International Board

Hutham Olayan

Hutham S. Olayan is a principal and director of The Olayan Group. She has headed the Group’s U.S. operations for more than 25 years, overseeing all investment activity in the Americas. She is president and CEO of Olayan America and other U.S.-based affiliates of the Group.

Ms. Olayan is a director of Morgan Stanley and a former director of Thermo Electron Corporation. She is a member of the International Advisory Board of The Blackstone Group.

Ms. Olayan serves on the boards of several not-for-profit organizations: the American University of Beirut, Georgetown University, Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and The MasterCard Foundation.

She is a member of international advisory bodies affiliated with The Brookings Institution, The Conference Board, and Carnegie Middle East Center. She is a founding member of the Arab Bankers Association of North America and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ms. Olayan holds a BA from the American University of Beirut and MBA from Indiana University.



General Brent Scowcroft, Eric Melby and Henry Siegman

General Brent Scowcroft, Eric Melby and Henry Siegman

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Can Kerry Rescue a Two-State Peace Accord?

If the purpose of President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel was to dispel the view held by most Israelis, and by rightwing American Jewish supporters of AIPAC and the Likud’s annexationist policies, that he is hostile to Israel and to the Zionist enterprise, it must be judged a brilliant success. Not everyone was converted, but his words and personal charm seemed to have worked wonders on most Israelis.
While his visit was not expected to revive prospects for a two-state solution, he spoke far more directly and energetically about the need for an end to Israel’s occupation and about his own continuing efforts to help the parties achieve an agreement than his recent disengagement from the peace process prepared anyone for. But nothing he said in Jerusalem or Ramallah–and, more importantly, that he failed to say–justifies an expectation that his reengagement will be of a kind that has any chance of preventing Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government from finally nailing down the coffin in which they are burying a viable two-state outcome.

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