About Us
Board of Directors and Team
Meet the Board
Sarkis Mazmanian - Chair
Sarkis is the Head of Fintech Risk at Deutsche Bank. He has 15 years of experience in financial services, having worked at some of the largest banks in London and abroad. Sarkis brings expertise in strategy, innovation, finance, risk management, and technology. Sarkis serves as a governor at the University of Chichester and as a member of its Finance and Resources Committee. The university has a population of 6,000 students and ranks amongst the top 40 universities in the UK as per “The Guardian” university league table. Sarkis also serves as the responsible governor to the £35 million state-of-the-art Engineering and Digital Technology Park that was recently inaugurated at the university. In the past, he has also served as a governor at Barking and Dagenham College, one of the largest East London colleges with more than 10,000 students, where he held the roles of Chair of the Performance & Standards Committee and Vice Chair of the Audit Committee. Sarkis also serves on the board of the AGBU London Trust and as Vice Chair of the AGBU Chapter in London. Sarkis is a graduate of the University of Leicester and the Said Business School, University of Oxford. He has a Bachelors in Computer Science, a Masters in Finance, a Diploma in Strategy and Innovation, and the Investment Management Certificate (IMC) from the CFA Society of the UK. Sarkis aims to make a difference to education globally through philanthropic strategic impact investments and the development of the next generation of leaders.
Lilit Mughalyan - Vice Chair
Lilit is an Associate Partner at Bain & Company’s Private Equity Group team in London. She has more than 10 years of experience in professional services, advising the largest funds and corporations going through the mergers and acquisitions process. Lilit brings her expertise in strategy, the technology sector, commercial diligence, and value creation.
Lilit has worked as a volunteer with a number of NGOs and foundations, supporting young people in dreaming big and working towards achieving their goals.
Lilit is a graduate of Said Business School, Oxford University and Yerevan State University. She has an MBA, Masters in Finance and Bachelors in Economics. She is also a CFA and ACCA charterholder.
Lilit enjoys travelling and exploring new cultures; she is also a wine enthusiast. Lilit has met many amazing people throughout her journey who guided and supported her and had a big impact on her life. She believes that the best way to give back is to support the upcoming generation of young people to get exposure and education that could have a life changing impact.
Aram Mazmanian - Treasurer
Aram is an aerospace engineer working for Cobham as a Senior System Engineer. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (CEng MIMechE) with more than 10 years of experience working in the industry for companies such as Airbus. He has a MEng in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Bristol. Aram brings technical expertise to the board around project management, technology, engineering as well as knowledge around STEM subjects. Aram is a STEM Ambassador and has participated in a number of programs helping nurture and develop aspiring STEM graduates to achieve their ambitions. In his spare time, Aram is a qualified personal trainer and a keen gym addict.
Levon Ohanian - Deputy Treasurer
Levon is a professional accountant with more than 15 years of experience in a number of industries having held senior management positions. He has served as Chief Accountant and Internal Auditor of Prosafe SE for eight years and he is currently the CEO of Mavelord Holdings Limited.
Levon is also a board member of a large holding company whose subsidiaries are leaders in their niche market. Levon is a FCCA member, holds a degree in MSc In Shipping Management from Cyprus Institute of Management and MSc In Engineering Management from Frederick University. Additionally, he holds a CySEC – Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission License.
Levon is also a alumni of the Melkonian Educational Institute and an active member of the Cyprus Armenian community where he has helped drive numerous fundraisers to help Armenia.
Levon brings strong accounting, internal audit and fundraising experience to the board. He is married and has two lovely daughters who take a significant amount of his free time. He is also a football and chess fan, a proud supporter of Arsenal FC and Tigran Petrosian.
Anna Tsaturyan - Board Member
Anna is a Senior Product Manager at Amazon. Before joining the tech industry she had been 11 years in corporate finance, working with top international banks. Anna brings expertise in Product management, Innovation, E-Commerce, Structured Finance, Strategy and a creative mindset to the YMMF Board. Anna was the Head of Corporate Finance for a leading potash producer managing a $7bn debt portfolio, negotiating and syndicating structured financing, issuing Eurobonds, organizing equity buybacks, and hedging corporate risks. Over the past three years, she has been leading projects across Amazon globally. Anna has volunteered for Birthright Armenia and led a charity auction to benefit Artsakh refugees.
Anna is a graduate of INSEAD and Lomonosov Moscow State University. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, a Master’s degree in Management and an INSEAD MBA. Anna has been passionate about painting since she was a teenager and enjoys traveling which acts as an inspiration for a lot of her paintings. Influenced by her favourite impressionist artists, Anna has been experimenting with oil and acrylic paint in recent years. She was previously leading an art blog that had more than 25k followers. Anna believes that by inspiring and sharing her passions with young generations, she can help guide them with their life choices, accelerating their growth and development within the society.
Vahan Hovhannisyan - Board Member
Vahan is a Senior Applied Scientist at Thomson Reuters Labs. Before this, he worked at nPlan for over 6 years, joining as the first employee and growing with the company to lead machine learning teams. In both these roles, he designed, trained, and used a broad range of machine learning and AI algorithms, particularly forecasting, recommendation, and language models applied for construction and legal industries. He also teaches programming courses at Imperial Business School. Vahan was born and raised in Armenia, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics, before moving to Switzerland and then London for Masters and PhD degrees from ETH Zurich and Imperial College London. Joining the YMMF board, Vahan brings deep and broad expertise in AI, a decade of teaching experience, as well as connections to London's start-up ecosystem. Outside the professional life, Vahan is a keen poker player, regular weightlifter and a curious traveller.
Meet the TEAM
Maneh Seiranian - Secretary
Maneh is an Assistant Manager at KPMG in the Data & Analytics team. She has 4 years of experience in evaluating IT risks in large international corporations. She brings expertise in project management, technology, and risk management. Maneh has a BSc in Economics, Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick. She is passionate about lifelong learning and has recently completed the Code First Girls (CFG) Degrees in Software Engineering and Product Management. Having been a mentor and a coach, Maneh is hoping to contribute to creating opportunities for young Armenians and Cypriots and helping them climb the steepest mountains of their journeys.
Having volunteered for charitable organisations such as UNICEF and UpReach and organised events such as TechNight London at the Shard, Maneh is excited to put her experience into catalysing development in the Armenian and Cypriot communities through advancing education and organising events through her role at YMMF.
Roza Vanian - Legal Counsel
Roza in an Associate at Milbank LLP, a leading international law firm. She works in the firm’s financial restructuring practice. Roza is a qualified solicitor with experience across various transactional and contentious practice areas including General Corporate, Structured Finance and Securitisations, Litigation and Arbitration.
Roza studied Law at the University of Cambridge. She holds a Masters in Law, Business and Management from the University of Law, where she also completed her Legal Practice Course in advance of commencing her career path in commercial law. Prior to moving to the United Kingdom, she has lived in Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Russia and Armenia. Roza has been engaged in a number of various pro bono projects and volunteering opportunities. In her free time, Roza enjoys travelling (especially to warm places), playing tennis, reading and spending time with friends and family. She is very passionate about making a difference for future generations of students as well as for the broader community.
Ani Avetisyan - Outreach & Partnerships
Dr Ani Avetisyan is a Rothschild Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge, FAMES, and a Research Affiliate at the Woolf Institute. She recently completed her PhD at Cambridge, St John’s College, where her research focused on untouched Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts from 'Matenadaran'. Her forthcoming monograph on the subject is to be published by Brill. Ani holds degrees in Arabic Studies from Yerevan State University and Jewish Civilizations from Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Stockholm, and Heidelberg University. She played a pivotal role in establishing the Centre for Hebrew Language and Culture at Brusov State University and taught Hebrew during her PhD studies. Ani serves as the co-chair of the division on Culture and Academia at the newly established Armenian Jewish Friendship Council. Additionally, Ani is engaged in a project with Dr Aviad Moreno at MALI, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, exploring Armenian-Jewish repatriation dynamics in Egypt. Beyond her academic pursuits, Ani is training to become a qualified Pilates instructor, blending her passion for fitness with her scholarly work. She also enjoys exploring new destinations, and travelling, which fuels her enthusiasm for cultural and academic exchanges. Ani is dedicated to passing on her knowledge and experience to future scholars and generations, firmly believing that such exchanges are the cornerstone of transformative progress and meaningful development.