As President and CEO of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) since 2012 and since
joining the organization in 1997 as its Executive Vice President, Azzedine Downes has worked
closely with experts and decision makers from around the world, leading a groundbreaking period
of geographic expansion and strategic consolidation.
Influencing international policies to create positive change on the ground, Azzedine led the signing
of a historic lease agreement with a Maasai community near Amboseli National Park in Kenya,
securing 16,000 acres of habitat for elephants, while helping to establish a first-of-its-kind
cooperative framework between IFAW and INTERPOL’s Environmental Crime Program.
Before joining IFAW, Azzedine served as the Chief of Party for the U.S. Agency for International
Development in Jerusalem and Morocco and was appointed by President Clinton as Acting
Regional Director for the United States Peace Corps in Eurasia and the Middle East. In 2015, Fast
Company named him one of the “The Most 100 Creative People in Business,” and he has been
listed among The Nonprofit Times’s “Power and Influence Top 50.”
Selected to join the Forbes non-profit business council and then named to the prestigious Council
for Hope of the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation in 2023, Azzedine joins a group of prominent
global thought and business leaders committed to using their influence to improve the world around
us. His first book, a personal memoir entitled The Couscous Chronicles, was released this past
June.
A graduate of Providence College and Harvard University, Azzedine is fluent in Arabic, English,
and French.