Our Team


GiveLight Foundation was driven solely by US volunteers up to eight years of operation, saving us more than half a million dollars. We were able to mobilize the diverse talents in our community and reached many important milestones without any paid staff. As we grew globally, we had to hire and develop our staff to ensure that we consistently deliver high-quality work.
Our volunteers consist of professionals and executives, stay-home moms, retirees, and students, all driven by the same dream: to help as many orphans as we possibly can.
We are blessed to have so many individuals who are devoting their time, efforts, and talents to make a positive impact on the lives of our children. GiveLight would not be a beautiful reality today without these dedicated individuals.
Founder & President
Dian Alyan
Born in Takengon, Central Aceh, Indonesia, Dian Alyan has lived a richly rewarding global life as a brilliant student, world traveler, and highly successful executive at Procter & Gamble. After losing 40 relatives in the 2004 tsunami, she established GiveLight Foundation with a mission to uplift the lives of orphans worldwide. What began as one home for 50 children has now expanded to support over 1,000 orphans in 11 countries globally. Dian’s work has garnered humanitarian and leadership awards; speaking engagements at prominent universities, Fortune 500 companies, podcasts, radio and television programs; and articles in major publications such as Newsweek and Huffington Post. She loves being a mother to not just her own two boys, but to hundreds of children around the world. Read her story as featured on Huffington Post here and watch her testimony when starting GiveLight here.

BOARD OF ADVISORS

Aamir Rehman
Fajr Capital Limited
Aamir is an expert in global corporate strategy. During his career he has advised several Fortune 500 companies and held positions of Global Head of Strategy for at HSBC Amanah, unit of the world’s 3rd largest bank, and consultant at Boston Consulting Group. An author of Dubai & Co. Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States, Aamir holds an MBA and MS Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard Business School and Harvard University and a BS from Harvard College. A native of Staten Island, New York, Aamir lives in New York City.

Farhan Syed
Global Sales Operations at LinkedIn
Farhan is Director of Global Sales Operations at LinkedIn. In his capacity he provides advice to LinkedIn leadership and works on building global infrastructure to support sales efforts. His prior work and philanthropic engagements include Bain & Company, Accenture, Qubestone, ING, Zaytuna College, the MCA dawah committee, and the Stanford Islamic school. Farhan holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley in MCB and Economics, an MA from the University of Pennsylvania in International Studies with a focus on the Middle East and Arabic, and an MBA from The Wharton School.

Imam Zaid Shakir
Zaytuna College
Imam Zaid is a public figure, visionary leader, and amongst the most influential Muslim scholars in the west. Born in Berkeley, CA, he accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in US Air Force. He holds a BA in International Relations at American University, an MA in Political Science at Rutgers University, studies in Cairo. He lectured at many top universities, including Stanford and U.C Berkeley, and is a frequent speaker at Muslim events. He has served his life in activism and started several initiatives and founded several mosques. In 2003, he moved to Hayward, CA with his family to serve as a scholar-in-residence and lecturer at Zaytuna Institute.

John Bowen
Sociocultural Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis
John currently teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is the Dunbar - Van Cleve Professor and formerly taught at Harvard University. He has taught courses in social theory, religion, legal, society, anthropolgy, and religious pluralism. Currently he leads the University’s program in Social Thought & Analysis, and also a project in International Initiative in Pluralism, Politics, and Religion. He is a prolific writer with many published books including: Law and Equality in Indonesia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning and a textbook on Religions in practice (Allyn & Bacon). John holds a BA from from Stanford University, a Doctorate from University of Chicago.

Martin Nuechtern
Global Hair Care at Procter & Gamble Company
Martin is a native Austrian who spent his entire career with Procter&Gamble, 11 years of it in Asia, and later led P&G’s business in the ASEAN countries, India and Australia/New Zealand. He also lived and worked in Saudi Arabia, the USA and the UK from where he ran one of the companies five Global Business Units. Martin is currently on the board of the Mast-Jaegermeister SE in Germany. He has volunteered in several leadership positions for churches in the USA, Singapore and England and has been a supporter of GiveLight from its early years. Martin holds a Master and Doctorate degree form the Economy University in Vienna and a M.S.A. from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.

Safaa Ibrahim

Sharif el Badawi
Sharif is a serial entrepreneur and technology executive, who in his current role as Head of Performance Activation at Google, is responsible for the commercialization and sales strategy of Google’s performance advertising products and solutions where he focuses on helping the world’s largest advertisers reach their customers with targeted and relevant ads. He works with sales teams and clients to understand their specific marketing goals, and with product and engineering teams to provide guidance on market needs. Prior to this role, Sharif was focused exclusively on mobile and has helped clients plan out and execute on best-in-class mobile strategies. He joined Google a little over 3 years ago as part of the company's acquisition of AdMob where he co-founded their performance sales team and pioneered their mobile syndication product. Before AdMob, Sharif founded or co-founded several start-ups in consumer internet, social, video and mobile. He is passionate about helping people and has more than seventeen years of experience in product, marketing, sales and operational functions, and has advised over a hundred companies on their digital go-to-market strategies. He is also an active angel investor, advisor and mentor to several start-ups, and currently lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two children. Sharif earned his bachelors degree in Neuroscience and Philosophy from UCLA and an MBA from UC Irvine’s Merage School of Business.
