Our People
Leadership and Staff
At HerFuture Afghanistan (HFA), our diverse and dedicated board members and staff are leaders in human rights, women's rights, education, foreign policy and public service. Our strength lies in the remarkable individuals who drive our mission forward. With a wealth of expertise and a strong commitment to our mission, they bring rich and varied experiences to our organization.
Staff
Naheed Farid
Executive Director
Naheed A. Farid is a former Afghan Parliamentarian and Chairperson of the House Standing Committee for Women Affairs. She currently serves as a Global Technical Advisor at the International Republican Institute and a visiting scholar at Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs-APL. Elected to Parliament in 2010, she holds the distinction of being the youngest-ever elected politician and lawmaker in Afghanistan. Naheed has exhibited unwavering dedication to engaging Afghan women and youth in the country's political landscape.
She is an alumnus of George Washington University and a recipient of prestigious accolades including the Forbes Magazine and Jean Kirkpatrick Awards and the founder of the Afghan Education Pathways Program. Notably, she has been recognized as a Model Citizen by Grassroot-Diplomat Magazine and honored with the Italian Government Brave-Knight Medal. Following the Taliban's takeover in August 2021, Naheed has been a prominent voice, advocating for human rights and girls' education in Afghanistan on international platforms such as the UN, UK Parliament, EU Parliament, US Congress, and various media outlets.
Ferdous Dehqan
Head of Strategic Affairs
Ferdous Dehqan served as Legislative Director at the Afghanistan-US Democratic Peace and Prosperity Council, an advocacy-based organization in Washington, D.C., prior to the fall of Kabul. In this role, he oversaw and supported a global public affairs campaign aimed at strengthening ties between reformers in the Afghan Parliament and the U.S. and other western democracies.
Prior to joining the HFA team, he worked as a Research Associate at the SPIA Policy Lab at Princeton University. Ferdous has provided strategic policy and communication direction, developed professional relationships, and built coalitions with diverse clientele. Ferdous holds a Bachelor's in Political Science from Binghamton University. He is currently pursuing a Master of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
Afifa Zaman
Community Engagement and Internship Lead
Afifa Zaman is an Afghan-American counselor and educator with over ten years of experience in higher education. She is based in Southern California and is a tenured faculty counselor at a community college that provides open-access and low-cost higher education. After graduating from San Diego State University (SDSU) with a degree in Liberal Studies (K-6 education), she earned a Master’s Degree in Counseling with an emphasis in Multicultural Community Counseling from SDSU’s Community-Based Block (CBB) program. She is pursuing a Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Educational Psychology at the University of Southern California (USC).
Afifa’s educational philosophy centers on education as a “practice of freedom” (Freire, 1978). She believes that meaningful, high-quality education is critical to individual empowerment, transformative social justice, and collective liberation. As such, she strives to increase educational access, retention, and student equity through her daily work and advocacy. She hopes that every individual will see their rights to education and safety actualized so that they not only survive but thrive in the world.
Board of Directors
Martin Rahmani
Founder and Board Member
Prior to the fall of Kabul into the hands of Taliban, Martin Rahmani worked as the Executive Director of Afghanistan-U.S. Democratic Peace and Prosperity Council. In this capacity, Mr. Rahmani led day-to-day operations of the council and developed and executed policy, communications, government affairs strategies, and outreach to the Afghan-American community.
Mr. Rahmani is a founder and managing partner of Victory Six Advisors, an advisory firm based in Washington, D.C., that provides management consulting, strategy, business development and government relations services. Additionally, he has worked for a political non-profit organization and in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Rahmani holds a Bachelors of Arts Degree in International Relations from American University.
Dr. Rangita de Silva
Board Member
Professor Rangita de Silva de Alwis is a globally renowned gender expert, a member of the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) treaty body and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where she teaches International Women's Human Rights, Women Peace and Security, Women Law and Leadership, Human Rights and Globalization and Artificial Intelligence and Gender Bias. She teaches Women and Security at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and is a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Law School Center for the Legal Profession. She is also the Hillary Rodham Clinton Fellow on Global Gender Equity at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. She is a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford University Bonavero Institute for Human Rights (2024) and holds several advisory positions to governments. She has published widely in law journals of Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, Penn Law School, Duke Law School, Michigan Law School, UCLA Law School, Oxford and Cambridge Press. She received her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Law from Harvard Law School.
Shannon McCombie
Board Member
Throughout her career, Shannon K. McCombie has worked in both the public and private sectors. Shannon lived and worked internationally for the Central Intelligence Agency and Naval Special Warfare Development Group, with the majority of her government career spent in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Shannon combined that experience with time spent building and managing teams within a Fortune 30 company focusing on media, technology, healthcare and security. Shannon later went on to lead operational roles in technology start-ups, to include molecular diagnostics, defense tech, and SaaS.
Currently, Shannon is the Head of Operations, North America, for General System, a British tech company. In addition to this, she consults for several technology start-ups. Shannon received her Bachelor of Arts degree in International Politics with minors in French and International Studies from Penn State University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She completed her master's degree in Psychology of Leadership from the same university. Shannon is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an Advisory Board Member of the UDT/SEAL Museum, Victory Six Advisors and Red Point Advisors.