They are Datuk Seri Nazir Razak (group managing director/chief executive officer, CIMB Group); Evelyn Mungai (executive chairman, Speedway Investments Ltd, Kenya); Nasser Munjee (chairman, Development Credit Bank Ltd & chairman, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, India); and, John Sandwick (specialist, Islamic Wealth & Asset Management, Switzerland).
“As members of the IAP, they are tasked with providing strategic direction to the WIEF and its related programmes,” it said.
Mungai was quoted as saying the world faced challenges in food and water supply, climate change and global security that affected millions of lives in different societies.
“Africa is not excluded from these challenges. Africa needs a trading partner and one that wants to develop together. The Muslim world can be that partner. The WIEF can be that platform,” she said. Foundation chairman, Tun Musa Hitam, was quoted as saying the WIEF was moving into a new era.
“The WIEF this year is being held in Kazakhstan, the first time it is being held in the Central Asian region after six years rotating in South Asia, South-East Asia and the Middle East.
“With the four new appointees who are nationalities of countries on three different continents with expertise in different areas, the WIEF has become a world forum,” he said.
The seventh WIEF was held in Astana, Kazakhstan from June 7-9.
The foundation, a not-for-profit organisation based in Kuala Lumpur, organises the annual WIEF.
It aims to tackle problems in the Muslim world strictly from a business perspective, and to build bridges through business between the Muslim and non-Muslim world.