If confirmed, duo will add numbers to community in administration.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: President Barack Obama has nominated Jonodev Osceola Chaudhuri of Arizona to be chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), and Deven J. Parekh of New York to be a member of the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Chaudhuri, who had been previously nominated for the same position last July, has been nominated for a three-year term. He currently serves as the vice chairman and associate commissioner of NIGC. Parekh, if confirmed, will serve for two years.
Chaudhuri, whose mother was a Native American, is a graduate of Dartmouth College with a law degree from Cornell Law School. He was previously senior counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior from 2012 to 2013.
He has also served on Native American courts: as an Associate Judge on the Puyallup Tribe of Nations Court from 2011 to 2012, an Appellate Judge on the San Manuel Mission Band of Indians Appeals Court from 2009 to 2012, and an Appellate Judge on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court from 2006 to 2012.
Prior to becoming a judge, he served as a deputy public defender in the Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office from 2010 to 2011. He also ran his own law firm Chaudhuri Law Office, P.L.L.C, where he was managing attorney from 2006 to 2010.
Parekh served as a member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Export-Import Bank which is the official export credit agent of the United States from 2010 to 2012. He has been a managing director at Insight Venture Partners since 2002, managing investments in e-commerce, consumer internet data, and application software businesses on a global basis. He is a member of the Board of Directors for several top data services, eCommerce, education technology, as well as big data companies. He is a board observer for Kony Solutions (SaaS/application software), and represents the firm’s interests in Alibaba (ecommerce) and Twitter (social media). Parekh was previously a Principal at Berenson Minella & Company, a New York based merchant banking firm, prior to which he was with The Blackstone Group.
In 2014 he was selected by AlwaysOn as a Venture Capital 100 winner for his investments in Twitter and Chegg. He was also selected to be on the 2014 Forbes Midas list. In 2010 Deven was part of a US delegation of several investors, government representatives, and technology companies that visited Russia to explore investment and technology collaboration opportunities between the United States and Russia.
He is a Member of the Technical Advisory Council of the Federal Communications Commission which assists the Commission with developing informed technology policies supporting America’s competitiveness and job creation in the global economy. Parekh was named a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute, which seeks to develop the next generation of community spirited leaders.
He is a Member of the Board of Publicolor (which he chaired from 2007 – 2012), a New York City based non-profit organization that focuses on inner city schools. He is also Treasurer and Member of the Board of Governors of the National Academy Museum. He is a Member of the Board of the Tisch New York MS Research Center.
Parekh is also a member of the Greater NY Partnership, which pairs business executives with non-profit executive directors. The Partnership is an initiative of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City. Parekh is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Economic Club of New York. He received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.