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. In 2017, 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 2016 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 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, where she organized international conferences with world leaders.

She has a BA from Trinity College Dublin.

Veronica (Noni) is the Director of Marketing and Communications at Tent, overseeing earned and owned media, research output and events.

Prior to joining Tent, Noni was the Director of Communications at Girl Effect, a UK-based nonprofit founded by the Nike Foundation. In this role, she managed all global communications activities for the Girl Effect parent brand through high-profile integrated campaigns spanning press, digital, and reputation management. She spent the majority of her career at communications consultancies in the UK – Teneo and Havas PR – advising corporate clients such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Instagram and the Guardian News & Media.

Noni has a BA in English Literature from University of Warwick, and an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge.

Nick is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at Tent.

Prior to joining the team, Nick worked in management and brand strategy consulting, leading engagements across non and for profit sectors. His past projects include building a collective impact initiative to improve student outcomes with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, working with Para La Naturaleza in Puerto RIco to increase environmental consciousness and hurricane resilience, and developing The Met’s brand and visitor experience  to increase reach and relevance. Nick’s other past clients include Microsoft, eBay, Lumina Foundation, Hyatt, Vodafone, and Unilever.

Nick has a B.Comm from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, and a MSc International Marketing from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.

Hélène is the Director of European Partnerships for the Tent Partnership for Refugees.

Prior to joining Tent, she worked for over twenty years at Accenture in Consulting and Global HR roles and was part of the Accenture team that set up the Refugee Talent Hub, accelerating the way to work by connecting companies to refugee talent.

Hélène has a Masters in Business Economics, is married with 3 children, and lives in the Netherlands.

Andreas is the Director of European Partnerships for the Tent Partnership for Refugees.

He was previously in charge of corporate partnerships at Kompass in Frankfurt/Main, a job placement program for young refugees developed by JOBLINGE, a leading NGO fighting youth unemployment in Germany. Prior to working in the nonprofit sector, Andreas has held international management positions in the car industry for VW, SIXT and BMW, before serving corporate clients as a freelance interim manager and consultant.

Andreas holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance from Georgia Southern University, a master’s in Business Administration from University of Applied Science in Mainz and a master’s in Management of Cultural and Nonprofit-Organizations from Kaiserslautern University of Technology.

Ileana Cruz-Marden is a Senior Manager of Private Sector Partnerships at Tent.

Prior to Tent, Ileana worked with the City Resilience Delivery Team at 100 Resilient Cities to develop and implement a disaster reliance strategy for Puerto Rico following the devastation left by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Ileana previously worked at USA for UNHCR as Project Coordinator for the Partnership for Refugees initiative, and at the U.S. Supreme Court as Special Aide to Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. 

Ileana has a Master in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a BA in Political Science from the University of Puerto Rico, where she was a Gates and Truman Scholar.

Yaron Schwartz is a Senior Manager of 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 and Grants Manager 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.

Crissy is the Events & Communications Manager at Tent.

Prior to joining Tent, Crissy worked at Action Against Hunger, a global humanitarian organization, as their Senior Development Officer. In this role she was responsible for fundraising, planning events, and organizing field visits to mission offices.

Crissy has a BA in Journalism from Pennsylvania State University.

Dajana is the Events and Communications Specialist at Tent.

Prior to joining Tent, Dajana worked as Account Executive at the PR agencies Burson Cohn & Wolfe and Marco de Comunicacion, where she was responsible for the implementation of strategic communication plans, international media relations, events planning and development of brand and corporate identities. Before that, Dajana worked as a freelance translator and as a linguist at the European Union Intellectual Property Office.
 
Dajana has a BA in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Salamanca and an MA in Corporate Communications, Protocol and Events from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain.

Juan Blanco is the Senior Manager of Strategic Initiatives at Tent Partnership for Refugees.

Previously, he was at the United Nations advising governments, companies and international organizations on initiatives to accelerate digitization of payments to reduce poverty and support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. He also worked with the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion in Washington D.C. focusing on emerging fintech and consumer capability. He also worked for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva and the Ministry of Culture in Colombia.

Juan has a BA from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia and an MA from Boston University.

Jennifer Jian is the Finance and Operations Manager at Tent.

Prior to joining Tent, Jennifer worked in finance and operations at the U.S. headquarter of HNA Capital International, an integrated financial company established to acquire investment assets in North America.  Before that, Jennifer spent time with Citigroup in Boston and in Singapore, where she worked mainly in the alternative investments space, servicing hedge fund and private equity clients.

Jennifer has a B.A. in Economics and a B.B.A. in Finance from Boston University.