Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Announces Shaheen Kassim-Lakha as Director of Strategic Partnerships
Westlake Village, Calif. (July 3, 2019) — The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation today announced Shaheen Kassim-Lakha’s appointment as director of strategic partnerships, effective July 1, 2019. She will report to Marshall Stowell, vice president for communications.
Kassim-Lakha will lead the development and implementation of external engagements, including collaborations with peer funders and national and international partners to unlock resources and shift policies that enable the Hilton Foundation to multiply its impact. This is a new role within the organization and one that puts a priority on operationalizing its philanthropic approach to create strategies and relationships that help advance its goals.
“Shaheen is an ideal leader for this work given her depth of knowledge, networks, skills and experience,” said Marshall Stowell. “She is a highly strategic thinker and an extremely thoughtful practitioner. Shaheen has a remarkable ability to build partnerships and forge beneficial alliances with a cross-section of entities, including other foundations, corporations, think tanks, development and global philanthropic organizations. Anchored internally with the communications team and partnered with the program team, Shaheen will play a pivotal role in advancing the foundation’s influence agenda toward collective impact globally.”
A significant part of Kassim-Lakha’s role will be working to leverage the Hilton Foundation’s resources, flexibility, solutions focus and abilities in partnership with other organizations and entities to address large-scale problems. One immediate area of focus for Kassim-Lakha’s is using the foundation’s power of convening, starting first with humanitarian issues and action in Los Angeles. Branching out from the Foundation’s home city, Kassim-Lakha will look to curate, share and transfer knowledge, find opportunities to leverage knowledge, skills and efforts, and work in partnership toward shared goals.
“After many years of deep work in the international arena, I am eager to put what I have learned about how to advance our philanthropic efforts to new use,” said Kassim-Lakha. “There are so many learnings that come from within the community and expanding outward. Whether working across other organizations and regions, as well as within our own, I see great power for sharing and transferring knowledge, for making space so community need and voice can be communicated, and for braiding resources and people with the end goal of positive systemic outcomes. This is a wonderful opportunity to work at a new angle for people whose lives I care about deeply.” Kassim-Lakha joined the Hilton Foundation in 2007. She developed and led the Foundation’s international portfolio focused on safe water access, disaster relief and recovery, avoidable blindness, and children affected by HIV and AIDS...