PDG Mahbub Ahmad
Mahbub Ahmad, was the District Governor having served for the Rotary Year 2019-20. District Governor for Rotary Year 2021-22, George Mckinnis, has tapped PDG Mahbub to remain part of District leadership as Vice-Governor and District Executive Secretary.
From 2017 to 19, PDG Mahbub was the District's Technology Director, tasked with assessing and improving the level and usage of technology among the Clubs and the District. He was the President of the Rotary Club of Yonkers-East Yonkers for 2016-17 and under his Presidency, the Club achieved the highest Rotary Honor - the Presidential Citation for 2016-17 - an honor shared with only 2 of the 43 Clubs in the District. He has been the Club and District's Webmaster. and Co-Chaired the 2018 District Conference Committee. He has facilitated a number of technology-related seminars in the District.
During his tenure as Governor, Mahbub has been instrumental in bringing about significant changes resulting in more uniform branding across Clubs in the District. He has helped 18 Clubs establish and manage their Facebook pages, established 3 new Satellite Clubs, doubled the number of active Rotaract Clubs in the District from 4 to 8 and added 3 new Interact Clubs. Membership growth in the District was up 3% from July 2019 - one of the highest growth rates in Zones 28 and 32 combined. He also established a strong technology and public image training program in the District. He was innovative in splitting the District Conference into 2 parts - the first being held early in the year concentrating on training for Club Officers. The second part, slated to be a celebration of the achievements had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. He visited all 44 Clubs in the District in the first 5 months of his tenure..
Right from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, PDG Mahbub has been pro-active in helping Clubs transition to online meetings. In mid-March, he made available the District's Zoom account for Clubs to hold Zoom meetings until they became comfortable doing so. He has secured an emergency grant from The Rotary Foundation, topped it off with donations from the District and got Clubs to vote on reallocating part of the unspent District funds towards COVID-19 projects. All Clubs in the District that applied for Emergency Grants have been approved for the full amount of their requests. In all, the Clubs implemented 47 COVID-19 related projects involving a total of over $230,000..
PDG Mahbub was supported by First Lady Rotarian Bina Ahmad, who has been a strong proponent of the District's presence on social media, particularly Facebook. As a Team they reached out to Clubs and assisted many clubs one-on-one.
PDG Mahbub was an International Civil Servant at UN Headquarters in New York for 30 years, retiring as Chief, UN Web Services in 2012. He is credited with many innovations at the UN, the foremost being creation of the multilingual UN Website in 1995. He began his UN career as a broadcaster and has prepared and produced many programs for UN Radio and TV, including multi-part Radio series on Human Rights, Children and the Environment, and TV episodes on UN topics broadcast on CNN. He has widely traveled to attend UN Conferences on the Middle-East, Population, Development, Information Technology, among others, and was Spokesperson for the UN General Assembly President. He received the prestigious "UN21" Award for exceptional service from 2 UN Secretaries-General - Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon.
He is a member of the Paul Harris Society and along with his wife, fellow Rotarian Bina Ahmad are Major Donors to the RI Foundation. After 18 years raising their 2 sons in Scarsdale they now are residents of Yonkers.
PDG Mahbub graduated with distinction with a Master's Degree in International Law & Organization from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, in 1978.