Osman Khawaja is the Executive Director of the non-profit arts and circus school, Phare Ponleu Selpak, Battambang, Cambodia and a board member of Phare Performing Social Enterprise. He specializes in NGO management with a focus on education, organizational development and human resources.

Phare Ponleu Selpak, provides art programming and addresses challenges in close collaboration with the community. Both, Phare school and Phare social enterprise are playing a key role in the rapidly growing arts, culture and creative industries in Cambodia – impacting the future through the art education and opportunities provided to the youth and young artists.

Having lived and worked in Pakistan, Switzerland, Austria, USA, Singapore, Indonesia and now Cambodia, Osman brings a global perspective to challenges while staying sensitive to local contexts. Osman has over 8 years of NGO management experience, previously having worked in Siem Reap, where he successfully expanded the EGBOK hospitality training program and opened their training restaurant, Spoons.

Prior to his move to the non-profit sector, Osman worked in corporate roles for 5 years with an international real estate and hospitality company in Singapore and Indonesia. Osman graduated with a Masters from the Cornell-Nanyang School of Hospitality, Singapore in 2007.