Archives: Team

Sumaiya Nour is a Senior Associate on the Business Development team at BRAC USA. She focuses on resource mobilization and partnership development, with an emphasis on expanding BRAC’s North American bilateral government funding portfolio. She supports the Business Development team to establish partnerships with key primes and other organizations to enhance BRAC’s positioning for funding opportunities. She also supports tracking and identifying USAID funding prospects and contributes to proposal development for BRAC’s priority programmatic areas.

Sumaiya holds a master’s degree in International Political Economy and Development from Fordham University, with expertise in project management. She began her career in Bangladesh, implementing programs in cross-cutting areas such as agriculture, food security, gender, and nutrition. Her professional journey has since taken her to Australia and New York City, where she contributed to initiatives in financial literacy, youth empowerment, and domestic violence intervention, further enriching her experience in international development and social impact.

Willow’s expertise is in overseeing program implementation per established standards to achieve optimum outcomes, developing project budgets, formulating robust reports, preparing other documentation, and maintaining case files to streamline operations. Willow has six years of international development experience including four and half years living and working in the developing countries of Ghana and Guatemala. Additional experience in/on/for Italy, South Africa, Armenia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mali, Morocco, Sudan, South Sudan, and Syria.

Julia brings nearly 30 years of experience to the role. She comes to BRAC from Population Services International (PSI), where she was the Vice President of Global Fundraising and Communications. Since 2008, her skills and leadership grew out of delivering programs across the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. Prior to this, she worked for USAID, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She holds a master’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and is a Chartered Advisor of Philanthropy.

Julia brings nearly 30 years of experience to the role. She comes to BRAC from Population Services International (PSI), where she was the Vice President of Global Fundraising and Communications. Since 2008, her skills and leadership grew out of delivering programs across the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. Prior to this, she worked for USAID, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She holds a master’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and is a Chartered Advisor of Philanthropy.

Vladan Nikolic is the Senior Manager, Grants and Compliance at BRAC USA. Vladan has more than 15 years of grant management and compliance experience with international non-government organizations and consulting companies, such as Save The Children, CARE International, Humanity and Inclusion, IREX, and Booz Allen Hamilton. Prior to this role, Vladan was a Senior Grant and Compliance Officer at Humanity & Inclusion.

Vladan holds a bachelor’s degree in management and international marketing from Megatrend Business School, Megatrend University, Belgrade.

As the Associate, Executive Office, at BRAC USA, Oyeshee supports our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer. She assists the executive team with prospect, donor, and stakeholder relationships, through conducting in-depth research, drafting solicitations for high priority prospects, and facilitating internal relations, staff coordination, and communication.

Prior to joining BRAC USA, she collaborated with Institut Pasteur in Paris and Dakar, which is an internationally renowned center for biomedical research. She supported the philanthropy team as a consultant, working on their capital campaign program and international fundraising initiatives.

Abdulrahman Alzuebi is a Corporate and Foundation Partnerships team manager at BRAC USA. He oversees a portfolio of partnerships with leading Global Foundations, contributing to partnership building, proposal development, and increasing BRAC’s ties and visibility across different geographies and thematic priorities such as education, humanitarian response, and microfinance programs.

Previously, he managed public health and education programs for Dubai Cares across 12+ countries, and worked in the energy sector with Kuwait Oil Company prior to the international development career.

Abdulrahman holds an MBA in Social Enterprise from Hult International Business School and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Kuwait University. He is fluent in Arabic and English, with basic proficiency in Spanish.

Mica brings more than 25 years of communications and fundraising experience to BRAC USA. Mica’s career launched in a BusinessWeek newsroom in Manhattan as the magazine launched its online presence in the late 1990s. She was a Senior Writer/Assistant Editor at the London Business School from 2005-2008, diving into alumni communications, speech writing, and internal communications.

After moving back to the U.S. in 2008, she consulted for a range of organizations before joining Humanity & Inclusion (then ‘handicap international’) as their U.S. Director of Marketing and Communications. In 2018, she was part of the global working group that rebranded the organization – from name and logo to colors and layouts – to humanity & inclusion. She became the U.S. Director of Communications and Development in 2020, building out the team’s digital fundraising and planned giving capabilities.

Melyssa Muro is the Gift Processor/Database Administrator for the Individual Giving team, assisting with donation processing as well as donor data hygiene solutions. She ensures all donor and gift information is stored accurately to aid in fundraising efforts aimed at expanding BRAC’s programs.

While a student of Columbia University, Melyssa interned with The Moth, Doctors Without Borders, and The Prospect Hill Foundation. She then worked for a global financial institution where she learned data and account management. This combination of nonprofit experience and data management led her to serve as Program Coordinator for the small nonprofit Path Forward, where she assisted with database administration, program implementation and coordination, as well as fundraising efforts.

As the Director of Development at BRAC USA, Catherine oversees the fundraising strategy and donor relations for individual, major donor, and family foundation giving. Catherine has twenty years’ experience in development, strategic planning, and communications for international and U.S.-based youth development, human rights, and social justice organizations.

She has served in recent fundraising leadership roles at NAF, Learning Leaders, and Equality Now. Catherine holds an M.A. in Modern European History from Columbia University and a B.A. in English from the University of Vermont.