Meet the Team

Farah Pandith is the Muhammad Ali Global Peace Laureate and the creator and catalyst behind the Ali Index on Compassion. A celebrated author, foreign policy strategist, and pioneering expert in countering violent extremism (CVE), she challenges conventional thinking and inspires action, building cross-sector programs globally. As the first-ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities under Secretaries Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, she reshaped global engagement strategies, fostering cross-cultural understanding and resilience against extremist ideologies. Her influential book, How We Win, presents cutting-edge strategies harnessing innovation, entrepreneurship, and collaboration to combat hate and extremism worldwide.

Farah has served under Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and George H.W. Bush at the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Over the last decade, she served as a member of U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council, and chaired its Countering Violent Extremism Task Force. Farah was a senior fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government including at the Institute of Politics. Additionally, she was senior advisor at the Anti-Defamation League and the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, contributing her expertise to shaping critical initiatives in soft power and countering division.

Currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, Farah serves on several prominent boards, including Mercy Corps, The Asian American Foundation, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Her media presence as a sought-after commentator highlights her expertise in leveraging soft power and cultural intelligence to address today’s most pressing challenges. She has also spearheaded innovative projects such as The Universal Title: Muhammad Ali’s Spiritual Journey podcast and serves as an advisory board member for PBS’s American Muslims: A History Revealed. Recognized for her service and leadership, she is featured in a permanent exhibit at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, as well as in The Network, a permanent exhibit in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

In 2020, Farah was named the inaugural Muhammad Ali Global Peace Laureate, a testament to her unwavering commitment to empathy, compassion, and collaboration as tools for global change. In this role she has helped spark action to embody Muhammad Ali’s humanitarian legacy including the Muhammad Ali Index, which measures and inspires compassionate action worldwide. Farah’s dynamic leadership and vision continue to shape critical global conversations, empowering individuals, communities, and policymakers to advance courageously for a more inclusive and peaceful world

“The Muhammad Ali Index of is our continuation of Muhammad’s life’s work, valuing everyone’s humanity, bringing people together, and fostering respectful communities.”

Lonnie Ali, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, completed her BA degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville in 1978. After graduation, Lonnie began her business career with Kraft Foods, Inc. She continued her studies at UCLA’s Graduate School of Management and received an MBA in 1986.

After her marriage to Muhammad Ali in November 1986, she assumed responsibility and management of his business affairs. In 1992, she formally incorporated Greatest of All Time, Inc. (GOAT Inc.) to centralize and license her husband’s intellectual properties for commercial purposes. She served as Vice President and Treasurer of GOAT, Inc. until the sale of the company in 2006. During her tenure, Lonnie managed the company’s daily operations and accompanied Muhammad on business trips and humanitarian initiatives, domestically and around the world. After the sale of GOAT, Lonnie was asked to serve on the management board of the newly formed Muhammad Ali Enterprises.

In 1997, Lonnie and Muhammad helped launch the Muhammad Ali Parkinson’s Center (MAPC) in Phoenix. Lonnie and her husband unveiled the Muhammad and Lonnie Ali Pavilion in 2009, which houses the Muhammad Ali Parkinson’s Center at Barrow Neurological Institute.

She and her husband opened the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville in November of 2005, where she serves as a Lifetime Director and as Vice Chair of the Center’s Board.

Lonnie has been active in various charitable causes, including advocating for children’s rights and Parkinson’s disease research. From 2010 to 2013, Lonnie served on the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.

Lonnie was the 2010 recipient of AARP’s Inspire Award, was named in 2012 as one of Arizona’s 48 Most Intriguing Women, and was inducted into The National Consortium for Academics and Sports Hall of Fame in 2013. She has also been honored by The Foundation of Wesley Woods with the Key to a Cure Award, Child Help, and the HollyRod Foundation. Lonnie received the Keep Memory Alive Caregiver Hero Award from the Cleveland Clinic’s Keep Memory Alive Power of Love® Gala and, most recently, the M.T Kasalu Women of Honor Award, presented by LIZADEEL in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The Muhammad Ali Index is the missing jigsaw piece in the puzzle of how we amplify compassion in an increasingly polarized world.”

Simon Cohen is a peace activist, keynote speaker and communications expert. Inspired to spread messages of hope in the mainstream media, Simon set up the strategic communications agency Global Tolerance in 2003, aged 24. He grew the company to become the world’s leading agency in social change, representing HH Dalai Lama, HM King Charles III, The Gallup Organization, HH The Karmapa, US Department of State, Gandhi’s grandson and TED, overseeing the global launch of the Charter for Compassion.

Simon then famously gave away the £1m company for the riches of family life, through a new exit strategy for entrepreneurs. He is on the faculty for the Amani Institute, and teaches leadership to global social entrepreneurs in Brazil, Kenya and India. A moral and social commentator in the international media, Simon is a contributor to the Harvard Business Review and Entrepreneur magazine. Simon is an international keynote speaker, and has given talks on leadership and values at the UN, UNESCO, World Economic Forum, Cannes Lions, Worldwide Meeting on Human Values, Universal Forum of Cultures, as well as scores of universities and schools around the world. 

Simon is Vice President of the Mattie Stepanek Peace Foundation and sits on various nonprofit boards and advisory groups, including Global Compassion Coalition, Boma Global, American Refugee Committee (now Alight) and Charter for Compassion International. More on https://mrsimoncohen.com/.

Joi McAtee is a dedicated advocate for equitable outcomes and community upliftment in Louisville, demonstrated through her extensive work in education, non-profits, and local government.

A Louisville Central High School graduate, she earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Kentucky and a master’s in Higher Administration from the University of Louisville. Currently, she is advancing her expertise with a master’s in public administration and a Ph.D. in Urban and Public Affairs at UofL.

Joi’s professional experience includes serving as Executive Director of Equity for Louisville Metro Government, where she led nationally recognized initiatives focused on unity, policy and data-driven equity. Her prior roles at KentuckianaWorks, Spalding University, and JCPS reflect her deep community understanding.

Beyond her professional roles, Joi serves on the boards of Maryhurst Inc., Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana, and is a Trustee for Initiatives of Change, UK. Her volunteerism, including Meals on Wheels and voter registration drives, underscores her commitment to direct community impact. She is also an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Formerly, she served on the Louisville Metro Commission for Persons with Disabilities and the Juneteenth Jubilee Commission, and held leadership positions with the Louisville Young Democrats, the Louisville Jefferson County Democratic Party, the Kentucky Derby Festival Block Party, and YPAL.

Joi’s dedication to community is complemented by her devotion to her daughter, Elizabeth.

“We are living in a time when Americans are searching for hope and common purpose. The Index is a groundbreaking tool that provides a pathway to the more compassionate and civil society we want and deserve.”

Greg Fischer was elected Louisville’s 50th mayor in 2010 and completed his third and final term in office on January 1, 2023.

With the head of a businessman and heart of a social worker, Mayor Fischer set a path for Louisville’s economic renaissance including an unprecedented $24 billion+ in capital investments, the recentering of the local economy around next stage technologies, and the launches of the Evolve502 promise scholarship that ensures every public high school graduate has an opportunity for higher learning, and a new hospitality/tourism movement known as “bourbonism”.

When historic challenges struck Louisville and America in 2020, he further accelerated his administration’s focus on public safety and police-community relations; addressed systemic racism and police reform; and marshalled all resources to hasten Louisville’s recovery from COVID-19.

Mayor Fischer was elected by the mayors of America to be president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 2020. Governing Magazine named Mayor Fischer Public Official of the Year in 2013. A 2016 Politico survey named him as the most innovative mayor in America. Louisville was named an International Model City of Compassion four times and a Top 15 city for attracting millennials.

Mayor Fischer is a national award-winning entrepreneur who started and invested in dozens of businesses, including SerVend International and Iceberg Ventures, a private investment firm.

Mayor Fischer is a graduate of Trinity High School and Vanderbilt University. He is married to Dr. Alexandra Gerassimides, the daughter of Greek immigrants who were uprooted during the Greek Civil War. The couple have four adult children and two grandchildren.

“The wrong way to repair the ‘othering” that is tearing us apart is to try to change people – we all come pre-wired. Instead, we need to understand the profound Sensemaking Genome that makes each of us who we are, what we believe, and with whom we identity. Then we can reframe the world to resonate with that pre-wiring.”

Christopher Graves combines more than 40 years’ experience across three domains on three continents, including: news media; communications & influence; and behavioral science. Graves deploys behavioral science to address the “wicked problems” facing humanity, from climate change risk, to health behaviors, to disinformation.

Graves served as network news chief for both CNBC Asia and CNBC Europe and spent 18 years with The Wall Street Journal. He then served as Regional CEO (APAC), then Global Global CEO and Chair for Ogilvy Public Relations.

While at Ogilvy, he founded the Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science. Graves co-invented a behavioral science research methodology to reveal the Sensemaking Genome™ of individuals at scale to better decode and predict behavior. This innovation has now won seven global awards.

Graves was awarded a prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency in 2016 for his work in behavioral science in communications. He was elected life member to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2010. Graves actively contributes to publications such as the Harvard Business Review and appears on television news as a guest expert.

Adnan Kifayat is Founder of Blueprint Strategies, LLC, a global public policy education and engagement advisory firm. He is also an Adviser and Board Member of the Center on Financial and Economic Power (CEFP), promoting research and public policy engagement on economic and financial security.

Kifayat has held senior roles in government, business, philanthropy and academia.  Most recently he was Global Lead for HIV at Gilead Sciences, a Fortune 500 biotechnology firm, where he developed corporate and foundation product strategies to advance global public health goals.  Prior to this, he was Head of Global Security Ventures for Gen Next Foundation, where he created pioneering technology-powered solutions to global security challenges and built partnerships with leading multinational corporations.

He held senior positions in public service at the White House, State Department, Treasury Department, and diplomatic posts in Jerusalem and Tunis.

Kifayat served twice on the National Security Council staff under Dr. Condoleezza Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, coordinating security, trade and economic issues in the Middle East and Africa. His achievements include appointment of the first Presidential Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) and the launch of a $100 million fund for private sector development with the World Bank. He also led the first Forum for the Future Summit with Morocco, convening G7 and Middle East Finance and Foreign Ministers to address economic and social issues.

At the State Department, he served in multiple roles advancing social, economic, and security partnerships on behalf of Secretaries Hillary Clinton and John F. Kerry, and as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Ambassador James K. Glassman, leading the adoption of new technologies in strategic public diplomacy and communications activities.

At the Treasury Department, Kifayat served four Secretaries of the Treasury by enhancing and strengthening financial cooperation with the U.S.’ closest allies, advancing multilateral development bank policies and reforms, negotiating financial agreements, and creating the first financial cooperation working group of G7 and Middle Eastern central bank governors and finance ministers.  He also served as Alternate Executive Director to the African Development Bank Group, overseeing $7 billion in financing operations across 34 countries and establishing the Bank’s Anti-Fraud and Corruption Unit – the first at a multilateral development bank.

Kifayat is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a recognized thought leader, having served as a Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Leadership at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on Homegrown Terrorism and contributed to numerous reports and task force studies on global security, use of technology in national security, private-public financing, international diplomacy and global health.

He serves on the board of Bits ‘N’ Bytes Cybersecurity, which educates young people in online security, is a founding board member of CrowdSourcingHumanRights.com, a platform to advance human rights globally, and a former Trustee of the Eurasia Foundation. Adnan holds advanced degrees in Biological Science, Economics and Foreign Policy from Florida State University and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

“The Muhammad Ali Index is a groundbreaking national research initiative designed to track compassion across America. It provides mayors and community leaders with data-driven insights and actionable recommendations to rebuild relationships and strengthen social cohesion. As national discourse grows increasingly polarized, tools like the Index are vital for fostering civility and establishing a foundation for thriving communities.”

Ron Nirenberg is the first San Antonio Mayor of Asian Pacific Islander descent. His mother is Filipino and his paternal grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe who passed through Ellis Island.

Through his personal experiences, Mayor Nirenberg developed a core commitment to civic participation and the universal values of liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for every person.

First elected in 2017, Mayor Nirenberg was re-elected to a fourth term on May 6, 2023.

Under his leadership as mayor, the city has adopted an equity framework in budgeting to reduce poverty, improve public health, and overcome historical socioeconomic inequality. This forward-looking approach drives the mayor’s vision of a compassionate community with a globally competitive economy.

“Far too many people today mistakenly believe that compassion is weakness. The Index is a powerful means by which we can change that narrative, a way that we can show that compassion is in fact the foundation on which healthy, inclusive, thriving societies are built.”

Trisha Prabhu is the 24-year-old inventor and Founder and CEO of ReThink, a patented technology that stops cyberbullying before the damage is done. ReThink detects offensive content and encourages users to rethink sending it, stopping online hate proactively.

Today, ReThink’s technology (named one of Google Play’s Most Innovative Apps), educational materials, and anti-cyberbullying advocacy have been shared with young digital citizens worldwide, everywhere from the US to the Caribbean to India.

For her work with ReThink, Trisha has been the recipient of many awards, among them, the Princess Diana International Anti-Bullying Award and Mozilla’s Rise25 Award.

Trisha has also made waves as a contestant on ABC’s Shark Tank and as the winner of Harvard University’s President’s Innovation Challenge and The Elevate Prize. In 2021, she was the youngest honoree named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Social Impact list.

In 2023, her work was recognized (and funded) by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Foundation. Trisha is a TED speaker and has delivered 100+ talks in 30 cities about the power of “ReThinking.”

She is the author of “ReThink the Internet,” the world’s first-ever “by-youth, for-youth” guide to the internet. Trisha is a graduate of Harvard University and a US Rhodes Scholar.

“With the launch of the Muhammad Ali Index, policymakers, philanthropists, educators, and business leaders have access to a crucial new tool that will help us to evaluate the state of civility and compassion in America, and ultimately, to develop more empathetic, tolerant individuals and communities.”

Ellett Toomey serves as the Senior Director of Development at Planet Word, a one-of-a-kind museum in Washington, DC, whose mission is to renew and inspire a love of words, language, and reading.

In this role, Toomey oversees all philanthropic giving, working closely with supporters who share the museum’s belief in the life-long importance of literacy as the foundation of a strong democracy.

Prior to Planet Word, she worked at the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, where she was responsible for implementing a fundraising strategy to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to support the Center’s new headquarters.

She previously led development and strategy at Fight for Children, a non-profit serving students and student athletes in D.C. public schools. Ellett holds her BA and Masters from the University of Virginia and her MBA from Georgetown University. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound School.

Chi Kim is the Chief Executive Officer of Pure Edge, Inc. a private operation dedicated to harnessing the science of resilience to provide simple, evidence-based strategies to support well-being and success. Prior to joining the foundation, she served as a California school superintendent, school principal, leadership coach, classroom teacher, as well as, a program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is also co-founder of the Teaching Garden program that was adopted by the American Heart Association to support heart health through school gardens.

Kim is an adjunct professor at UVA, a 2018 Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow, serves as the Board Chair & Trustee of the Ibis Group nonprofit board, a member of YouthBuild Global Board of Directors, FairVote, and FECOP Board of Directors. She also serves on the national advisory councils of the COVID Collaborative, More Perfect, Multitudes UCSF Dyslexia Center, and  Project Wayfinder.

Prabha Sankaranarayan is the President and CEO of Mediators Beyond Borders International an impact organization whose mission is to build local skills for peace and promote mediation worldwide. Prabha has led the growth of the organization by building strategic partnerships with global organizations like Rotary International & Adaptation Without Borders International, national networks like the National Association for Community Mediation, and Regional entities like Africa Mediation Association, and the ASEAN Regional Forum, while developing MBBI’s areas of Functional expertise in:

• Conflict to Collaboration Strategies
• Responsible Development
• Mobilizing Experts/Advisory Support
• Technical Expertise – Mediation, Negotiation, Dialogue, Consensus Building
• Culturally appropriate & trauma informed process design
• Transition, Governance & Security Dimensions of Peace Processes

Prabha is a conflict transformation practitioner who has mediated, facilitated and trained in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.  Her public and private sector work includes conflict analysis for public/private partnerships, consultation & assessment for industrial development zones, design and implementation of programs and processes for multinational corporations, governments, banks and community organizations; inter-faith dialogues as well as facilitation of multi-stakeholder mediations. A substantive expert in trauma-informed peacebuilding, public participation, and conflict transformation, she has provided systems design, strategic planning, program management, community outreach, and training around the world.

Prabha is involved in regional, national and international civic activities focused on civil liberties, violence prevention, conflict mitigation & mediation and the recovery & rehabilitation of trauma survivors. She served on the ASEAN Regional Forum’s (ARF) Expert and Eminent Persons (EEP) Group for the US Government. Her current Advisory & Board appointments include The Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, VISIONS Inc. (USA),  Women’s International Peace Center (WIPC, Uganda) and Africa Mediation Association ( Kenya).

With over 20 years of experience in integrated communications, Sunnak has worked with global and national clients to develop, build and implement impactful campaigns. He was part of the original cohort of storytellers who worked with the United Nations Foundation to launch the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and he has worked with some of the leading corporates and nonprofits on issues including access to healthcare, AI innovation for impact, child poverty and economic empowerment, to name a few. Building on his expertise as a trusted senior counsel for leaders across industry sectors, Sunnak is currently EVP at global strategic communications company Porter Novelli, focusing on c-suite messaging, positioning as well as overall thought leadership activating for clients across the national and global space. He was named one of PRWeek’s 40 under 40 professionals in 2017, in 2019, was a finalist of PR Week’s Most Purposeful Pros in PR award and was named in The NY Observer’s “PR POWER50” in 2020. More recently, PRWeek awarded Sunnak as highly commended for the Global PR Professional of the Year category. Sunnak graduated with LLB Hons in Law from University College London (UCL).

Honorary Advisor Barbara Sexton Smith

Mary Casey
Emilie Deutsch
Rufus Friday
Colin Gottlieb
Dr. Christopher Jones
Kris Sirchio
Thomas Williams