Miyamoto’s board of directors monitors the effectiveness of company-wide decisions, policies and strategies while helping further our mission of sustaining industries and safeguarding communities around the world.
Dr. Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez
Dr. Eddie Ijjasz is a world-renowned expert in social inclusion and sustainability and the former World Bank Sr. Leader of Sustainable Development. During his last position with World Bank, he served as Regional Director for Africa in the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Practice Group covering agriculture, climate, disaster risk management, environment, land, social, urban, and water portfolios. Before this position, Mr. Ijjasz-Vasquez also served as the Senior Director of the World Bank’s Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice. He has led teams of over 600 technical experts and more than 1,000 consultants throughout the world.
During his illustrious career, he was responsible for a portfolio of about $80 billion of investments and close to 800 policy and advisory reports. He has worked in more than 90 developing and emerging countries worldwide – from fragile and conflict-affected nations to countries with middle-high incomes.
Dr. Firouz Rooyani
Dr. Rooyani is a former Senior Vice President of Tetra Tech and currently serves as the company’s Senior Advisor. Dr. Rooyani’s 29 years of employment at Tetra Tech Inc. involved assisting the international development capabilities; establishing operations in several countries including Argentina, Philippines, Japan, and India; developing business, and assistance in key acquisitions.
Dr. Firouz has over 45 years of experience in business development, management, and operations of international development programs. His technical expertise covers such areas as water, environment, natural resources management, and infrastructure. He has served as program manager and coordinator for numerous large and multidisciplinary programs with USAID and has provided technical assistance to multilateral banks such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Inter-America Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank.
His experience with USAID includes serving as Program Manager for two $0.5B and $0.6B Indefinite Quantity Contracts (2008 – 2018) during which time close to $200M task orders were implemented related to design and construction oversight of vertical structures, transportation, energy, and water supply in Afghanistan, Georgia, Liberia, Ethiopia, Haiti, and Sudan.
Dr. Firouz holds a Ph.D. in Pedogenesis (Surface Geology/Soil Science interface) from Utah State University and received his early training in river basin management in Australia.
Jamie Claire Kiser, J.D.
Jamie Claire Kiser is the managing principal of Zweig Group. She joined Zweig Group in 2015 with an initial focus on mergers & acquisitions and a drive to build long-term value for AEC firms. Jamie Claire is experienced in financial analysis, evaluating transactions, and providing clear solutions to the financial and operational needs of businesses. Jamie Claire practiced law in addition to working in the commercial banking industry. She joined Zweig Group in 2015 with an initial focus on mergers & acquisitions and a drive to build long-term value for AEC firms.
She also serves on the board of Zweig Group and Buffalo River Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to conserving the Buffalo National River. Jamie is the founder and author of the platform ElevateHer as part of Zweig Group’s mission to Elevate the Industry. She holds a Masters of Business Administration, Juris Doctor, and Bachelors of Arts in History.
Tom K. Chan, S.E.
Tom K. Chan is a former Executive Vice President at EQE International, Chairman at JCP Geologists, and CEO at Global Risk Miyamoto. He has over 40 years of civil, structural and risk engineering experience and has completed design and risk mitigation work worldwide for many governments, corporations and NGOs. Mr. Chan currently directs TÜV SÜD GRC’s Natural Hazards risk engineering practice. Before that he held positions of CEO at Global Risk Miyamoto, CEO/Chairman at JCP Geologists and EVP at EQE International. He is also an adjunct professor of civil and structural engineering at Diablo Valley College and a FEMA Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) T3 trainer for the State of California.
Mr. Chan has built and directed various risk engineering and consulting practices over the past four decades, including industry pioneering natural hazards loss assessment programs (“Catastrophe Models”), structural and portfolio PML risk reports, lifeline system-reliability assessments, and business continuity and emergency planning.
He has investigated numerous disasters since 1979 to study impacts to structures, lifelines and communities; and assisted in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts for many insurance companies and corporations, governments and NGOs including the Philippines, State of California, City and County of San Francisco, San Jose, World Bank, and United Nations.
Mr. Chan has completed new and retrofit designs for structures throughout California; and has performed seismic, flood and wind (hurricane and tornado) assessments of many existing facilities worldwide. He holds BS and MS degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Kit Miyamoto
Dr. Miyamoto is the Global CEO of Miyamoto International and a world-leading expert in disaster resiliency, response and reconstruction. He provides expert engineering and policy consultation to the World Bank, USAID, UN agencies, governments and the private sector. In addition to being the Global CEO of Miyamoto, he also serves as a California Seismic Safety Commissioner and structural engineer. From the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake to Ecuador, Nepal, Indonesia, New Zealand, Mexico and 2020 Puerto Rico earthquakes, Dr. Miyamoto has led teams of experts on dozens of response and reconstruction projects around the world. He is one of the most respected minds in disaster resiliency and recovery.
Dr. Miyamoto holds advanced degrees from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and California State University, where he has been recognized as a Distinguished Alumni. His team won the Engineering News-Record’s “Best Global Project” award four times and the U.S. Presidential “E” award. Major media such as ABC, CNN, LA Times, NY Times and Rolling Stone have profiled him. He was also featured in the “Designing for Disaster” exhibit at the National Building Museum.