Sohel Manzur, Chairman: Specialized in financial and business reporting in more than one and a half decades of his career in journalism. The main areas of his reporting were banking and financial sector, macroeconomy and capital market. However, due to his special interest in trade and WTO issues, he was able to attain considerable expertise in this particular field. He covered four of the seven WTO ministerial conferences and participated in a training workshop in Geneva on trade and WTO issues organized jointly by the World Trade Organization and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in 2004. He also attended similar workshops in Brussels (organized by DG, Trade, European Commission and the European Journalism Centre) in 2001 and in Islamabad (organized by SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry) in 2005. He also covered the 2001 LDC conference in Brussels and the 2003 annual general meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Dubai. He won two awards for in-depth reporting on microcredit and financial sector reforms in Bangladesh. He led the reporting team of Bangladesh’s lone business daily, The Financial Express, as Chief Reporter for two and a half years. He has considerable experience in newspaper and news agency management, as he was also the Deputy Managing Editor of The Financial Express and the Managing Editor of BDNEWS, a private news agency which later turned into an online newspaper following change in ownership. He had experiences of working in the development field as consultant throughout his career as a journalist. His full-time career as a development practitioner started in July 2006 when he joined Katalyst, a multi-donor funding initiative run by Swisscontact and GTZ-IS, as Media Consultant. He left Katalyst in March 2009 and founded CMCS.

Saleem Samad, Consultant: A professional writer and journalist, Saleem worked as the Bangladesh correspondent for TIME magazine, Daily Times of Pakistan, Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) and the now defunct Tehelka.Com of India. He specializes in conflict and terrorism. He has extensive experience in participatory research, documentation, knowledge management and communication strategy formulation. As a social researcher he specializes on South Asian security issues, human development and good governance. He has worked as facilitator and trainer for the US based Academy for Educational Development (AED) and other local and international organizations. He has the credit of training nearly 2,000 journalists from all over Bangladesh. He also worked as Fixer for several international TV channels, including British Channel 4, BBC2 TV, Australian Broadcasting Corporation - ABC TV. He has co-authored books on regional conflicts, political crisis of the ethnic minorities, insurgency, press freedom and environmental issues. He has presented research papers at Intelligence Summit, Washington DC (2006), McGill University, Montreal, Canada (2005); School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK (1993); Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA (1993); RIAP, University of Sydney, Australia (2001); University of Karachi, Pakistan (2000); Jadavpur University, Kolkata (1999); and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata; India (1996). Saleem, who has more than 25 years of experience in journalism, was also awarded the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship as a role model for sensitizing small town journalists on key environment and development issues. He was also a Fellow at the Advocacy Institute, Washington DC, and a visiting scholar at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Fort Collins, USA.

Tania Rokshana, Program Officer: After passing out from the Mass Communication Department of Rajshahi University with a distinction (first class), she obtained a DANIDA financed fellowship from News Network, a development news service. Under the fellowship, she produced development features, which were published in leading national newspapers. She was also involved in a number of media surveys conducted by News Network. Her research works include a study on “Role of Banglacdesh Betar (radio) in HIV/AIDS Prevention in Bangladesh.” She was involved in all the CMCS conducted research works and impact assessment studies as a researcher since May 2009. The studies included a case study on the foundry and agro tools industry in Bogra following increased media attention to the sector and impact assessment of Katalyst media interventions in public and private universities as well as several national print and electronic media. She joined CMCS as a full-time Program Officer in December 2009.

Nazib Neaz, Program Officer: Although started as a feature writer for bdnews24.com, Nazib wants to build his career in media and communication research. He was involved as a researcher in a research project on “Dhaka Kotha” implemented by Pandulipi Karkhana in 2009. He was also involved in the Gunijan project of D-Net, a development organization working in the field of ICT, in 2008. Nazib, a student from Mass Communication and Journalism Department of the Dhaka University, also worked for Radio Amar as a reporter and for Shaptahik Kagoj as a sports reporter. He joined CMCS in May 2010 as a Program Officer and is actively involved in its ongoing research and advocacy projects.

Rajib Kumar Das Program Officer (Admin & Communication)

Prashanta Mallick Accounts Officer

Faisal Rahman Office Assistant