Asia Centre

Biographies :

Tan Sri Mohamed Jawhar Hassan

Tan Sri Mohamed Jawhar served with the government before he joined ISIS Malaysia as Deputy Director-General in May 1990. He was appointed Director-General in March 1997 and was subsequently appointed Chairman and CEO of ISIS Malaysia on 9 January, 2006. His positions in government included Director-General, Department of National Unity; Under-Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs; Director (Analysis) Research Division, Prime Minister’s Department; and Principal Assistant Secretary, National Security Council. He also served as Counselor in the Malaysian Embassies in Indonesia and Thailand. Tan Sri Jawhar was Project Coordinator of Malaysia’s Master Plan on Knowledge-Based Economy. He also helped draft the Report of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal MalaysianPolice. Tan Sri Jawhar served as a member of Penang Knowledge Economy Information Communications Technology Council (K-ICT Council) since its inception. He was heavily involved in the formulation of the K-ICT Blueprint in support of the government’s goal of making Penang a fully developed state by 2010. Tan Sri Jawhar was also the lead drafter of the Islamic Development Bank’s Vision 1440 Hijrah document.

His other positions include: Member, National Economic Council; Member, National Unity Advisory Panel, Malaysia; Non-Executive Chairman, New Straits Times; Member of the Board of Directors, Media Prima Sdn. Bhd.; Co-Chair, Network of East Asia Think-tanks (NEAT) 2005-2006; and Chairman, Malaysian National Committee, Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC). He is also presently Co-Chair, Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) for a period of two years; Chair, ASEAN-ISIS (2007-2008); Expert and Eminent Person, for the purposes of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Register; and Distinguished Fellow, Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia.

PR Gilles Kepel

(born 1955, Paris) is Professor  and Chair, Middle East and Mediterranean Studies, at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), where he heads the programs on the Arab and Muslim World, at the PhD, M.A.. and undergraduate levels – the later in Menton (French Riviera). He was also the founder in 2003 and is the current chairman of the Eurogolfe Network. A visiting professor at NYU and Columbia University in 1995-96, Gilles Kepel holds degrees in Arabic, English and Philosophy, is a graduate from Sciences Po and  received his PhD in political science.

He is a contributor to the Financial Times, Le Monde, La Repubblica, El Pais, Al Hayat, and a number of Arabic language and international newspapers. He is regularly interviewed on BBC radio and TV, CNN, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiyya, LBC and French and International channels. He frequently travels to North Africa, the Middle East, the Gulf, the US and Europe and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Social Science Research Council (New York) and of the Institute of the Arab World (IMA) located in Paris.

Dr. Sophie Boisseau du Rocher