We are pleased to announce that the AUB Board of Trustees voted unanimously on November 1, 2023 to elect Abdo George Kadifa as the next chairman of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Kadifa has served as a trustee since 2014 and is the board's Vice Chair for Information Technology and Innovation and co-chair of the Academy and Its Values Committee. As chair-elect, he will work closely with Chairman Philip S. Khoury during a transition period. The announcement follows a 5-month search committee process that was co-chaired by Vice Chair for Academic Affairs Huda Y. Zoghbi and Chairman Philip S. Khoury. The search committee received numerous nominations and interviewed exceptional candidates.
An AUB graduate (BE electrical engineering '81), Kadifa is a Managing Director and Co-founder at Sumeru Equity Partners. He was formerly Executive Vice President/General Manager of HP Software, where he led HP's $4-billion software business; a member of Hewlett-Packard Company's Executive Council; Operating Partner, Silver Lake Partners, a global technology investment firm; and Vice President of Global Delivery at IBM Global Technology Services. Kadifa has held various leadership positions at technology and management consulting companies such as Corio Corporation, Oracle, Booz-Allen & Hamilton and Xerox. He is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology (MS electrical engineering '82) and of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (MBA '89). Kadifa is deeply involved with the Lebanese diaspora community and recently served as chairman of LebNet, whose mission is to empower tech entrepreneurs and professionals of Lebanese descent to succeed on a global level while promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion. Kadifa resides in Palo Alto, California.
Chairman Philip S. Khoury joined the board of trustees in 1997 and has served as board chair since 2009. During his tenure, the University saw the hiring of President Fadlo R. Khuri, the reimplementation of tenure, and most recently the founding of AUB's sister campus in Cyprus, AUB-Mediterraneo. A former AUB student ('69 -'70), Khoury is the Ford International Professor of History and Vice Provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).