Board of Directors and Founders

Armine K. Hovannisian

Armine K. Hovannisian with her husband Raffi K. Hovannisian founded Orran in the year 2000. She was born in Armenia, and moved with her family to the United States as a young child. She holds a B.A. in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College, and is a graduate of the School of Law of the University of California in Los Angeles. She was a practicing civil litigator in Los Angeles prior to moving to Armenia more than ten years ago with her husband, Raffi, and their children. Before assuming her current post as Executive Director of Junior Achievement of Armenia, Mrs. Hovannisian was the Director of Project Hope. The Hovannisians are the parents of five children. Moved by the plight of the street children in Yerevan, the Hovannisians founded Orran in April 2000, with the initial intent of assisting sixteen vulnerable street children. Ms. Hovannisian serves as the Chairman to Orran Board of Directors from its inception until now.

Raffi Hovannisian

Raffi Hovannisian  with his wife Armine K. Hovannisian is the founder and honorary member of Orran. He served as independent Armenia's first foreign minister in 1991-1992. He has a JD from Georgetown University Law Center and a MMLD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Mr. Hovannisian is the founding director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies. He has held a number of positions namely Executive Chairman of "Hayastan" All-Armenian Fund (1998) and Chief of Department of Information and Publications in the Republic of Armenia. He is also the founder and director of the Armenian Bar Association.Mr. Hovannisian practiced international law and civil litigation in the firms of Hill, Farrer and Burrill, Whitman & Ransom, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, Coudert Brothers (1985-1989); and was a lecturer of Armenian History at Tufts University (1981-1982). He is currently member of RA Parliament. Mr. Hovannisian although a founder, he is not a member of the Orran Board. 

Krikor Krikorian

Krikor Krikorian was born in Palestine and moved with his family to Cyprus in 1948 and then to the UK in 1960. He holds a BSc Chemical Engineering Degree from Manchester University. After 12 years with Exxon, he formed his own consulting company with two other colleagues, and helped to establish KBC Advanced Technologies as one of the major independent consultancy companies in the downstream oil refining industry. He served on the board of KBC until its floatation on the UK stock market in 1997. On his first visit to Armenia he became aware of the need for Orran's work and since his retirement in 2001, he has been involved in an advisory role and also as a Financial Director to the Orran board as well as being one of Orran's major benefactors.

Susan Yacubian Klein

Susan Yacubian Klein was born in Boston , Massachusetts, graduated from Vassar College and received a Master's degree in education from Columbia Teacher's College and a second Master's degree from Rutgers University in counseling psychology. Her early career was in education and educational administration. From 1984 through 1993, she was Director of Admission at Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Since 1993, she has been living and working in Armenia on NGO development and income generation projects including the establishment of the Armenia Craft Center. From 1998 to 2006, Ms. Klein worked for the Armenia Tree Project as Country Director and President of the ATP Foundation. She currently is consulting on an income generation project in India. Ms. Klein joined the Orran Board of Director's in April 2000 and served as its Chairperson from 2003 through 2006.

Molly Wynn Owen

Molly Wynn Owen was born in the United States, graduated from Georgetown University in Washington DC and received a Master's degree from the London School of Economics. She has worked for various NGOs and international organisations around the world, focusing on income generation for women and grassroots healthcare reform. Most recently she worked in London on environmental sustainability, with a speciality in the commercial property sector. Molly has just moved to Armenia with her husband, a British diplomat. She joined the Orran Board in September 2009.

Ara Krikorian

Ara Krikorian holds a BEng Degree in Civil Engineering from Liverpool University in addition to an MSc from London University (Imperial College). Ara has lived and worked long-term in no less than 10 countries with short-term work visits to a further 10 countries. After his first visit to Armenia in 2003 as a volunteer to work on the Yerevan Orran project, he became the Project Manager of Vanadzor Construction.

Ami Miron

Ami Miron is the General Manager of Armenia Marriott Hotel. Mr. Miron has a Master degree in Business Administration from Farleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, N.J., USA. For more than 35 years, he has managed many international chain hotels including Hilton, Mercure, Novotel, etc. Mr. Miron has joined Marriott International in 2006 in JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel and has moved to Armenia Marriott Hotel in 2008.

Miriam Clemenz

Miriam Clemenz was born in Frankfurt/Germany. As she started her professional life there at Deutsche Bank Global Markets Operations. She gained international experience in International Securities settlement and billing in London as Senior Analyst and joined one of the market leaders in Germany in securities services in 2006. At DWP Bank in Duesseldorf she continued her career as a team leader in International and Domestic Securities Settlement. Miriam then moved to Luxembourg with her husband, where she gave birth to her first child. Since August 2012 she has been living in Yerevan with her family, and is engaged in various local organisations.

Thies Clemenz

Thies Clemenz has been employed with HSBC since 2005 and was appointed to the position of CE~O in Armenia in August 2012. He started out his career at Deutsche Bank AG as a member of the Global Controlling Asset Management team in 1998 after graduating with a degree in business management from the University of St. Gallen (HSG). Subsequent to holding various management functions at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Paris and London, Thies Clemenz was appointed as COO and Managing Director of HSBC Global Assets Management (Germany) GmbH in 2005 and moved to Luxemberoug as CDO of HSBC Trinkaus Investment Managers SA and Deputy Country Head in August 2010

Gagik Danielyan