Advisory Board

The Open Hands Initiative was established in November 2009 by Jay T. Snyder, a prominent American businessman, philanthropist, and public servant, and his wife Tracy Snyder, a philanthropist and political activist. To help support and guide our mission successfully, we have established an Advisory Board consisting of internationally renowned experts in the fields of public diplomacy, private philanthropy, health, disability, education, business, and international cultures.

Jay T. Snyder
Jay Snyder serves as Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Open Hands Initiative. Mr. Snyder has been active in community service and as a public servant for a number of years, including serving on the Bookings' Saban Center & Council on Foreign Relations Middle East Project, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, and as a United States Representative to the United Nations General Assembly. In addition to his philanthropic and public service work, Mr. Snyder also currently works in private equity investments as a principal of HBJ Investments LLC.

Tracy Snyder
Tracy Snyder is a philanthropist and political activist. She co-founded the Open Hands Initiative with her husband, Jay Snyder, in 2009 and currently serves on the Advisory Board.

Tina Brown
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.

Mike Holtzman
Named "PR Person of the Year" by PR Week Magazine, Michael Holtzman is one of the most well regarded public diplomacy strategists in the world. Currently a partner at the international strategic communications firm Brown Lloyd James, Mr. Holtzman has led the firm's work to engage and influence high-level and grassroots relationships between the US and China, the Middle East, Russia, North Africa and other areas of strategic importance.

Martin S. Indyk
Martin Indyk is Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. A former Ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs during the Clinton administration, he currently focuses on the Clinton administration's diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Ambassador Patrick Theros
Ambassador Patrick Theros served as US Ambassador to Qatar from 1995 until his retirement from the US Foreign Service in 1998. Theros joined the US Foreign Service in 1963 and held diplomatic posts throughout the Middle East, including in Jordan, Abu Dhabi, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. He previously served as Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, responsible for the coordination of all U.S. Government counterterrorism activities outside the United States.