Introducing New ING CEO

January 14, 2021

Welcome Tabassum, ING’s New CEO

Greeting of peace/Salam alaykum to all our followers and supporters:

It’s with great joy and gratitude to God and all our supporters that I am announcing and welcoming ING’s new Chief Executive Officer, Tabassum Haleem, who was selected by the Board of Trustees at its meeting on November 30, 2020, to lead the next phase of the Islamic Networks Group, also known as ING.

Tabassum started at ING on January 4th, 2021, and was previously introduced to our donors in December of last year.

By way of an introduction, I have known Tabassum for 20 years. She was very successful in starting and running ING’s Chicago affiliate for eight years, and also led the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC), which serves 400,000 Muslim Americans in the greater Chicago area, for nearly two years after that. Both were pioneering, extraordinary efforts, especially for female leadership in the developing Muslim American community. She started her career working in the for-profit corporate world for more than a decade, first employed at Arthur Andersen, then moving to Paramount and BMW. She then started and ran her own private consulting firm in accounting and auditing for seven years, and only entered the non-profit space when she started an ING affiliate in Chicago in 2001. She also holds several leadership positions in Chicago, including Advisory Committee member of the US Commission on Civil Rights. She’s a licensed CPA and CGMA, and has a Master’s degree from the University of Chicago in Public Policy and Middle Eastern Studies. She speaks five languages, including Urdu, Arabic, and Spanish. For more detail, see her LinkedIn profile here.

As founder and ING’s first Executive Director, I couldn’t be happier with the board’s selection of Tabassum. Your prayers and support for her and for ING are most welcome and appreciated.

My new role in the organization will be to lead new initiatives at ING as its Chief Innovation Officer, working with Tabassum and the new ING Board of Trustees that is headed by Manal Fakhoury, who has been on our board for the last five years.

Other significant leadership changes at ING that took place last year:

Reflecting ING’s national reach, Tabassum will be operating out of the Chicago area, with our team of staff, consultants, and speakers who are located across the country.

The San Francisco Bay Area ING will continue to be led by Ishaq Pathan, with an expanded local Bay Area Board of Directors (a council of advisors that provide guidance to Bay Area-specific work and who reflect Bay Area donors and communities). The San Francisco Bay Area Board is headed by Raania Mohsen who was elected last year as the Board’s chair starting in 2021. The Board was also expanded to include members of the interfaith and ethnic communities with which we work. Two of the new members for the first time on ING’s Board are religious leaders of the Jewish and Buddhist communities: Rabbi Amy Eilberg, the first ordained Conservative Rabbi in the country, and Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi of Land of Medicine Buddha retreat center in Soquel, California.

My big ask of you, our supporters:

Your prayers and continuing support for this important transition at ING: we are a community-based peacebuilding organization, started by Muslim Americans for the benefit of all Americans. ING’s value lies not only in grassroots education and engagement but also in working across religious and ethnic lines in our country with groups that include Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, and people of Asian, African, Hispanic, Latinx, and Indigenous backgrounds–to bring people together for the common good, while countering bigotry and dismantling structural racism that affects us all.

Let’s work together to enable Tabassum to be successful and to support our growth in effectiveness and numbers as we do the important work of bridging our differences for the good of all Americans.

Thank you all.

Maha Elgenaidi
ING Founder