Wadah Aref Khanfar

Wadah Khanfar is the president of the Al Sharq Forum, an independent network dedicated to developing long-term strategies for political development, social justice and economic prosperity for the people of the Middle East.

He was previously Managing Director of Al Jazeera Media Network. He has been ranked by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2011 as the first in the 100 global thinkers of the FP top 100, and in Fast Company as the first in the most creative people in the industry in 2011 and as one of the most powerful people in the world by Forbes magazine (2009), in 2008 the World Economic Forum named Khanfar as one of the “young world leaders”.

During his tenure, Al Jazeera went from a single channel to a media network with multiple properties, including the Arabic channel Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, the Al Jazeera documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al Jazeera news sites, The Al Jazeera Study Center, Al Jazeera Mubasher (live) and Al Jazeera Mobile. On September 20, 2011, he resigned as head of Al Jazeera Network.