Board of Directors

Garo Armen, PhD, COAF Founder and Chairman

Garo H. Armen is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Antigenics Inc., the biotechnology company he cofounded with Pramod Srivastava in 1994. From mid-2002 through 2004, he was also chairman of the board of directors for the biopharmaceutical company Elan Corporation, where he successfully engineered the restructuring of the company.

Prior to Antigenics, Dr. Armen established Armen Partners, a money management firm specializing in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and was the architect of the widely publicized creation of the Immunex Lederle oncology business in 1993. Earlier, he was a senior vice president of research at Dean Witter Reynolds, having begun his career on Wall Street as an analyst and investment banker at EF Hutton.

Before entering finance, Dr. Armen was a research fellow at Brookhaven National Laboratories in Long Island, NY. He received a PhD in physical chemistry from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Herb Alpert

Herb Alpert recently retired after thirty-five years as Partner at Roberts & Holland, LLP, the largest law firm in the United States engaged primarily in the practice of tax law. Prior to joining Roberts & Holland, Mr. Alpert served as Attorney in the Office of Legislative Counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department. He then served as Consultant to the same office from 1966 until 1970. During the same period, Mr. Alpert served as Consultant on the Model Treaty for Developing Countries to the United Nations and as Counsel to the Government of Liberia. Mr. Alpert received his Juris Doctor from Columbia University Law School in 1956 and his Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1953.

Khalil Barrage

Mr. Barrage is Managing Director of the Invus Group, LLD, in charge of the public equities activity which he set up in September 2003. Invus manages over $3B of capital. The primary focus is on private equity investments, biotechnology and healthcare. In addition, Invus manages a fund-of-funds liquid alternative investment and most recently the newly established public stocks portfolio activity. Mr. Barrage is a value investor. He started his career in 1988 with The Olayan Group, a multibillion private group. He was in charge of the group’s US public equities portfolio overseeing over $2 billion of assets.

Mr. Barrage started his investment career in 1988 with the Olayan Group, in New York, as a junior analyst. Prior to joining the Invus Group, he managed the group’s public equities portfolio overseeing over $2 billion of assets. The Olayan group is a multinational private group.

Mr. Barrage holds a BA from American University of Beirut.

Gregory H. Ekizian, CFA

Mr. Ekizian is a Chief Investment Officer and Senior Portfolio Manager for the Growth Team of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which manages over $30 billion for institutional and high net worth clients across large, mid and small/mid capitalization strategies. In addition to portfolio management, he has research responsibilities which include the consumer discretionary and healthcare sectors. Mr. Ekizian was a Senior Portfolio Manager at Liberty Investment Management prior to Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s acquisition of Liberty in January 1997. He joined Liberty's predecessor firm, Eagle Asset Management, in 1990. His prior experience includes investment research analysis, portfolio management and investment banking with Shearson Lehman Hutton and PaineWebber. Mr. Ekizian is a 1985 graduate of Lehigh University and received his M.B.A. in Finance at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1990.

Donna J. Evans

As former President of the World Affairs Council of Washington, D.C., Mrs. Evans managed a membership organization of over two thousand local business leaders, foreign diplomats, young professionals, teachers, students and seasoned policy professionals. Mrs. Evans developed and implemented programs on international affairs for the general membership and educational programs for teachers and students. Mrs. Evans also worked as Development Consultant at the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia (1995–97); Regional Country Director, Northwest Russia, International Executive Service Corps (1994–95); Founding Executive Director, American Chamber of Commerce, Prague, Czech Republic (1992–94); Associate Director for External Relations, Eastern Europe, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C. (1987–92); and in the Canadian Foreign Service (1976–88). She is a member of the American News Women’s Club and the Women’s Foreign Policy Group and a charter member of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington. Mrs. Evans accompanied her husband, former U.S. Ambassador John Evans, to the Republic of Armenia (2004–06), where she engaged in various charitable, educational and development projects.

Clare Russell Gregorian

Clare Russell Gregorian has been active in community projects for many years. She has served on the Boards of Planned Parenthood in Austin, Texas, Providence, Rhode Island (where she was vice-president and recipient of the Gilman Angier award) and, most recently, in New York City from 1997 to 2003. She has been active in many political campaigns, beginning in 1968 when she was Fundraising Chair for the McCarthy for President campaign in Palo Alto, as a fundraiser for Ann Richards’ second campaign for Governor, and more recently through get-out-the-vote work for John Kerry in St. Louis, Missouri. She is a past President of Literacy Partners, Inc. of New York City and has served on such other Boards as the Providence Public Library (vice-president), Trinity Repertory Theater (Providence), and the Branch Libraries Council of New York City. In addition to sitting on COAF’s Board, she is currently a member of the Boards of The New 42nd Street, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York City and the Guttmacher Institute.

She and her family have moved a great many times, and in addition to raising a family she has shared the workload of leadership positions by creating, scheduling and hosting official and unofficial events and programs with her husband at three large institutions: the University of Pennsylvania, 1974-80; the New York Public Library, 1981-89; and Brown University, 1989-97. While at Brown she inaugurated the ultimately successful effort leading to the creation of the first Rhode Island National Public Radio station, of which she is currently Honorary Chair.

She is a graduate of Dwight School for Girls and Stanford University and her significant awards include The “First R” Award, Literacy Volunteers of NYC (1988), Rhode Island Volunteer Fundraiser of the Year (1995), Clare R. Gregorian Distinguished Lectureship, Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, an Honorary Degree from Brown University (L.H.D., 1997) and the Highest Award of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Princess of Cilicia (1999).

George Pagoumian

Due to the consolidation of the alphabet companies during the last decade, Mr. Pagoumian saw the need to create a global property marketing/brokering intermediary platform, and he founded NAPCO, a leading wholesale broker of commercial property and casualty insurance coverage, in 1996. Mr. Pagoumian served as President and Chief Executive Officer until early 2003, when he became Chairman of the Board and CEO. He started his commercial property insurance career in 1962 with Commercial Union and Great American, where for nine years he was a National Accounts Property Underwriter. In 1971, Mr. Pagoumian joined F.S. James/Sedgwick. During his 13-year tenure with F.S. James/Sedgwick, he held the position of Marketing Director for its national and global property insurance operation in the New York Office. In 1984, he joined Rollins Burdick Hunter/AON as President of the Mid-Atlantic Division and a senior member of the National Accounts Property Marketing Group. In 1988, Mr. Pagoumian joined Tri-City Wholesale Brokerage, where he formed their National Accounts Property Division. Mr. Pagoumian has many years experience in the conceptualization and marketing of national and global property insurance programs and in the development of a wholesale organization with the capability to consolidate property insurance capacity in a global market. Mr. Pagoumian spends much of his time in charitable endeavors.

Alice Saraydarian, DMD

Alice Saraydarian graduated in 1984 with a BS and in 1988 with a DMD from New York University. She is affiliated with New York University and with the Clinical Research Department of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Dr. Saraydarian is presently in private practice.

Antranig R. Sarkissian

Antranig R. Sarkissian is a Managing Director of Citibank, N.A., New York. He is Group Marketing Executive responsible for the coordination of Citibank’s New York-based marketing activities for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa working closely with the Chairman, President and Chief Executive of Citibank, NA. Antranig is well-traveled and has extensive knowledge of the economies and Citibank’s business activities in that region.

Antranig grew up in Egypt, graduated from the Kaloosdian National School and subsequently attended the American University in Cairo where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics in 1957. He joined Citibank in Cairo in 1958. After receiving a Masters degree in Economics from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, he returned to Cairo in 1960 and then joined Citibank in Beirut until 1965. Since then, he has served in a number of capacities at Citibank’s Headquarters in New York.

Currently, Antranig is an alternate member of the US-Saudi Arabian Business Council and is Chairman of the Board of the Izmirlian-Eurasia Universal Credit Company registered in Armenia and which extends credit to small to medium enterprises. He also serves on the board of the Foundation for Civil Society in New York. He has held directorship positions with the former US-Arab Chamber of Commerce and the US-Pakistan Economic Council in New York and has served as a member of the former US-Egypt and the US-Sudan Business Councils. He is a past President of the Arab Bankers Association of North America and Treasurer and Member of the Executive Board of the Near East Foundation.