» Board of Directors » Staff and Fellows » Guidelines » Evaluation Criteria » Application » Grantees Board of Directors Noosheen Hashemi Noosheen Hashemi, President and co-founder of The HAND Foundation, is a philanthropist with a passion for entrepreneurship and economic development. Since 2003, she has led The HAND Foundation's efforts to prevent child sexual abuse, strengthen the global middle class and advance the philanthropic sector. Ms. Hashemi is also a trustee of the India Community Center, and an Advisory Council Member for the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at John's Hopkins University. From 2006 to 2011, Ms. Hashemi co-founded and chaired PARSA Community Foundation, the first Iranian-American community foundation. Since 1997 Ms. Hashemi has been an independent investor and advisor in the software industry. In 1996, she joined Quote.com, a profitable personal finance pioneer, as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Prior to that Ms. Hashemi held various management positions at Oracle Corporation between 1985 and 1995, where she took active part in software's meteoric rise as an industry. She was appointed Director of Finance and Administration in 1988 and named Vice President in 1990. In 1991, she won Oracle's "Against All Odds Award" for her role in the company's financial turnaround. In 1993, she led expansion of Oracle services as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Oracle's Worldwide Education. Ms. Hashemi is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the advisory board of Persian Tech Entrepreneurs. She has been awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the CEDAW Human Rights Award for Philanthropy, the Girl Scouts Forever Green Leadership Award and was named one of Gentry Magazine's top 50 philanthropists in 2013. She served as a board member of the New America Foundation from 2005-2012. She holds a B.S. in Economics from San Jose State University and an M.S. in Management from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, where she became a Sloan Fellow. Farzad Nazem Farzad (Zod) Nazem, Secretary and co-founder of The HAND Foundation, has been an independent investor and advisor since his retirement from Yahoo! in 2007. He joined Yahoo! in 1996 as Vice President of Engineering and was appointed Chief Technology Officer a year later. He is credited with pioneering the massively scalable and cost effective web operations that allowed 600 million users make Yahoo! their reliable home on the internet. During his 11 year tenure at Yahoo!, Mr. Nazem helped acquire and integrate over 50 companies. Between 1985 and 1996, Mr. Nazem held various software development and management positions at Oracle Corporation culminating in his role as Vice President of Media and Web Server Division. His tenure at Oracle also included membership in the company's Product Division Management Committee which set overall strategy for Oracle products. From 1983 to 1985, Mr. Nazem was a senior engineer at SYDIS, Inc., an office automation software and hardware start-up. Previously, Mr. Nazem was recruited by Rolm Corporation to be a software engineer in the VLCBX division, from California Polytechnic State University, where he earned a B.S. degree in Computer Science with highest honors. Mr. Nazem serves on the boards of Apixio Inc. and NextBio. He lives with his wife and two kids in Atherton, California. He enjoys golf, racquetball and travel. Nasrin Hashemi Nasrin Hashemi, Treasurer of The HAND Foundation, worked for 12 years in Consulting Finance at Oracle Corporation. She has a BS in Social Science from Iran and moved to United States in 1990. She currently works for HN Household.