Nadia Eleza Khawaja, MPH

Co-Founder & CEO

Nadia Khawaja is the co-founder and current CEO of Jolkona. She is passionate about philanthropy and making a global impact and is excited about allowing others to do so easily and effectively through micro-donations through Jolkona’s unique approach to giving.

Prior to starting Jolkona, she worked in the non-profit sector in Los Angeles promoting social entrepreneurship and financial literacy to inner city youth. She is passionate about nutrition and development so after learning about the day-to-day operations of running a non-profit for two years, she went back to graduate school and studied Public Health and nutrition while running Jolkona in the evenings.

Nadia graduated from UCLA with a BA in Business/Economics and a minor in Public Policy and has a Master in Public Health and Nutrition from the University of Washington in Seattle. In her spare time, she works on global health nutrition research projects, travels, and mentors others interested in nutrition or the non-profit space.

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Mari Hirabayashi

Chief Operating Officer

With nearly a decade of experience in marketing, fundraising, event planning and non-profit development, Mari's passion lies within helping others and enriching lives. More recently, she has focused energy towards strengthening education, women's rights, public health and global issues.

Previously, Mari worked for the Martinez Foundation, providing scholarships to teachers of color in Washington State. Learning more about children coming from disadvantaged situations fueled her to get even more involved in her local community.

Dedicated to volunteerism, a Nepal trip, in which she worked with orphans with disabilities, her personal mission became to help others in need, especially children facing great obstacles such as lack of proper healthcare, education, food and shelter. In Seattle, she tutored at Maple Elementary on Beacon Hill, working to close the achievement gap in education.

Mari graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in English literature; her continuing education courses included early childhood development training, art, and the Spanish language. Today she loves all things family, literature, travel, food and adventure.

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Daljit Singh

Office Manager

Daljit is the office manager at Jolkona. She ensures that Jolkona's operations run smoothly. From dealing with administrative issues to maintaining first lines of communication, she also solves problems for Jolkona donors and staff. Prior to joining Jolkona's staff, Daljit interned for Jolkona. As an intern, she helped Jolkona gain visibility through different avenues of social media including Pinterest. Daljit has interned and worked for the Economic Alliance Snohomish County and UW's Institute for the Study of Ethnicty, Race and Sexualtity. She has Bachelor's degree in Political Science with a focus on Human Rights from the University of Washington. Daljit loves travel, her friends, and all things Jolkona.

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Adnan Mahmud

Co-Founder

Adnan Mahmud is the co-founder of Jolkona and was the CEO during its start-up phase. His motivation for starting Jolkona comes from having grown up in Bangladesh and witnessing some of the worst conditions that humans are forced to live through and wanting to do something about it. Although these conditions are very unfortunate, he sees opportunities for using technology to improve these conditions.

Adnan has over seven years experience managing technology related projects at Microsoft. During the day, Adnan currently works as a Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation heading the technology transfers out of the research lab in Beijing. He holds a BS from Angelo State University and a MS degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

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Seema Bhende

Director of Strategy

Seema is passionate about how Jolkona connects everyday people with a passion for giving back to high-impact projects. Seema has dedicated her career to philanthropy and specializes in the development of strategic, win-win partnerships between the private and public sector. In her day job, Seema is a Senior Director with Waggener Edstrom's Social Innovation practice focusing on corporate social responsibility projects.

Prior to joining Waggener, Seema served as Director of Strategic Philanthropy with L'Oreal Paris in New York City. Before L'Oreal, Seema worked in India for Futures Group, an international development consulting company where she worked on public healthcare projects. At the same time, she was a project manager for a grassroots nonprofit, The Kutumb Foundation, that provides education and healthcare services to slum communities in New Delhi. Seema started her career in strategy consulting for The Corporate Executive Board in Washington DC.

Seema graduated with a bachelor of arts in International Economics and Spanish from the George Washington University. She is fluent in Spanish, proficient in Hindi and conversational in Mandarin.

Kaylin King

Director of Development

Kaylin King is responsible for Jolkona's development efforts. Kaylin hopes to build a constituency of donors and partners who share Jolkona's vision of creative approaches to alleviate socio-economic problems. Prior to joining Jolkona, Kaylin worked with the Buntain Foundation, assisting in product creation, branding and marketing of fair trade retail products.

While pursuing a BA from the University of Wisconsin, Kaylin's passion for international development impelled her to travel the world - from elementary school teacher in Argentina to development project work in South Africa to participating in student exchange programs in Turkey and Chile. Kaylin's travels have ultimately landed her in Seattle, where she recently completed an MA in International Care and Community Development from Northwest University.

Katina George-Roohi

Director of Events

Katina is the Director of Events at Jolkona. She brings 22 years of hospitality, event and tourism experience to her position. At a very young age, Katina was intrigued by culture, religion and geography. She combined her passion of tourism and followed three family generations of hospitality careerists and pursued her formal education at the Swiss School of Tourism and Hospitality. Her career and creativity has taken her around the world; from creating a black tie oasis in the desert of Dubai, team building in the Serengeti, chartering luxury ocean liners sailing the 7 seas for non-profit fundraisers, to using the Pacific Northwest as a backdrop for all manner of meetings and events. Creating one of kind, memorable experiences for her clients is what brings her the greatest career satisfaction.

Personally..."I enjoy the culinary arts and wine. I love to explore international cuisine and enjoy preparing the perfect dinner for my family and friends. Have passport, will travel! My favorite destinations thus far are; Dubrovnik Croatia, Dubai UAE, Italy, Germany, Honduras, Belize, Africa and sailing the blue waters of the Caribbean. I enjoy sharing my passions with the public and conducting travel seminars and continuing education courses at the college level. I am also involved in philanthropic organizations, serving as a mentor and educator to disadvantage youth in their pursuit of careers in hospitality and tourism."

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Pragya Mahnot

Marketing Advisor for Events

Pragya is the Marketing Advisor for the Events team at Jolkona. She leverages social media tools to execute strategies and maximize reach in the community. Her specialization in advertising brings in an amalgamation of creativity and uniqueness to the marketing efforts for the events. Prior to joining Jolkona, she was associated with Rotaract for 3 years in the capacity of a volunteer, editor and President. She spearheaded many projects for poor and disabled children in India.

Pragya did her Bachelors degree in Visual Arts and persuaded her Post Graduation Diploma in Advertising and Marketing from India. She worked as a Research Associate in advertising team, with Manav Rachna International University, India prior to moving to Seattle. Apart from being a conceptualizer, she also worked as a freelance writer for a leading newspaper brand - The Times of India.

Jolkona is a transparent platform for giving and helping people around the world. The belief that small donations can make a huge impact is the reason she is here today.

Ariel Gold

Director of Campus Outreach

Ariel Gold is responsible for connecting the next generation of philanthropy to Jolkona through Campus Outreach. She brings more than 5 years experience in nonprofit management, strategic planning, and community building. Most recently, she worked with the Campus Kitchens Project where she was responsible for overseeing a national anti-hunger program. Ariel is a committee member for the Seattle Youth Garden Network Works and JConnect Seattle.

Ariel received a Masters Public Administration concentrating in nonprofit management from University of North Carolina and a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Human Services from the George Washington University.

Dania Primley

Director of Human Resources

Dania is heading up the Human Resources program with Jolkona, helping with the intern on boarding and recruiting process as well as volunteer management. She has been developing Job Descriptions and processes to ensure the interns have a seamless transition in and out of Jolkona. Our volunteers and interns are an integral part of our team and she makes sure that they get as much out of Jolkona (or more) as they put in!

Dania graduated from the University of Washington Foster School of Business with a degree in Human Resource management and a certificate of International Studies in Business. She brings a background in Human Resource management and has held HR positions with Associates in Cultural Exchange, Target Corporation, and International Inspection Inc.

Fueled by her desire to eradicate poverty and poor health conditions worldwide she has volunteered at various place including: John Stanford International School, Camp Side by Side, Associates in Cultural Exchange, Make a Wish Foundation, and various others. After attending the International Women's Day event she was drawn to Jolkona due to their unique idea of bringing in donors to projects all over the world and country.

Maheen Aman

Partner Coordinator

Maheen completed her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan, with a major in psychology and minor in women’s health. Taking women’s health as well as public health classes is what sparked her interest in global health and development. Maheen worked as a reading tutor at an inner city school in Detroit, MI, which opened her eyes up to the disparities present among populations within the United States. Her family is from Bangladesh and from her experiences and trips there, she also saw how these differences are prevalent all over the world. Viewing the impact that tutors made through a school partnership program in Michigan, and seeing how much difference just a few dollars and/or donation of time can make in someone’s life is what continued her interest in non- profit work and global development. She has worked in a tutoring/ academic advising/ coaching capacity, with her recent experience being as a health educator for the past two years and is excited to now help lead Jolkona’s outreach efforts among college and high school aged students.

Jordan Belmonte

Director of Giving Campaign

Jordan is passionate about connecting people with technology solutions to enhance their lives, their businesses and their communities. Jordan became interested in Jolkona while interning at GMMB working on The Gates Foundation Communications Team. During her internship she saw that even the ultra-rich cannot solve the world’s problems alone, it takes all of us to create an impact. She became excited about the way Jolkona uses technology to awaken the philanthropist in every individual.

Jordan comes to Jolkona with a diverse background in Marketing, PR and Event planning. She recently greaduated from Seattle University with a BA in Strategic Communication and Marketing—while obtaining her degree Jordan interned with several companies including, Publicis, GMMB, BDA and Expedia. In her senior year at Seattle University Jordan started contracting at Microsoft as a Search Account Manger facilitating the Microsoft and Yahoo! Search Alliance. Today in her a day job Jordan enjoys developing new online advertising solutions as a contract Product Marketing Manager with Microsoft’s Global Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group. In addition to Jolkona, Jordan volunteers for Ad Club Seattle and The NW Product Management Consortium.

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Michelle Primley-Benton

Ambassadors Program Coordinator

Michelle is responsible for the Jolkona Ambassadors program, giving social media-savvy philanthropists the tools to share their passion for giving. Michelle hopes to empower the Jolkona community to tell their stories and inspire their networks to give to the issues that matter most to them. She is excited about Jolkona’s ability to harness technology to put individualized giving at everyone’s fingertips, and the ability to genuinely connect donors to the communities and issues they are impacting.

Michelle graduated from Washington State University with a BA in English Teaching and Political Science, and a passion for education access. A desire to give back led her to a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Washington Evans School of Public Affairs. With five years as a student affairs professional, Michelle brings experience in volunteer management, outreach, and community building. Michelle is a board member of the Northwest Association of College and University Housing Officers, as well as the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students and also serves as a Girls on the Run of Puget Sound Running Buddy.

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Gabriel St. John

Online Content Manager

Gabriel is a Masters of Research graduate in European Languages and Culture. He hails all the way from Cornwall, England, where he studied at the University of Exeter. He has a BA in Italian, which he speaks fluently. Previously, between his undergraduate and his Masters, he taught English in Italy for two years.

An interesting fact: he was born in Morocco, living there for eight years before his family (he is the youngest of six!) moved back to England. He loves music and likes to meddle with the guitar and drums when he can. A great admirer of literature, he is also a voracious reader and dabbles – more than he likes to admit – in creative writing. Curiously, his surname, St. John, is pronounced SIN-gin. It’s a corruption of the French pronunciation, San Jean.

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Zanoon Nissar

San Francisco Ambassador

Zanoon Nissar works in Mobile Display Advertising at Google (AdMob), specializing in the mobile advertising ecosystem for Financial advertisers. For the past 2 years, she’s been involved with events, fundraising & partnerships for Jolkona, and also spearheaded their Give2Girls campaign. Zanoon also mentors high-school girls through Technovation. She is passionate about projects that merge mobile technology with social good, and co-developed an app that helps women get home safe at night.