Taleeb Noormohamed (born October 8, 1976) is the President & CEO of Serebra,[1] an e-learning solutions provider based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships at the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) from 2007 to 2010 (completion of the Games) and, previously, was Director of the Air India Review Secretariat and Senior Advisor to the Hon. Bob Rae.
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Noormohamed was born in Ottawa, Ontario and his family resettled on the North Shore of Vancouver when he was 9 years old. His parents emigrated to Canada from Kenya in 1973 following the political upheaval in East Africa.
As a child, he attended Maplewood Elementary School, a short walk away from the family home on Riverside Drive. He was educated at St. George's High School and in 1994, received a scholarship to attend Princeton University where he studied International Relations. After graduating from Princeton, Noormohamed attended Oxford University on a Commonwealth Scholarship for his doctoral work in Geography.
Noormohamed is fluent in both of Canada's official languages (English and French) and also speaks Persian, Gujarati, Hindi, Kutchi, Urdu, and Arabic.[2]
Noormohamed first began his professional career by founding a technology consulting practice. In 2003, after working in this field for several years, Noormohamed began work in the public sector. He joined the Privy Council Office where he worked under two Liberal Prime Ministers (Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin), and worked on a series of issues, including governance and Canada's place in the world.
In 2006, Noormohamed was named Director of the Air India Review Secretariat and Senior Advisor to the Hon. Bob Rae. In this capacity Noormohamed was responsible for examining all related international and domestic proceedings, and for working closely with Canada's national security agencies, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Under Noormohamed's directorship, permanent memorials to the victims of the bombing of Air India Flight 182 were built, one in Vancouver's Stanley Park,[3] the other in Toronto's Humber Bay East Park.
After his work on the Air India file, Noormohamed was appointed Director of Citizen Engagement for the federal government's Department of Public Safety. Noormohamed was responsible for establishing the community engagement policies for the Department, the RCMP and CSIS.
More recently, Noormohamed held the position of Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships for VANOC. Noormohamed was responsible for managing, among other things, Partnership Revenue, Government and International Relations as well as National and International Client Services. Noormohamed was a key contributor to VANOC's "Canada's Games" initiative, which sought to include all Canadians in the celebration, and was the lead negotiator behind the agreements that brought North Vancouver City and District into the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games family.
Noormohamed is leading the restructuring of Serebra, an online learning technology company, as its President & Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors, creating new high-tech careers for local professionals. Serebra provides technology to deliver and manage professional training and development.[4]
Noormohamed's community service includes his contributions as a member of the Board of Directors of Covenant House Vancouver, as well as of the West Vancouver Community Centre. Noormohamed is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. In 2010, Noormohamed was appointed as British Columbia's representative to the Board of Trustees of the Fathers of Confederation Lands Trust and the Confederation Centre of the Arts by Prince Edward Island Premier Robert Ghiz.
In addition to his work with these organizations, Noormohamed volunteers extensively within the Ismaili Muslim community.
In recognition of his various contributions to the community, Noormohamed was awarded the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award by the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean in 2007.[5]
In 2004, Noormohamed tried to unseat Hedy Fry, the Liberal MP in Vancouver Center, and failed. In January 2011, Noormohamed announced his candidacy for the nomination of the Liberal Party of Canada for Member of Parliament in the British Columbia riding of North Vancouver. On March 5, 2011, the Party held its nomination meeting and Noormohamed was nominated by approximately 400 members.[6] Noormohamed was defeated by Conservative MP Andrew Saxton in the federal election on May 2, 2011.[7]