Founders

Honorary Advisory Board

Mr. Ezra Friedlander
For more than 15 years, Ezra has managed many complex public relations campaigns, earning a reputation for his diverse skills and broad range of knowledge. Ezra’s expertise lies in understanding the unique needs of the individual client, and customizing strategies accordingly.

Ezra’s extensive experience has enabled him to deal proficiently with the various issues that inevitably arise in the course of challenging projects. Prior to founding The Friedlander Group, Ezra served on the staffs of New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind and former New York Public Advocate Mark Green, establishing a network of personal and professional contacts in the political, commercial, and non-profit sectors.

Additionally, Ezra oversaw sensitive governmental foreign-relations projects. Ezra has earned much admiration from his colleagues and associates for his strong dedication to his clients, and for always representing them in a professional manner.

Professor Josef Hoechtl
Born in Austria, he attended University of Economics, Vienna (Department of Political economy) and University of Vienna (lectures in sociology, political philosophy, journalism, studies of English and French languages, small Russian) He went on to attain a Masters of Social and Economic Sciences as well as a doctorate in Economics from the University of Economics in Vienna.

He has many professional achievements. Beginning as a lecturer at the University of Economics in Vienna in 1972, he then went on to work at the Department of universities in the Ministry of Science and Research. He followed this tenure up with a position at the International department in the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. He was also appointed as Special Commissioner for bilateral scientific contacts from 2000-2002 and then Special Commissioner for bilateral and multilateral matters for the federal ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Austria in October 2002. Additionally he held the Vice-Chairman position at the Austrian Association for Economic and Social policy at the Kummer-Institute.

Dr. Hoechtl has been quite active in politics and has participated in government in various contexts over his career. As a member of the Austrian Parliament for 24 years he has held the following posts: Chairman of the Committee on Education and Cultural affairs; Deputy-Chairman of the Committee on Science; Member of the Committee on Financial and Fiscal Policy; Member of the Committee on Foreign Policy; Member of the Main Committee and Member of the Committee on the Board of control. He was appointed Delegate to the IPU (International Parliamentary Union), for the Christian-democratic faction from 1988 until 2000 and has held the Chairmanship of the Association of Christian Politicians in Austria and Vice-presidency of “The foundation for the Austrian resistance movement against National Socialism”.

Kerry Kennedy
Human rights activist and writer
Kerry Kennedy she is the seventh of the eleven children of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethal Skakel Kennedy. She is a graduate of Brown University and received her J.D. from Boston College Law School. Since 1982, Kennedy has worked as a human rights activist, leading delegations into countries such as El Salvador, Gaza, Haiti, Kenya, Northern Ireland, and South Korea. She was also involved in causes in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Sudan, and Pakistan. She established the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights in 1988 and was the Executive Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial until 1995. She is also the chair of the Amnesty International Leadership Council, and has been published in the The Boston Globe, The Chicago Sun-Times, and the The New York Times. She is a judge for the Reebok Human Awards. Kennedy also travels the country giving speeches and presentations and calling on her audiences to stand up and fight against human rights violations. Kennedy is the author of Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World, which features interviews with human rights activists including Marian Wright Edelman, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and more.

H.H. Dalai Lama
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is both the head of state and the spiritual leader of Tibet. In 1959, with the brutal suppression of the Tibetan national uprising in Lhasa by Chinese troops, His Holiness was forced to escape into exile. Since then he has been living in Dharamsala, northern India, the seat of the Tibetan political administration in exile. Since the Chinese invasion, His Holiness has appealed to the United Nations on the question of Tibet. The General Assembly adopted three resolutions on Tibet in 1959, 1961 and 1965.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a man of peace. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet. He has consistently advocated policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression. He also became the first Nobel Laureate to be recognized for his concern for global environmental problems.

Since 1959 His Holiness has received over 84 awards, honorary doctorates, prizes, etc., in recognition of his message of peace, non-violence, inter-religious understanding, universal responsibility and compassion. His Holiness has also authored more than 72 books.

Gunter Pauli
Gunter Pauli is a world-renowned innovator whose entrepreneurial activities span business, culture, science, politics and the environment. He is dedicated to design and implement a society and industries, which respond to people’s needs using what is available from nature. Pauli is fluent in seven languages, with a masters degree in business administration from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France and a PhD in the design of eco-products from the Politecnico di Torino (Italy). He is married to Katherina and is the father of Carl-Olaf and Laurenz-Frederik.

In 1991, Pauli launched the concept of zero waste and zero emissions for industry through the clustering of activities at his detergent factory in Belgium. While he was instrumental in the construction one of the world’s first green factories he failed in his ecological mission. The main reason for the failure was that these biodegradable products relied mainly on ingredients derived from palm oil plantations. The switch to biodegradable ingredients helped to clean up the rivers in Europe but spurred the destruction of the rainforest in South East Asia. In order to meet demand for palm oil derivatives, the rainforest was clear-cut and planted with a monoculture of palm trees. Gunter resolutely decided to study natural systems, looking for the connections between apparently unrelated phenomena.

Pauli is Member of the Club of Rome, a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Creative Fellow of the Club of Budapest and a long term advisor to the Japanese Government and the United Nations. He is professor at the Politecnico di Torino in charge of “systems design” at the Faculty of Architecture and the School of Design.

Rabbi David Rosen
David Rosen is the Director of the American Jewish Committee’s Department for Inter religious Affair and its Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding. For the past four years he served as the Chairman of IJCIC, the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, a broad-based coalition of Jewish organizations representing World Jewry to other religions.

Rabbi Rosen also serves on the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, and represents the Chief Rabbinate on the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land

He is an International President of Religions for Peace ( WCRP); Honorary President of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ); and serves as a member of the Advisory Committee of the World Congress of Imams and Rabbis. Rabbi Rosen is a member of the World Economic Forum's C-100, a council of 100 leaders formed for the purpose of improving relations and cooperation between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. He is on the Executive of the World Council of Religious Leaders (WCORL); and is also a member of the Elijah Institute's World Board of Religious Leaders. He is a founder of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel that embraces some seventy organizations in Israel involved in interfaith relations (ICCI).

Rabbi Rosen was a member of the Permanent Bilateral Commission of the State of Israel and the Holy See that negotiated the establishment of full diplomatic normalization of relations between the two; and in November 2005 he was made a papal Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great for his contribution to promoting Catholic-Jewish reconciliation.

Bibi Russel
Bibi Russel, the astounding model who rose to stardom in the late 70s and early 80s, now works to establish a cause that is much closer to her heart: the plight of the hand woven textile industries and their workers in her native Bangladesh. With the set up in 1995 of Bibi Productions, she has given the Bangladeshi weavers and artisans the golden opportunity to utilize their considerable skills and talents to achieve economic survival and to build towards a prosperous future.

Bibi is currently promoting Bangladeshi fabrics and handicrafts for domestic and international markets under the slogans ‘Fashion for Development and Positive Bangladesh’. To date, she has provided work for over thousands of weavers and artisans and has presented several shows in Europe, most of which were supported by UNESCO.

Betty Williams
Nobel Peace Laureate 1976
Betty Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work as a cofounder of Community of Peace People, an organization dedicated to promoting a peaceful resolution to the troubles in Northern Ireland. She heads the Global Children’s Foundation and is President of the World Centre of Compassion for Children. She is also the Chair of Institute for Asian Democracy in Washington D.C. and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Nova Southeastern University. In 2006, Williams was one of the founders of the Nobel Women’s Initiative along with sister Nobel Peace Laureates Mairead Corrigan Maquire, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Jody Williams and Rigoberta MenchuTum.