Integrity. Trust. Accountability.
Yasmeen's Foundation is committed to ensuring that we maintain the highest standards of trust and integrity in all our affairs. With the grace of Allah, the Board of Directors will bring diverse backgrounds, skills, perspectives and experience to establish and oversee the strategic direction, management, and effectiveness of Yasmeen's Foundation.
Billal Rafih - Chairman and Director
Billal was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta and is Yasmeen’s proud father. Billal, and his wife Ahlam, have committed themselves to honour their beloved daughter by helping impoverished girls, all over the world, gain access to clean water, food and a valuable education. Yasmeen’s Foundation is essential to achieving this goal and Billal values the stewardship of the foundation and the public trust afforded to him with great moral significance. In 2018, under Billal’s leadership, Yasmeen’s Foundation started the process of establishing agreements with two non-profit organizations in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia that helps see over 80, otherwise impoverished, girls gain access to a meaningful education.
Billal graduated from the University of Calgary, with a B.Sc. and has held numerous leadership positions in Calgary’s oil and gas industry. Throughout his career, Billal has helped energy companies address a range of technical, operational and security related issues and continues to lend his services as the Digital Enablement & Corporate Properties Manager of a North American energy producer.
Khaled Elkassem - Director
Khaled was born and raised in Calgary and holds degrees in biochemistry, electrical engineering and an MBA with a specialization in finance. Khaled currently works with the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC), in a senior role, as an engineer specialist in the Facilities Division.
Previously, Khaled was a senior project engineer at AltaLink Management Ltd. He has extensive technical knowledge and experience in the areas of power quality, electrical effects, substation development-including major equipment and Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices, grounding, telecommunications, Protection & Control, SCADA, wind power and industrial interconnections and high voltage transmission line facilities.
Alex Himour - Director
Alex was born in Calgary and has spent most of his adult life in the City. He received his Juris Doctorate degree in 1999 form the Gonzaga University School of Law and has been practicing as a lawyer since.
Alex worked with a major US law firm in its offices in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia before returning to Canada to work with a major Canadian national law firm. In 2007 Alex started working as in-house counsel with a major Canadian based oil and gas producer on projects both in Canada and its Middle East operations in Yemen. He has worked as in-house counsel with a major Canadian oil sands producer since 2012.
Alex has also served as a founder and director for other Calgary based non-profit and charitable entities and has a rich history of giving back to his community in numerous ways.
