About Us

The Nadiri Family Foundation is a nonprofit charitable organization whose mission is to uplift rural communities in Afghanistan.

The Foundation began as a result of a donation from the Dr. Ishaq Nadiri Endowment fund. Dr. Nadiri was born in 1935 in Afghanistan.

Dr. Nadiri strongly believes that Afghanistan has the capacity to sustain its economic needs via empowerment of grass roots formers and facilitation of their access to modern technological advancements.

Trade and transaction at local, regional, national and international level is connecting people, pooling resource and addressing fragmented Afghanistan society.

The Board of Directors

The Board of Directors are the Foundation’s senior leaders that set the strategic direction of NFF.

The Executive Team has oversight of all US- and Afghanistan-based programs and projects.

Dr. Ishaq Nadiri

Chairman and Founder

Dr. Nadiri founded the Nadiri Family Foundation in 2024 as a charitable corporation. It is backed by Dr. Nadiri’s generous $10 million donation. The Foundation is created out of his lifelong commitment to the people of Afghanistan, with a particular focus on rural Afghanistan. The Foundation’s mission is to support economic development and employment, promote skills-based education, and improve health services to those who live in rural Afghanistan.

A nominee for the Nobel Prize for Economic Science, Dr. Nadiri emigrated from Afghanistan to the United States at the age of 19. He received his B.S. from the University of Nebraska, and his M.A. and Ph.D from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at UC Berkeley, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, and New York University. His fields of specialization are the economics of technical change and productivity growth, investment theory and modeling, monetary economics, and quantitative analysis and applied economics.

Dr. Nadiri joined New York University in 1970, where, as Chairman of the Economics Department, he rebuilt the department, founding the C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics. In 1975, he was named the Jay Gould Professor of Economics and served in that capacity for 50 years, retiring from New York University in 2024.

Internationally, he has been an economic architect in shaping Saudi Arabia’s economic development as well as having similar responsibilities in Japan, Latin America and other countries in the Middle East.

In 2001, Dr. Nadiri was a signatory of the Bonn meetings during which the interim government of Afghanistan was created. He served as the Senior Economic Advisor (SEAP) to the President of Afghanistan from 2005 to 2008. He also served as Chairman of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and Co-Chair of the Joint Coordinational and Monitory Board (JCMB). As SEAP, Dr. Nadiri was responsible for the preparation and publication of many of the most important documents relating to Afghani Economic Development, including the Interim-ANDS, the Progress Report on Preparation of the ANDS, the ANDS, The Afghanistan Compact, Afghanistan’s Millennium Development Goals Report, and Reports to the JCMB.

Dr. Nadiri also helped raise $32 billion in pledges of support from the international community for the development of Afghanistan at the Conferences in London and Paris. For his service, Dr. Nadiri was awarded the Ghazi Amanullah Khan award, the highest civilian award of Afghanistan.

Dr. Nadiri is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the American Economic Association, the Center for Japan-US Business and Economic Studies, and the C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics. He is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the East, Who’s Who in Finance & Industry, Who’s Who in American Education, The Dictionary of Distinguished Leadership, Men of Achievement, 5,000 Personalities of the World, and Personalities Of the Americas.

Farshid Hakimyar

Cofounder and Executive Director

Hakimyar is CEO of Snow Leopard Traders LLC, a Virginia-based, private wealth management and trading firm, established in 2016. Snow Leopard Traders focuses on global macroeconomic transactions, global monetary policies, global fiscal policies, central banking, and international trade analyses of macroeconomic trends that impact the global economy.

Hakimyar is President & CEO of the Colosseum Sports Resort a commercial real estate development investment fund in Stafford County, Virginia as of 2024. The Colosseum is a sport facility, retail and hospitality venture focused on sports economic tourism and community athletic development. The will Colosseum is projected to inaugurate at the end of 2027.

Hakimyar is Executive Director for the Nadiri Family Foundation. Hakimyar runs the day-to-day operation of the Foundation and oversee its Afghanistan’s programs. Hakimyar has a commitment of $5 million contribution to the Nadiri Family Foundation programs and projects in Afghanistan.

Mr. Hakimyar has over 20 years of experience working for charitable and philographic foundations in Afghanistan and United States.

Eric Wynne

Cofounder and Strategic Officer

Mr. Wynne has created, launched and led B2B and B2C companies for over 40 years, with a special focus on media properties across a range of categories, technologies and formats within the corporate environment, in a consulting capacity and as an entrepreneur and founder. He is expert in executive management and team building, strategic planning, market and business development, research and market analysis, brand positioning, consumer engagement and activation, go-to-market strategies, sponsorship, revenue development and business monetization, as well as other disciplines.

He has been a first mover across a range of media modalities.He and his companies have provided leadership, branding & market positioning, sales & marketing management, business development, sponsorship & advertising sales management for a diverse range of leading media and business entities across B2C and B2B environments, in broadcast media, digital out-of-home (DOOH), out-of-home, the internet, mobile, and print, inclusive of Time Inc., Clear Channel, The New York Stock Exchange, Porsche Cars of North America, Target, McDonalds, Hallmark, and others.

Mr. Wynne has been and remains active in the non-profit world. He is the co-founder of the Nadiri Family Foundation. Previously, he founded and led a New York City neighborhood non-profit that, upon achieving its objectives, concluded operation. As well as a multi-term president for the alumni associations of two renowned non-profit educational institutions, LREI and Bank Street, as well as having served, for nearly 20 years, as an LREI board member. Currently, he is Director and business manager as well as a lead musician in Manhattan Samba, the longest performing Rio De Janeiro Carnival Brazilian Samba band in the Northeast. The band has performed at venues including Lincoln Center, The UN, New York Fashion Week, Carnegie Hall, the Boston Pops, the Brazilian Consulate and at festivals. They have been presented on major TV networks, most recently, by ESPN and Top Rank Boxing where their performance was broadcast globally. They have performed with legendary musicians including Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Cliff and Wyclef Jean.

For the non-profit, Puppies Behind Bars, he is a longtime volunteer dog socializer and trainer. He has worked with over 150 dogs over 13 years. Dogs that graduate the 2.5 year training program are given to severely injured veterans or they serve as explosion detection dogs at major sports facilities, airports, other venues and events. He and his wife, Dale who is a published and awarded poet, live in New York City.

Nadiri Family Foundation establishes long term partnerships with key international entities to bolster financial and programmatic needs, and support the Foundation's expansion.

NFF bridges agricultural means with local and global market via provision of middlemen.

There are many ways NFF can significantly address Afghanistan imbalance trade deficit, increase liquidity at the grass-root level, address significant unemployment work force, specially women, and lead Afghanistan toward its long term goal of counter-poverty mandate.

WHERE TO FIND NFF

US-based operations are located in New York City, NY and Washington, District of Columbia.

NFF will support the economic and social development of Afghanistan agriculture, trade, and creation of unemployment opportunities, health, and education.