Award International Committee

Members of the Committee are listed in the alphabetical order of their last names 

All Committee Members work as volunteers.  Gabriel Al-Salem Foundation greatly appreciates their enormous efforts in evaluating the applications and the immense contribution to the success of the Award. 

Chair of the Kazakhstan Chamber of Management Consultants (CMC Kazakhstan); Member of the Board of Directors/Treasurer of Gabriel Al-Salem Foundation, Member of IMC USA. Gulsum is a management consultant with 25+ years of experience specializing in the area of strategic management, finance, restructuring, market research, and business planning.

Since early 90s Gulsum worked on projects funded by international donor agencies assisting local governments in the Central Asia region in accounting reform, privatization and private sector development, pension reform, higher education reform, and regional economic development. Gulsum also has extensive experience working with private business in Central Asia.

Gulsum is an active business trainer specializing in business ethics, core consultancy skills, financial and management accounting, auditing, and strategic and business planning.

Gulsum was born in Kazakhstan and is currently residing in Almaty.

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Member of the International Consulting Association (PDP) of the Institute of Organizational and Social Development; Director of consulting company “Business Redesign Group” (St. Petersburg); professor at Stockholm School of Economics and St. Petersburg State University’s Management Department; Founder of School of Professional Business Consultants.

Key skills:

  • Implementing consulting and training programs on project management and organizational restructuring;
  • Development and implementation of corporate universities, seminars and trainings for top-managers and consultants in Russia and other countries.
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In 2002 Brian was President of the UK Institute of Management Consultancy and has been continuously involved with ICMCI (International Council of Management Consulting Institutes) since 1999 having been a UK trustee, elected secretary (twice) and Chair. For four years he led the group within ICMCI responsible for the assuring the consistent standard of awarding the CMC in all the Full member countries of ICMCI.

Originally a theoretical physicist, Brian has been a corporate planner and an accountant before becoming a management consultant with a leading international firm. His thirty year career covered, among other topics, use of IT for competitive advantage, program management, outsourcing, marketing strategy and organizational development. Brian built two consultancies from scratch.

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Most of Calvert Markham’s career has been as a management consultant, initially specialising in HR consultancy but now concentrating on the performance development of consultants and practices.

Calvert’s main activity is in consultant development and training; he founded Elevation Learning Ltd which specialises in this area in 1989. Since its formation it has trained thousands of consultants from hundreds of organisations around the world.

Calvert is a Visiting Professor in the practice of management consultancy at Cass Business School in City University, lecturing there and at other business schools. Elevation Learning merged with Cass Business School at the beginning of 2014 to become a division of its Executive Education subsidiary.

He is a Fellow of the UK Institute of Consulting of which he was President in 2004, and is a Certified Management Consultant. In 2008 Calvert was appointed the first President of the Richmond Group, of which he is a former Chairman. He was for many years until late 2013 a UK Trustee on the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes of which he was a Vice Chairman, chairing the Professional Standards Committee, which oversees global standards in management consultancy.

He is the author of several books on management consultancy, notably Management Consultancy (jointly with Joe O’Mahoney, second edition 2013) and two long-standing favourites, Practical Management Consultancy and The Top Consultant, the latest edition of each being recently published as e-books.

On February 1, 2014 Gabriel Al-Salem Foundation presented Calvert with a special “Consulting Without Borders” Award for his remarkable contribution to the development of management consulting worldwide.

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Ashley Moretz is a Senior Advisor-Global Social Performance with Chevron Corporation, based in San Ramon, CA. Current responsibilities include supporting field teams on issues related to stakeholder engagement, social investment, and social impact management.

Before joining Chevron in 2012, he served as the Country Representative for the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of Transition Initiatives' (USAID/OTI) program in the Kyrgyz Republic since July 2010. He also served as USAID's Country Representative in Turkmenistan from 2005-2010 and the Deputy USAID Representative for Tajikistan. Prior to joining USAID, Ashley worked on the USAID-funded Enterprise Development Project in Kazakhstan from 2000 to 2003, ultimately serving as the project’s Director of the Business Advisory Services. It was in this position that he first came to know and respect Gabriel and his contributions to the development of the consulting industry in central Asia.

He holds a Master’s Degree in International Management from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management, and a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from the University of North Carolina.

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Manola Robison is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) for over 20 years and CEO of Robison Management Consulting, Inc., since 1992. Manola helps businesses increase profitability, with her holistic approach to strategy, operations, sales, marketing, and human resources, as well as executive coaching, culture change, board selection, and operational improvement. She has been visiting lecturer for an university entrepreneur center for several years. Manola is a well-known speaker in the areas of leadership, business management, organizational behavior, communications, and small business development.

Manola joined IMC USA in 1994 and since then her contributions have covered many areas: she was chapter president for several terms, secretary and certification chair; she also served for two years in the national Board as VP of Academic Affairs. Manola has originated several programs for IMC USA, such as the CMC Primer, the University Certificate in Management Consulting to which she contributed authoring some of the materials and was the editor of all of the materials. Manola is very much involved with the University Affairs as an advisor to that committee, and also with the certification process.

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Nick has been a management consultant for over 25 years after an extensive career in senior management. Nick spent the early part of his career in the UK and moved to Canada in the 1970’s. He is a well-known seminar leader and facilitator and was awarded the President’s Award for Education by CGA-BC in 2007. Nick has worked in several countries with Associations, Government and NGO’s, public companies and private business. His most recent book is “Reflective Leaders and High-Performance Organizations.” He has also written on financial management, corporate governance and emerging areas such as organizational sustainability and human development.

A Fellow of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Ontario (FCMC – Honour Roll), and Past President of the Institute, Nick is Past Chair of the National Certification Committee for all Institutes of Management Consulting across Canada; is Past Chair of the Professional Standards Committee of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI) and served as one of four trustees for Canada at the International level (ICMCI).

Nick provided support through EBRD, to Gabriel in developing consulting organization’s in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and in the certification of the first cadre of consultants at the Jordan ICMCI conference. He has also developed and delivered workshops in ethics and management consulting.


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Zhanibek Suleimenov, Gabriel’s long-standing colleague and friend, is one of the initiators of the Award for Excellence in Consulting and the Conference “Consulting without Borders.” He was instrumental in launching the first Award and organizing the first Conference.
Zhanibek has made substantial impact on the development of business advisory services sector in Kazakhstan while managing the largest Business Advisory Services (currently Small Business Support) operation of the EBRD, which implemented over three hundred market development activities and facilitated over one thousand consulting projects. He has 20 years of international experience in management consulting and small & medium enterprise development. Zhanibek is a member of the Board of Directors of Gabriel Al-Salem Foundation.
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For four years worked as Manager of the EBRD Small Business Support team based in London, UK. Previously worked as Advisor to the Government of Indonesia and then the Government of Iraq on public sector reform and aid management with the UN. Also, held a position of Strategy Consultant at Accenture with a range of corporate clients.

Degrees from Oxford University and University College London.

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Stephen Tupper has a background in finance, taxation and law: he has worked as a consultant for almost thirty years, performing assignments for major donors and international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, EBRD, ADB, European Union and USAID. His consultancy work is closely linked to development of a positive entrepreneurial environment with a concentration on fiscal and regulatory issues, but he has also managed projects and programs related to poverty reduction. These have been located in most states of the former USSR, as well as China and South East Asia.

Apart from these professional activities, Stephen has an ongoing interest in social enterprise and also in work with non-commercial bodies and NGOs. He recently assisted a UK-based charity in its localisation program in Russia and sits on the Board of Trustees as adviser to the Russian localised charity, advising on fund-raising and other sustainability issues.

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A Senior Director at Development Alternatives Incorporated, Sarah is an international development specialist with over 25 years of experience, implementing, managing and designing projects, and winning new business.

Lived and worked in Kazakhstan in the mid 1990s, where she came to know Gabriel Al-Salem and his wife Viktoria. Her new business experience, which includes developing winning proposals for contracts valued above $180 million, provides her strong insights into reviewing applications for the Al-Salem Foundation.

Sarah is a graduate of Harvard and Yale Universities, and speaks Russian and French.

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A Co-Founder and Country Director at Central Asian Development Institute (CADI), Roman is a winner of the Gabriel-Al Salem International Award for Excellence in Consulting - 2013 in the category “Consulting without Borders.”

Roman holds a PhD degree in Economics from Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. He is a member of the Kazakhstan Chamber of Management Consultants (CMC Kazakhstan) and the Central Eurasia Leadership Academy (CELA). Roman works also as a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). In 2012, he contributed to the establishment of the Consortium of Consulting and Research Organizations of Kazakhstan (CCRO).

Having priceless experience of working together with Gabriel Al-Salem, Roman is a consultant and researcher specializing in strategic planning in emerging markets, energy and climate change, trade, investment climate and economic development in Central Asia. He has extensive experience in project management, fundraising, stakeholder management, market research, investment consulting, and establishing business networks in Central Asia. Roman headed various projects funded by international organizations, including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, German Development Cooperation, Global Development Network and many others. He speaks Russian, English, Ukrainian, German and French.

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