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Our Board of Directors

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Ali Adil Khan - Executive Director

Ali Adil Khan is a Partner and Head of the Cognitive Process Services Transformation Practice at IBM Canada. For the past two decades, he has worn many different hats in the art space. In 2002, he started the South Asian Gallery of Art to elevate the brand of artists of South Asian origin. He has collaborated with the Royal Ontario Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, and Art Gallery of Mississauga to exhibit art. Ali is also a frequent contributor on Anokhi Life and Dawn.​​

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Adnan Khan - Director

Adnan Khan is a Senior Consultant in the Strategy & Operations Consulting group at Deloitte Canada. He has advised senior executives on market entry, operating model transformation, talent retention, and organizational design. Adnan is also the Founder of EduGate, an education-focused not-for-profit organization, and Co-Founder of Exec Viva, an organization that hires, trains, and deploys virtual assistants to support executives. He has volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada for the past decade and currently serves on their National Youth Mentorship Advisory Council. Adnan’s favourite artists are Robert Bateman and Ismail Gulgee.

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Sandhya Kohli - Director

Sandhya Kohli has had a varied career in the arts, law, and education. Before entering the field of law and dispute settlement, Sandhya cultivated a grounding in the Arts, having performed as a classical pianist at the Aspen Festival of Music, and obtaining a Masters of Arts in English Literature & Language. In 2009 Sandhya curated an exhibition featuring South Asian contemporary art at the Gibsone Jessop gallery in the Distillery District, Toronto, and she consistently helps wherever she can to promote South Asian artists living and working in Toronto and the Diaspora.

Sandhya currently practices as a workplace investigator, mediator and conciliator, and enjoys teaching Dispute Settlement to upper year law students at York University’s Osgoode Hall law school. She continues to promote contemporary South Asian visual arts both inside and outside Canada.

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Shannon Anderson - Director

Shannon Anderson is an experienced contemporary art curator and writer working both independently in public galleries and in the healthcare field. She is the Art Curator for Halton Healthcare, supporting the role of art in a healthcare setting through programming and exhibitions. She is currently developing independent curatorial projects for the Art Gallery of Sudbury; the Koffler Gallery, Toronto; the University of Waterloo Art Gallery; and Contemporary Calgary. Shannon has written on contemporary art in Canadian and international art and design magazines (Canadian Art, Art Papers, Eyemazing, Azure and DesignLines) and has produced catalogue essays for a range of private and public galleries.

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Nitin Deckha - Director

Nitin Deckha is an educator, researcher and facilitator, with a PhD in Anthropology. He teaches courses on intercultural communication, social transformation, gender issues, and the transformation of work at the University of Guelph-Humber. Nitin recently completed a Master’s Certificate in Adult Training and Development and is a Certified Training and Development Professional. In addition to teaching, Nitin crafts and facilitates learning in the areas of diversity and inclusion (D&I) and leadership development.

Our Advisors

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Manjari Sihare-Sutin

Manjari Sihare-Sutin is an Assistant Vice President and Head of North America sales for the Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art Department at Sotheby’s auction house in New York. As an advisor to the SAGA Foundation board, she brings a breadth and depth of knowledge in the field. Manjari has worked extensively in India and the United States with leading public and private institutions, including the Lalit Kala Akademi, Goethe Institute and The Biennale Society as well as Gallery Espace and Savara Foundation for the Arts. Manjari also served as Studio Manager for Rina Banerjee, a leading South Asian contemporary artist and then joined Saffronart, launching and managing their blog and special online projects. Prior to joining Sotheby’s, Manjari held the position of Curatorial Manager for Queens Museum, New York.

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Hina Ansari

Hina P. Ansari is an accomplished journalist who has over 20 years of experience in writing, editing and production. She was the first South Asian Muslim woman to break into the mainstream Canadian magazine publishing scene at FLARE, Canada’s national fashion magazine.

Currently Hina is a successful freelance writer, editor and journalist. Her work has been published in various national and international outlets including Elevate Magazine, The Toronto Star, Zoomer, TheKit.ca and GlobeandMail.com. She has also been blogging about her other love — foreign policy and social issues — for The Huffington Post Canada for six years.

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Marika Sardar

Marika Sardar is a former Curator at the Aga Khan Museum, having previously worked at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Major exhibitions include Interwoven Globe (2013), focusing on the worldwide textile trade from the 16th-18th century; Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1750 (2015), examining the artistic traditions of the Muslim sultanates of central India; and Epic Tales from Ancient India (2016), looking at narrative traditions and the illustration of texts from South Asia.

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