A former student of Pepperdine University, where he earned his bachelor of arts in business, Jamal Daniel serves as chairman of Crest Investment Company. Additionally, Jamal Daniel founded and leads the Levant Foundation, a not-for-profit organization focused on enhancing the visibility and acceptance of the Levant region’s culture.Between 2011 and 2014, the Levant Foundation partnered with Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service to create the Jamal Daniel Fund for the Study of the Levant. During its three years, the fund offered three scholarships to graduate students whose focus was on the Levant region. Further, it aimed to create a minimum of one postdoctoral fellow whose work centered around the study of Levant countries.In addition to this work, the fund also allowed Georgetown to invite a visiting professor in 2011, who taught classes on the Levant region. This work was later assumed by the postdoctoral fellows that the fund helped to create.
An investment management professional with more than three decades of experience, Jamal Daniel serves as the Chairman of Crest Investment Company in Houston, Texas. In 2012, Jamal Daniel founded the American news website Al-Monitor, which publishes articles from Middle Eastern perspectives. Al-Monitor is a 2014 recipient of the International Press Institute’s (IPI) Free Media Pioneer Award. The IPI praised the news outlet for its “unrivalled reporting and analysis...in times of change and upheaval.”Established by the IPI in 1996, the Free Media Pioneer Award celebrates news organizations that work tirelessly toward the free and independent distribution of news and information. The award places an emphasis on access and quality. The institute distributes the award on an annual basis at the IPI World Congress. The 2017 event is scheduled to take place on May 18-20 in Hamburg, Germany. In addition to Al-Monitor, past winners have included Radio Okapi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Novaya Gazeta in Russia, and Radio Free Sarawak in Malaysia.
Serving as the Chairman of Crest Investment Company, Jamal Daniel draws on his experience of investing in a range of industries, including real estate, oil and gas, manufacturing, and technology. A native of Syria who spent some of his childhood in Lebanon, Jamal Daniel heads the Levant Foundation, a nonprofit that is focused on developing greater understanding about the Levant region and the three religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, that are prevalent in the countries that make up the Levant.The foundation has made a number of grants to support this cause, including a 2014 gift to the American University of Beirut. The grant contributed to the expansion of the institution’s medical center. Supporting the AUBMC 2020 Vision, which aims to improve the standards and delivery of medical care throughout Lebanon, the gift was used in the building of the Halim and Aida Daniel Academic and Clinical Center. Upon its completion in 2016, the building became one of the most modern medical facilities in the country. It houses academic centers focused on clinical research in a range of medical and health areas, including heart disease and psychiatry. Further, the 14-story building plays host to a number of outpatient centers serving patients in Lebanon.
