Board of Directors

Roxanne has led a successful career in Public Relations for Christian Dior and in publishing. She has a degree in International Relations from University of California at Davis and a Master of Public Administration from Kennesaw University. As the daughter of a United Nations representative, Roxanne has lived all over the world, including in Africa and Malaysia.

Roxanne brings to IAPAC her vast array of fundraising experience for both political campaigns and non-profit organizations, and her strong connections with Democratic lawmakers have served PAAIA and the Iranian American community’s efforts to protect our interests. Her non-profit advocacy includes lobbying for the international humanitarian agency, CARE, on Capitol Hill. She is also a member of CARE’s Women’s Network. Her other non-profit work includes her involvement with the Global Village Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating refugee girls.

Darius Shahinfar is the Treasurer and CFO of the City of Albany. He is in his third term having been first elected in 2013, earning the most votes of the City-wide candidates. He has broad experience as an attorney in both the public and private sectors and in all three branches of local, state, and federal government.

Before being elected, he served as Deputy Albany County Attorney, Regional Representative for then-Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as an Appellate Court Attorney for the NYS Appeals Court, Litigation Associate in a local law firm, and Senate Fellow on the NYS Local Government Committee.

A first-generation Iranian American, he is a graduate of Bates College and Albany Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Albany Law Review and President of the Student Bar. With over two decades of experience working in public service, Shahinfar has also worked in the private and non-profit sectors.

Beyond his commitment to public service, he is an engaged community member and volunteer.  He has served, or currently serves, on the boards of: Albany Law School, St. Anne Institute, Families Together NYS, Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, National Little League, The Underground Railroad History Project, The City of Albany’s Industrial Development Agency and Capital Resource Corporations, as well as Albany’s three Business Improvement Districts (BIDs).

Roya Shahidi has been passionate about politics since arriving in the United States in 1977. As a college student during the Iranian hostage crisis, she understood why positive Iranian American representation is so critical to the wellbeing of the Iranian diaspora. As such, she has been a supporter of PAAIA’s work and mission over the years. In recent years, she helped organize PAAIA’s first regional Civic Engagement Initiative event at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. She has championed Iranian-American candidates such as Yassamin Ansari, Amir Farokhi, and many others in their pursuit of elected office.

She has a B.S. in Computer Science/Business  and an M.S. in Management from Georgia State University. She brings years  of executive leadership experience in banking and information systems. She ran operations, compliance, and IT management at Atlanta financial institutions. She currently serves on Excel Federal Credit Union’s board of directors. In that capacity, she ensures that the credit union is compliant with state and federal law, is implementing policies properly, and is in sound financial standing regarding its investments and liquidity requirements, among other responsibilities. She also serves as a liaison between the board and the supervisory committee responsible for selecting auditing firms and overseeing internal controls being in place by the credit union’s management.

As a member of CARE’s Atlanta Women’s Network, Roya has lobbied Members of Congress on Capitol Hill on behalf of the organization. In her personal life, she has been very invested in her daughters’ education, and was extensively involved in parent organizations during their schooling. In particular, it was important for her that the next generation of Iranian-Americans be proud of their heritage, and as such, she promoted inclusion of Iranian history and culture in school curriculum.

Roya lives in Atlanta with her husband, where they have been since 1982, and they have two daughters. Her eldest Neeki, who has recently moved to Washington, D.C. to start her law career, was a recipient of PAAIA’s Ansari Fellowship in 2018 during her undergraduate studies. The fellowship allowed Neeki to intern for Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) that summer. Roya is excited to join IAPAC and continue to support the Iranian-American community in this new role.

Amir Farokhi served as a distinguished member of the Atlanta City Council from 2018 to 2025, following his initial election in 2017 and re-election in 2021. Representing District 2, which encompasses key neighborhoods such as Downtown, Midtown, Old Fourth Ward, Inman Park, Poncey-Highland, and Candler Park, he notably became the first Iranian American elected to public office in the American South.

During his tenure, Amir spearheaded transformative initiatives to address Atlanta’s $1 billion infrastructure backlog, secure funding for groundbreaking street projects, and enhance pedestrian safety. He championed transparent governance by advocating for the creation of the Office of Inspector General and played a vital role in advancing housing affordability with impactful legislation, including the $100 million affordable housing bond.

Starting with the 2025-2026 academic year, Amir will serve as Head of School at The Galloway School. His professional journey spans leadership roles at national and international nonprofit organizations, corporate consultancy experience, and practicing law.

Recognized for his exceptional contributions, Amir was named among Georgia Trend Magazine’s Most Influential Georgians (2011-2013, 2018), a Marshall Memorial Fellow (2011), and a Civil Society Fellow with the Aspen Institute (2021-2024). He is also a graduate of LEAD Atlanta (2006) and Leadership Atlanta (2013), as well as a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Amir holds degrees from Duke University and Duke University School of Law, and resides in Atlanta with his family.

Fereydoun Taslimi holds a BSc in Electronics from the University of London and an MSc in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. While contemplating a PhD in AI, he founded a company in 1976 that developed a multilingual computer system. After opening four offices in the Middle East, this technology was later acquired by a Kuwaiti entity.

With the advent of the PC, Fereydoun developed a voice exchange system based on the IBM PC. His company pivoted into voice processing and interactive voice response systems, eventually going public in the 1990s. Over the years, he established 11 companies, mainly in technology sectors such as development tools, information discovery, infrastructure monitoring, assessment tools, and wellbeing monitors. Some of these ventures were acquired by private equity firms or had their technology sold outright.

Beyond his entrepreneurial pursuits, Fereydoun has been actively involved in charitable and social projects. He served as President of the Science and Arts Foundation USA, promoting technological empowerment in the Middle East. He also held the position of President and later became a board member of iBRIDGES, an initiative to empower a global high-tech entrepreneurial community focused on individuals of Iranian descent. Additionally, he founded the Noor Foundation, a philanthropic charity dedicated to combating religious extremism and promoting philanthropy, tolerance, volunteering, not-for-profit technological initiatives, and citizen action.

Sassan Ghahramani is founder and CEO of SGH Macro Advisors, LLC, a macro-policy research firm for hedge funds, asset managers and international financial policymakers. SGH was founded in 2009 and is based in Greenwich, CT, with affiliates in Washington DC, Brussels, London and Tokyo. Prior to SGH, he was President and CEO of Medley Global Advisors, a policy research firm now owned by the Financial Times. As CEO of Medley he ran the firm’s G7, Emerging Markets, and Energy services, all client and business areas, and managed the transition and sale of the firm to private equity firms in 2005 and the subsequent sale of a minority stake in 2007 to Goldman Sachs.

Sassan has experience as an investor and a foreign exchange trader at various financial institutions, including AIG Trading, Lehman Brothers, Chemical Bank (now part of JP Morgan), and UBS in New York, where he was head of spot foreign exchange trading. He also ran and owned Tribeca Securities, a commodity, futures and equity broker-dealer.

Sassan was born in Tehran, Iran in a diplomatic family and spent his childhood in Canada, Russia, Iran, and Spain, where he attended the Anglo-American School of Moscow, Tehran International School, and American School of Madrid. He moved to the United States to attend Brown University, where he obtained a B.A. in International Relations, enrolled at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government Master in Public Policy Program, and switched to New York University where he obtained an MBA in Finance.

Nazy Fahimi is a Partner at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy based in the San Francisco Peninsula.  The firm’s dedication to prosecuting or defending socially-just actions has earned it a national reputation.  At CPM, Nazy practices in several areas, including in representing whistle-blowers under the Federal False Claims Act.

Nazy is an experienced attorney with a background in litigation, transactional and non-profit work. She began her career in her hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota at Winthrop & Weinstine. She later relocated to the Bay Area and continued in private practice at Bay Area law firms. She has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in antitrust and trade regulation cases, aviation cases, breach of contract and commercial disputes, employment disputes, personal injury cases, insurance coverage and bad faith cases, as well as discrimination and civil rights cases. She also has advised individuals and corporations on various issues of compliance, regulatory issues and analysis of complex contracts.

After several years in private practice she joined Pars Equality Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, where she wanted to focus on advocacy and community service, while also handling in-house legal and compliance matters. In her role as Senior Director of Legal at PEC, over the span of nearly six years, Nazy collaborated with various civic and community organizations as well as government entities, conducted and presented panels and seminars on relevant topics, published updates on complex legal matters, and advised individuals in various areas of the law.

Nazy received her B.A. from Marquette University in Wisconsin. She earned her J.D. from Marquette University Law School, cum laude, graduating in the top 10 percent of her class. She served as a Member and subsequently a Note and Comment Editor of the Marquette Law Review. Nazy earned the Center for Assisted Computer Instruction (CALI) Excellence Awards as the highest scoring student in multiple classes, including in Constitutional Law. She became a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the National Jesuit Honor Society.