Ploughshares

  This Friday we will hear from two representatives from the Ploughshares Foundation. Ploughshares brings groups from all across the political spectrum together to pursue common goals around nonproliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Every day, they work to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, to stop their spread, and to build peace in regions of conflict where nuclear weapons exist. They support experts and advocates who implement smart strategies to secure a more peaceful world. We are sure to get some timely insight into the Iran nuclear agreement.

  Philip Yun is Ploughshares Executive Director & COO. He oversees the organization’s entire range of day-to-day activities, including grantmaking, communications, financial management and fundraising.  He is an experienced executive and former policymaker who has also worked extensively in academia, business, international diplomacy, nonprofits and government.

  Prior to joining Ploughshares Fund, he was a vice president at The Asia Foundation, a Pantech Scholar in Korean Studies at Stanford, and worked at the U.S. Department of State as an advisor to Secretary of State Madeline Albright, President Clinton, and former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry. His writings and commentary have appeared on The Hill, Foreign Policy.com, AP TV, Fox News, CNN, NBC and the Los Angeles Times, among others. He is the co-editor of a book entitled North Korea and Beyond (2006).

  Prior to government service, Philip practiced law in San Francisco and Seattle. He also was a foreign legal consultant in Seoul, Korea and later a vice president at a private equity firm. He attended Brown University (magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and the Columbia University School of Law. He was a Fulbright Scholar to Korea.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and member of the Board of Overseers for Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.

  Noosheen Hashemi is an Advisory Board Member at Ploughshares. She is a philanthropist with a passion for entrepreneurship and economic development. Since 2003, she has led The HAND Foundation's efforts to prevent child sexual abuse, strengthen the global middle class and advance the philanthropic sector. She co-founded and chaired PARSA Community Foundation, the first Iranian-American community foundation that made grants to Iranian and American nonprofits based in the U.S., Europe and Turkey. She was founding partner of the International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA), a non-partisan organization that promotes and supports diaspora-centered initiatives in countries and regions of diaspora origin.

  Since 1997 Noosheen has been an independent investor and advisor in the software industry. In 1996, she joined Quote.com, a profitable personal finance pioneer, as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Prior to that, she held various executive management positions at Oracle Corporation where she took active part in software's meteoric rise as an industry. She was appointed Director of Finance, and Administration, named Vice President, and won Oracle's "Against All Odds Award" for her role in the company's financial turnaround. In 1993, she led expansion of Oracle services as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Oracle's Worldwide Education.

  Noosheen is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has been awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the CEDAW Human Rights Award for Philanthropy, and the Girl Scouts Forever Green Leadership Award. She has served as a board member of the New America Foundation, as an advisory member to The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and is presently a trustee of the India Community Center. She holds a B.S. in Economics from San Jose State University and an M.S. in Management from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, where she became a Sloan Fellow and where she met then Director Hal Louchheim and they became friends.