Our Team

Hamdi Ulukaya is the founder, Chairman and CEO of Chobani, LLC, one of the fastest growing food companies in the last decade and a pioneer for the natural food movement.

Raised in a dairy-farming family in a small village in eastern Turkey, Ulukaya launched Chobani in 2007 with the mission and vision of making better food more accessible. In less than five years, Chobani became the No. 1–selling Greek Yogurt brand in the U.S. with more than a billion dollars in annual sales. Earlier this year, Chobani was named by Fast Company as one of the 10 most innovative companies in the world, and number one in its Food and Social Good categories.

Ulukaya has always made helping people and having a positive impact on communities a priority for Chobani. From the beginning, the company has donated a portion of its profits to charitable causes, many of them in Idaho and New York where its products are made.  A champion of reducing income and wealth inequality nationwide, Ulukaya advocated in support of a proposal to increase the minimum wage in New York that ultimately became law. In addition, last year Ulukaya announced a groundbreaking profit-sharing program for company’s 2,000 employees. He also took the rare step in manufacturing of instituting a six week, fully paid parental leave program for all of the company’s mothers and fathers.

In 2016, Ulukaya launched the Chobani Food Incubator to mentor and support socially responsible food entrepreneurs and further deliver on the company’s mission to provide better food for more people.

Ulukaya founded the Tent Partnership for Refugees to bring entrepreneurial approaches and creative solutions to help end the global refugee crisis. He also signed the Giving Pledge and committed the majority of his personal wealth to the cause.  For these efforts, he was named an Eminent Advocate by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and received the United Nations Foundation Global Leadership Award, among other recognitions. In 2017, Ulukaya was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World for his work around the refugee crisis and his innovative approach to business. That same year, he was named one of Forbes’ 100 Greatest Living Business Minds.

Ulukaya sits on the board of the International Board of Special Olympics, the Pathfinder Village, and The American Turkish Council.  A big fan of independent films and the Turkish soccer team Fenerbahçe., Ulukaya lives in New Berlin, N.Y.

Gideon Maltz is the Executive Director of the Tent Partnership for Refugees.

He previously served as deputy chief of staff to Ambassador Samantha Power at the U.S. mission to the United Nations; director of human rights and multilateral affairs at the U.S. National Security Council; and senior advisor to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Prior to government service, Gideon worked as an attorney in the international trade practice of Hogan Lovells and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He has also served as a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a Predoctoral Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law.

Gideon has a BA from Yale and a JD from Stanford Law School.

Follow Gideon on Twitter: @GideonMaltz

Scarlet is the Senior Director of Private Sector Partnerships at Tent.

Prior to Tent, Scarlet worked at the Clinton Foundation for nearly eight years. She was the Associate Director of the Commitments Department and head of the Response & Resilience track at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). In this role, she advised corporate, philanthropic, government and non-profit leaders responding to natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Before that, Scarlet worked at the Elie Wiesel Foundation, founded by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.

She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin.

Susan Din is the Private Sector Partnerships and Operations Manager at Tent.

Prior to joining Tent, Susan worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as a reporting and external relations officer in Cameroon, covering the humanitarian operations in response to the conflicts in Nigeria and the Central African Republic. Previously, Susan served as an executive assistant in the Office of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at the U.S. State Department. She has also worked at the International Rescue Committee, Talent Beyond Boundaries, the Clinton Foundation, and the White House.

Susan has a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Roya Shariat is Tent’s Senior Communications Strategist.

Roya comes to Tent with a background in strategic communications and storytelling, along with a passion for and a commitment to supporting refugees. Prior to Tent, Roya was a strategist at Hyperakt, a Brooklyn-based social impact design studio, where she worked with clients like the ACLU, New York City Government, and Sarah Lawrence College. Previously, Roya was the Global Communications Manager at 100 Resilient Cities — Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation. She led communications efforts across 100RC’s African portfolio, bolstered the team’s storytelling capacity, and ran the “100RC Challenge,” the competition by which 100RC selects partner cities. She has worked at the U.S. Department of State, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and NBCUniversal.

Roya has a BA in Economics from New York University (NYU).

Yohanna Pepa is a Senior Advisor for Private Sector Partnerships at Tent.

Prior to joining Tent, Yohanna worked as an Investment Analyst at ArrowMark Partners, a mid-sized asset management firm, where she covered the consumer/retail, packaging, and building product sectors for the firm’s $3 billion corporate loan portfolio. In that role, she oversaw 70+ portfolio companies and researched, modeled, and pitched new recommendations to the firm’s investment committee. Previously, Yohanna worked as an Instructor for Yale’s Young Global Scholars Program, an intensive leadership-development program for high school students from around the world.

Yohanna has a BA from Yale University in Ethics, Politics, and Economics.

Yaron Schwartz is a Senior Advisor for Private Sector Partnerships at Tent.

Prior to joining Tent, Yaron worked at Deloitte in a consulting and public policy role focused on projects related to corruption, youth unemployment and immigration. He also previously worked for a member of the UK Parliament and a public affairs consultancy and served as a blogger at the Huffington Post.

Yaron has a BA in International Studies and History from Yale University and a MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.

Maia Bix is the Research, Grants, and Administration Specialist at Tent.

Prior to joining Tent, Maia worked at Venture for America, a two-year fellowship program for recent graduates who want to work at a startup and creates jobs in American cities. She has worked at the Malala Fund, the Clinton Foundation, and the International Rescue Committee, tackling challenges pertaining to girls’ education and refugee education, women’s economic participation, and violence against girls and women.

Maia has a BA in Political Science from Barnard College of Columbia University, where she led the establishment of the Ann and Andrew Tisch Scholarship for Refugee Women.

Sana Mustafa is a consultant to the Tent Partnership for Refugees.

Sana is a Syrian refugee and community development professional currently living in the United States. After completing her bachelor’s degree in political science, Sana created a consulting company devoted to better understanding the refugee experience. She is a founding member of the Network for Refugee Voices, a refugee-led initiative for effective and sustainable refugee policy.

Sana is also a member of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement.