About ABL President & CEO “I envision the day when kids from South Los Angeles to Harlem to Zambia, Mexico, Lebanon, and India, the four corners of our world see themselves as rightfully belonging at the table having an equal opportunity to help realize their dreams; I envision them using fresh paradigms that contribute to new solutions by creating prosperity, fulfillment, and peace for all humankind!” - Anna Ouroumian, ABL President & CEO Anna Ouroumian is the Refounder, President, and CEO of the Academy of Business Leadership (ABL), a cutting edge non profit social entrepreneurial venture for underserved youth in Southern California and now Zambia, China, and South Korea.  As a visionary leader, through her creative, strategic, and forward-thinking leadership style, using her personal message of triumph over adversity, since 1998, Anna has catapulted the organization in new directions.  She has completely shifted the focus of ABL by centering its vision on harnessing the talent of underserved high potential low opportunity youth to see themselves as “Leaders NOW” who can start making a difference in the world today while uplifting themselves, and who can rise to become the future corporate, entrepreneurial, and civic leaders of America and the globe, through access and exposure at the highest levels, anchoring core values, entrepreneurial and financial literacy training, leadership development, and social entrepreneurship training.  Under her tenure, over 80,000 kids from across Southern California have gone through ABL’s workshops and presentations.  In addition, over 2,800 students from 435 elementary, middle, and high schools and 151 school districts have graduated from ABL’s award winning Summer Business Institute on seven college campuses out of the total 3,100 who have graduated since 1991.  Anna expanded programs throughout the Southland and across the globe, added year round programs and special events, completely revamped the curriculum, raised millions in the United States and Zambia, engaged more than 5,000 volunteers, and initiated and created strategic partnerships with DLA Piper, Edison International, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and State Street.  She also forged collaborations with over 300 corporations and organizations to benefit thousands of youth. Anna grew up in orphanages in Lebanon during the sixteen-year civil war in that country under extreme hardships and danger often without water and electricity with bombs going off everywhere witnessing death for the first time as a toddler.  She fled Lebanon alone and came to the United States with only $160 in her pocket as a young teenager with English as her fourth language and two books: one on Reagan and another on Harvard Business School.  She went on to study at UCLA.  She was the only student highlighted at graduation for her inspirational story and for having received the Outstanding Senior Award, the highest honor given to four undergraduates out of 10,500 seniors for outstanding academic achievements as well as service to UCLA and the community.  Anna is a trailblazer and a pioneer in the national community service movement. Out of UCLA, she heeded President Clinton’s call to join the first class of AmeriCorps, the domestic Peace Corps, where she first served as Team Leader in South Los Angeles for the Interfaith Hunger Coalition.  Later she joined Building Up Los Angeles where she served as Team Leader for Hollywood, then as Cluster Coordinator for Central City South.  Prior to ABL, Anna was a California Governor’s Executive Fellow speechwriting for the Attorney General. Through her example, Anna continues to touch the lives of thousands of young people by instilling in them a spirit of courage, inspiration, and hope to dream big and reach for the stars.  Anna’s bold vision is to create a movement of overlooked high potential low opportunity youth as agents of change by shifting the paradigm of our society and our youth to “see themselves as leaders now versus twenty years from now” by harnessing the talent of young people across the globe to thrive economically and make a difference in their respective communities, countries, and the world NOW, and to one day rise to the highest levels of leadership in the corporate, civic, and entrepreneurial spheres. In 2006, in collaboration with the Harvard Women’s Leadership Board where she is a member, the First Lady of Zambia Maureen Mwanawasa and her Maureen Mwanawasa Community Initiative (MMCI), Anna initiated and launched the “Project Africa” initiative.  The goal is to annually bring “vulnerable but viable” talented, underserved young women from Zambia to have the opportunity to partake in ABL’s award winning seven-week Summer Business Institute (SBI) on college campuses to develop their leadership and business education skills and return to their home country empowered with a new vision to enable them to help uplift themselves, their families, their communities, and ultimately build the leadership capacity for Zambia while providing an opportunity of a lifetime to American students who have a chance to reach out and touch Africa by sharing, collaborating and exchanging ideas on how to improve the human condition on a global level. In addition, American students are able to learn from the dialogues and experiences of the Zambian scholars and gain insight, cultural understanding, inspiration and motivation and vice versa.  In 2007, in collaboration with the Oxford School Foundation, Anna initated and launched the “Project Asia” initiative where young women from China participated in ABL’s 2007 SBI. In 2008, Anna expanded the international initiative to include youth from South Korea and Canada in addition to Zambia and China. For the summer of 2007, Anna was asked by the Harvard Women’s Leadership Board to design and implement a leadership training for young Egyptian girls as part of the Harvard Future Women Leaders Fellows Program (FWLF) that they sponsored to take co-curricular classes at Harvard College.  For the Harvard leadership program, Anna designed and launched the Social Impact Contract™ (SIC™) concept and developed a training where youth have an opportunity to design large-scale, high-impact projects that entail training other youth to pay it forward, thus affecting the lives of thousands in a relatively short period of time.  In 2007, as part of the Harvard training, Anna coached the young Egyptian girls to design the concept and model for a social entrepreneurial venture they called “Lena” meaning "for us" in the Egyptian Arabic dialect.  The mission of Lena is to help youth develop a sense of belonging towards Egypt; tolerance towards all religions; and leadership skills.  The Egyptian girls will develop curricula and build partnerships to train 300 college students in Cairo who will in turn work with 3,000 kids throughout Egypt by the Summer of 2009.  In 2008, Anna was appointed as the Inaugural Chair of the Harvard FWLF Task Force. Similarly, in the Summer of 2007, through her work with the Zambian Scholars, Anna formulated the ABL Zambia Ambassadors Program (AZAP) as part of the ABL Zambia pre-launch effort which comes in the aftermath of her trip to Zambia in April of 2007 as a guest of her Excellency, the First Lady of Zambia Maureen Mwanawasa.  As part of AZAP, the ABL Zambian Scholars will be training 200 high school graduates and college students to reach 4,000 youth by December of 2008.  Their goal is to conduct HIV-AIDS prevention education; nutrition, hygiene, and health awareness; and values and leadership training.  In 2008, Anna led the Social Impact Contract™ (SIC™) training program for American, Zambian, Chinese, Korean, and Canadian scholars in Southern California, as well as Egyptian, Kuwaiti, and Jordanian scholars at Harvard.  Advisory Panel, the Merrill Lynch Women’s Advisory Board, and the East LA Classic Theater Board.  In the summer of 2003, she helped co-found the Women’s Foundation of California and was elected to the Women’s Leadership Board of the Harvard Kennedy School.  And, in 2006, she was elected to the prestigious Trusteeship of the International Women’s Forum.  Anna is a highly sought after motivational speaker who has spoken to thousands of students and executives from corporations such as AT&T, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Merrill Lynch.   She has received numerous commendations and awards for her outstanding contributions, and has been featured by Forbes Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Business Journal, Reader’s Digest, and KCET Life & Times Tonight, among others.  In 2006, Anna was honored by Tyra Banks on her national talk show for her transformational impact on young people.  She also received the “Inspiration Award” from the National Association of Women Business Owners.  In addition, she received the “George Washington Honor Medal” by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge.  Moreover, out of thousands of nominees nationwide, she was selected by Montel Williams and Charming Shoppes to receive the Montel Williams Voices Campaign Award given annually to five “amazing women using their voices to make a difference.”  Furthermore, on October 24, 2007, Anna received the Conrad Hilton Distinguished Entrepreneur Award as part of Loyola Marymount University’s (LMU) “Conrad Hilton Distinguished Entrepreneur Award and Lecture Series to honor exceptional entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs in order to expose LMU students to exciting, dynamic, creative and innovative entrepreneurs from a variety of different endeavors and fields.” Staff Anna Ouroumian Refounder, President & CEO 626.302.1441 (Office) anna.ouroumian@sce.com Natacha Cordaro VP of Finance & Operations 626.302.4437 natacha.cordado@goabl.org Danielle Dixon Director of Student Development & Financial Aid 626.302.3650 danielle.dixon@goabl.org Angela Chinn Coordinator of Programs & Operations 626.302.4437 angela.chinn@goabl.org Salvador Flores Office Manager 626.302.4428 salvador.flores@goabl.org Ana Aragon Executive Assistant to Anna Ouroumian 626.302.4440 ana.aragon@goabl.org Calvin Lee Senior Fellow 626.302.3610 calvin.lee@goabl.org