ADMINISTRATION

Professor Gary A. English: Founder and President

The President is responsible for overseeing the academic and operational functioning of the campus; fostering partnerships with media colleges and other educational institutions, community groups, and businesses; establishing effective working relationships with the media industry; and for collaborating with pillars of the education community.

As president of the Los Angeles and Europe based music business affairs consulting company The English Company, Gary English has worked closely over the past 22 years with many motion picture production and distribution companies, record companies and music publishing companies in Los Angeles, New York City and Europe. He has served as a senior music executive and/or Executive Music Producer on over 200 major feature films and television programs, including “Platoon”, “The River’s Edge”, “Flight of the Navigator”, the award winning “Eve’s Bayou” “The Red Phone” miniseries and “The Prince of Central Park”. In his capacity as a senior music executive, he has been involved in both the business and creative sides of the business, working with directors and producers from development through post production, as well as senior executives in all aspects of the business affairs, production and marketing departments. He has a widely known reputation internationally for enabling his client companies to generate maximum revenues from the exploitation of music publishing and soundtrack rights worldwide.

From September 1999 until March 2005, Gary English was Head of International Academic Relations at the School of Digital Television in Salzburg, Austria. He taught internationally at major universities and colleges on behalf of the European Union’s Education Commission and the Socrates-Erasmus Program.

Dr. Eng. Farouk Mukhallalati: Co-Founder and Executive Member of the Board of Directors

Dr. Mukhallalati is the sole founder of Mass Consult, with company headquarters located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and serves as its President. He is a veteran in Civil Engineering Consulting services having worked in this field for over 27 years.

Dr. Mukhallalati, a prominent figure in the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East, has been awarded on numerous occasions for his achievements. In 2002, he received the award for “Best Performance” for companies in the Engineering Consulting field from the Council of International Awards in the UK. In addition, he has received several awards from the International Who’s Who for Professionals for having demonstrated exemplary achievements in his endeavors.

Dr. Mukhallalati received his Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of East London, UK in 1979.

Dr. James P. McNab: Vice President of Academic Affairs/Provost

Dr. Jim Mc Nab (MA Hons Edinburgh, MA PhD Duke) has a wide range of scholarly, administrative, and teaching experience. He has served as Head of Foreign Languages at Virginia Tech and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, as well as Guilford College, where he held a Dana Professorship in French Studies. For the past eight years (1997-2005), he headed the very active Office of International Programs at UNCW.

He has published widely on scholarly topics and delivered scholarly papers in a number of countries, including Japan, China, and most recently South Africa (2005), where he spent five months as a visiting professor. He has won distinguished teaching awards, chaired many professional and university associations and committees, and was twice elected President of the UNCW Faculty Senate. Jim is married to Elisabeth Ballereau and they have two grown sons, one living in Geneva, Switzerland, and one in New York City.

Dr. Saad Al-Ajmi: Founding Member, Board of Regents

Dr. Saad Al Ajmi is a Founding Member of the ECMAS Board of Regents. The Board of Regents will serve in an advisory capacity with regard to ECMAS curriculum and academic affairs.

He obtained a BA in English Language and literature (1981) from Kuwait University, an MA in Linguistics from Indiana University, USA (1983), and a PhD in Theoretical Linguistics from the University of Manchester, UK (1992). He taught English and Linguistics at Kuwait University, Arabic at the University of Manchester, UK. He worked as an interpreter and advisor in the Parliament of Kuwait. He then assumed a diplomatic post in London as a director of Kuwait Information Center then became Minister of Information and Culture in Kuwait 1999-2000.

For a number of years, he worked in the Kuwaiti press as a columnist, a translator and a free-lance reporter. He is the chairman of Tashkeel Media Group. Published a number of articles and assumed membership of various organizations…and is a founding member of Kuwait Human Rights Society. He is fluent in both English and French besides Arabic. He currently lectures at Kuwait University, sits on a number of company boards, and writes in Asharq –al-awsat London-based Arabic daily in addition to other Gulf newspapers.