Quintin Gray
Advisory Board Member
Mr. Gray is President and CEO of Q. Gray and Associates. He served as Agriculture Counselor for more than 20 years at U.S. Embassies in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe helping U.S. companies market their food products. After leaving the federal service in 2016, he started Q. Gray and Associates, a consulting company that provides trade promotion and food safety/security services.
Mr. Gray’s clients include: the Western United States Agricultural Trade Association, the American Soybean Association, the American Indian Foods organization, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture.
Mr. Gray is a Lead Instructor for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") Foreign Supplier Verification Program ("FSVP"), where he teaches a 2-day course to help US and foreign companies meet FDA food import requirements. He speaks regularly on agricultural trade issues at various conferences including the National Restaurant Association Show and the U.S. Dairy Export Council’s Halal Workshop. He also serves on advisory committees at the Fairfax University of America and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He is fluent in French.
Mr. Gray has a Masters of Science in Agriculture and a Bachelors of Science in Economics from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
Clarence B. Jones
Advisory Board Member
Mr. Jones currently serves in research and teaching roles at the University of San Francisco and Stanford University. In July 2021, he was awarded the American Bar Association Thurgood Marshall Award.
Mr. Jones was former counsel and speechwriter for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In April 1963, as counsel to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., together with Charles Morgan, Esq., he successfully negotiated with the City of Birmingham, Alabama a settlement of the civil rights demonstrations for desegregated department stores and public accommodations.
Mr. Jones was also the first African-American partner in a Wall Street investment banking firm, Carter, Berlind & Weill, Inc. (included among his partners were Sanford I. Weill and Arthur Levitt, Jr.). Mr. Jones was the co-founder and Chairman, President, and CEO of the Intramerican Life Corporation (subsequently acquired by the Colonial Penn Group); co-founder of Urban National Corporation and Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. Mr. Jones has served as investment banker and strategic advisor to such media firms as Dover Film Finance, Ltd.; Padell, Nadell, Fine & Weinberger and The Heritage Television Network.
Mr. Jones holds a Bachelors of Laws from Columbia College, Columbia University and a Juris Doctor from the Boston University School of Law. He also has been granted numerous honorary degrees.
Omar Clark Fisher
Advisory Board Member
Dr. Fisher is a leading expert on building businesses, Islamic finance and risk management through Takaful insurance. He has co-founded, managed and/or advised such startups as: Unicorn Investment Bank, Bahrain; T'Azure (regional Takaful Company, Bahrain; IW Technologies, Dubai; Abundance Learning Academy, Wyoming; iwealth MoneyPal and Asset Allocation trading game, Dubai. Most recently, Dr. Fisher co-founded Takaful Taawuni along with Bank Aljazira, Jedda, Saudi Arabia.
Previously, Dr. Fisher founded Sana Financial, an Islamic finance company, for the North American Islamic Trust in 1996. He established the first commercially run Islamic leasing company in the U.S., BMI Leasing, Inc., in 1992. From 1983 to 1992, Dr. Fisher was an Investment Guaranty Officer at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), where he assisted financings and risk guaranties for 120 projects in 29 countries.
Dr. Fisher holds a Doctors in Philosophy in the Science of Management of Takaful, jointly administered by Malaysia’s Asian School of Management and Camden University of USA. He also holds a Masters of Business Administration from HULT International Business School (formerly known as the Arthur D. Little School of Management), a Masters in Education from the University of Dublin, and a Bachelor of Arts in Poetry from Yale University.