Managing Director
Muzahid Khan
Janala Ventura began as the passion of Muzahid Khan. After spending 30 years delivering services in the local government, voluntary/charity sector and the private sector. Muzahid decided to capture his knowledge and experience gained in these diverse fields, working with a diverse range of people, he decided to bring his knowledge and experience to benefit the charity, public and private sectors. Muzahid has been actively involved on the boards of numerous successful organisation such as Maggie's Cancer Centre, Cranmer Education Trust, Positive Steps, Beacon Community Charitable Organisation, Amana Foundation.
He is a founder of a village health centre in Bangladesh serving the poor with free healthcare as part of his dedication to philanthropy and making a difference to the community.
He was awarded recognition from the British Prime Minister for his outstanding contribution the community in 2000, after receiving an invitation to attend Buckingham Palace as young achiever amongst 600, British young achievers in 1998.
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Chairman
Ifty Islam
Ifty is CEO of Pathfinder a social enterprise helping to catalyze innovation, growth and business opportunities in the digital economy. He is also currently the Chairman and Co-Founder of Infiniti Tech, a UK-based technology com- pany. Prior to this, Ifty was the CEO and co-founder of Miup, a University of Tokyo based Health AI company that has developed primary healthcare platform to leverage AI and big data technologies to promote pre-emptive medicine in the battle against NCDs. Ifty has a passion for technology and has been working as an advisor and investor in innovative start-up companies.
Ifty is also the Chairman and founder of Asian Tiger Capital, an investment banking advisory firm based in Dhaka and London. Ifty was the advisor to the China Consortium on the recently concluded 25% investment by the Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchanges in the Dhaka. AT Capital also has a joint venture partnership with leading Chinese Fintech Kingdom Shenzhen Sci. Tech. focused on capital markets technology.
Prior to establish AT Capital in 2007, Ifty was a Managing Director at Citigroup, London from 2004-2007 where he was Head of Macro Strategy/Hedge Fund Research. From 1997-2004 Ifty spent 8 years at Deutsche Bank Securities in London and New York, latterly as Managing Director and Chief US Strategist. He graduated from the Queen's College, Oxford with a BA/MA (First Class) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.
Senior Consultant
Shelina Begum
Public Relations & Communications
I am a journalist with more than two decades of communications experience. After 21 years with the Manchester Evening News (M.E.N.) and its associated titles including Business-Live, I decided to leave in August 2020 to launch my first venture – a communications and media agency – to offer quality content writing, PR and marketing to organisations across the UK.
I am passionate about commerce and industry having led the M.E.N’s business team between 2015 to 2020.
As business editor I was responsible for overseeing the region’s business coverage including editing Greater Manchester Business Week, a 40-page business publication. In that time I oversaw the production of more than 100 weekly editions while also producing copy for the daily paper and its dedicated morning digital newsletter.
I also have extensive digital experience from publishing breaking stories online to uploading videos and digital story telling on various social media platforms including LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
As a business journalist and editor, I have considerable experience writing not only about the region’s businesses but also about the city’s development, its role in the Northern Powerhouse, devolution and transport while engaging with some of the region’s biggest stakeholders.
I have also worked closely with the M.E.N’s commercial team and successfully delivered campaigns and major events for a vast network of clients ranging from large corporates in the professional services sector to national business bodies to property developers and tech firms.
With combined editorial and commercial expertise, I was able to significantly grow both audience numbers and revenues.
During my time as a journalist, I built a strong reputation within Greater Manchester and the wider north west business and civic community.
Outside of work, I am married with two children aged five and two. We enjoy plenty of long walks and picnics.
I am an advocate for women in business and have co-founded http://www.workingmamas.com, a platform championing working mothers across the UK.
Senior Consultant
Peter Gibson
Media Relations
Peter has worked in media relations, communications, marketing, and journalism for over 30 years, latterly as the founder and chief executive of PeteGibsonMedia. The company promotes the work of charities, the NHS, small businesses, and arts organisations.
As Press Officer at Greater Manchester Police, Peter fronted media enquiries in the wake of the Manchester bombing of 1996, working with press throughout the globe. During his time at Keep Britain Tidy and the Rathbone youth charity, he regularly appeared on television and radio and was honoured for helping to raise young people out of poverty and crime.
PeteGibsonMedia’s achievements include increasing the profile of children’s heart charity Lagan’s Foundation, promoting better use of antibiotics to health carers and the public with ANTRUK, organising a campaign on good health for Asian women with the NHS in Oldham, helping to establish the Homeless-Friendly charity and promoting charitable giving within the community, including attaining national press coverage for mountaineer, Akke Rahman. Having worked with former prime ministers and current decision-makers such as Lisa Nandy MP, Peter has an impressive contacts book. He is also an accomplished photographer and filmmaker
Senior Consultant
Fakrul Choudhury
Community & Charity Development
Fakrul has spent over 25 years working in the public and community sectors. This includes local authority, charity, Education and faith. He started his career working for Oldham Council on a community environmental project. He moved on to work with flagship local, regional and national programmes to include, community cohesion, employability, Hate Crime and organisational development initiatives.
Fakrul has several years’ experience in the development of public and community sector policies. He has also operated several successful businesses and social enterprises to include tuition centres and consultation and research programmes.
Fakrul currently spends most of his time supporting the development of community/charity sector organisations. This includes the delivery of training, supporting of charity registrations , development of policy and procedures and the development of fundraising strategies (including bid writing)
Fakrul has spent most of his adult life involved in voluntary community work and has chaired a local youth group for over 20 years. He recently received an MBE in recognition for his efforts
A law graduate, Fakrul went on to further his academic knowledge in subjects to include, Equality, Adult education, Management and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Senior Consultant
Les Howarth
Digital
I have been telling stories and making media as Realtime Images in the North-West since 1991 previously in London from 1977-1991 (77-84 as "Mixed Media").
I produce and deliver multimedia communications: ads, music videos, graphics, websites, promos, events, exhibitions, DVDs, CDs interactive media, scripts, journalism, online newspapers and literature - Whatever the medium it's about the message.
I have always been a creative storyteller, working with sound and pictures since a child - drawing, painting, writing photographing and filming. Doing it professionally since graduating in 1977. Starting out with a 16mm Bolex camera, light-tables, sticky lettering, marker pens, masking tape and imagination I produced images, training films and communications media - my first project was an animation and on-site filming on the subject council house development in north Manchester for UMIST Building Research Establishment. During this period I also did a little teaching or Photography to 'O' and 'A' level students at Oldham College.
My work then took me to London where I produced corporate audio-visual events and staged them regionally and nationally before becoming involved in the emerging digital media in the 1980's which I used to create corporate presentations, computer games and TV graphics, as a result of this I was asked to write a series of children's books about the design and programming of computer games and computer graphics just a few years later.
As one of first in the UK to harness computer animation for corporate projects in the mid-1980's I always said that if it can be imagined - it can be shown, although it took a little while for technology to catch up. I was asked to gave a talk on this theme to the British Computer Society at UMIST in 2000.
With the adoption of digital video in the late 1990's it finally became possible marry the photographic side of the job with graphics and animation without the use of expensive external facilities - adding value on the most modest productions and allowing me full creative control of the process.
I continue making corporate promos, music videos and documentaries. For the last 15 years I have focused on filming documentaries, creative openers for events and events coverage for 'good causes'.
But its not about the technology or the toys - It's about communicating - reaching into minds and making an impression with images, words and sounds.
As Press Officer at Greater Manchester Police, Peter fronted media enquiries in the wake of the Manchester bombing of 1996, working with press throughout the globe. During his time at Keep Britain Tidy and the Rathbone youth charity, he regularly appeared on television and radio and was honoured for helping to raise young people out of poverty and crime.
PeteGibsonMedia’s achievements include increasing the profile of children’s heart charity Lagan’s Foundation, promoting better use of antibiotics to health carers and the public with ANTRUK, organising a campaign on good health for Asian women with the NHS in Oldham, helping to establish the Homeless-Friendly charity and promoting charitable giving within the community, including attaining national press coverage for mountaineer, Akke Rahman. Having worked with former prime ministers and current decision-makers such as Lisa Nandy MP, Peter has an impressive contacts book. He is also an accomplished photographer and filmmaker
Senior Consultant
Dawood Masood
Charities Manager
Dawood is our charities manager and works on our Education, Safeguarding, Faith & Religious organisations, Humanitarian, and charities team.
He has an extensive knowledge of charity law and its application in England and Wales in particular in relation to faith and religious organisations, humanitarian organisations and advises clients on all aspects of setting up, registering, converting, and operating a charity.
Dawood specialises in governance and compliance reviews, trustee and senior officer training and updating governing documents and devising appropriate policies for their organisation as well as helping clients with understanding their trusts, dealing with their property, and addressing risk.
He understands the importance of balancing legal and practical requirements and is able to quickly find effective solutions to complex charity issues. He also presents a number of valuable and practical suggestions to trustees to help them achieve their goals with minimal need for Charity Commission intervention.
Experience
Before joining __, Dawood worked for 10 years in the Charity Sector, where he was leading an award-winning UK registered charity. He dealt with all matters related to governance and compliance, finance and management while training the trustees to handle these matters effectively. Dawood has also been activity involved with faith and religious organisations as he has been working as the senior manager of a prominent faith organisation in the UK since 2011.
In addition, he joined hands with SFI (Strengthening Faith Institutions) in 2016 to work on an initiative to develop and strengthen faith organisations as well as faith-based charities by counselling them regarding administration and safeguarding matters. During this time, he trained closely with MHCLG and HMRC advisers and worked with charity commission to get several faith organisations registered with it.
In 2017, he started an accounting firm “Quba Accountancy” which specialises in the financial matters of charitable organisations. He provides one-on-one counselling to trustees about intricate financial situations in addition to paying compliance visits.
His work also includes advising several faith charities who are subject to Section 46 Inquiry by Charity Commission (Regulator) for alleged mismanagement and misadministration of the charity, particularly private benefit to trustees.
Career to date
After graduating from University of Bedfordshire with a BSc. (Hons) degree in Accounting & Finance, Dawood began his career in the religious organisations sector, moving on to the charity sector and he has been working with humanitarian organisations ever since. He joined Janala Ventura in January 2021 and is currently working as a Charities Manager here.
“Dawood Masood has recent experience in the Charity Commission so he is able to give practical and useful advice whenever a complicated situation arises”.
“Dawood Masood has unprecedented knowledge of the sector and the Charity Commission due to which he can provide great advice to trustees even in the most challenging situations”.
