After 35 Years, Maha Freij Hands the Reins of the Nation's Largest Arab American Nonprofit to Lina Hourani-Harajli

DEARBORN, Mich. — A leadership era that helped build the nation's largest Arab American institution officially closed this month, as Maha Freij stepped down as President and CEO of ACCESS (the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services) on October 1, handing the role to longtime Chief Operating Officer Lina Hourani-Harajli. Freij's departure caps more than 35 years with the Dearborn-based organization, including the last five as its top executive. She joined ACCESS in 1991 and rose through roles including Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Executive Director before becoming President and CEO in 2021, when she succeeded Hassan Jaber. Under her watch, ACCESS grew into a sprawling network of human-services, health, educational and cultural programs serving roughly 70,000 people a year across metro Detroit and beyond — work carried out in more than 25 languages by a workforce of around 500 employees. Among the initiatives Freij is credited with during her tenure: launching the Center for Arab Narratives, an effort to document and elevate Arab American storytelling, and leading the capital campaign behind the ACCESS Recovery Center, a substance-use treatment facility slated to open this fall. Earlier in her career, she also helped drive fundraising for some of the organization's signature brick-and-mortar projects, including the Arab American National Museum, the only Smithsonian-affiliated museum dedicated to Arab American history and culture. The ACCESS Board of Directors said it voted unanimously to name Hourani-Harajli as Freij's successor following what the organization described as a comprehensive succession-planning process. Hourani-Harajli joined ACCESS in 2000 and has spent more than two decades there, including over ten years as Chief Operating Officer. In that role, she founded the organization's business operations division, oversaw the planning and construction of multiple ACCESS facilities, and managed its human resources, information technology, and marketing and communications functions. "I am honored by the trust the Board has placed in me and grateful to Maha for her decades of leadership and mentorship," Hourani-Harajli said in a statement announcing the transition. Freij isn't disappearing from the organization entirely. She will continue in a Strategic Advisor role, working with ACCESS and its affiliated national institutions as the leadership change takes effect, the organization said. A recent ACCESS event also included a tribute to Freij's tenure, with the announcement of a new community garden — Dar Al-Sakina, or "House of Tranquility" — named in her honor to mark her 35 years of service. The transition was planned well in advance: ACCESS first announced Freij's intent to retire in mid-July, giving the organization roughly two and a half months to prepare before Hourani-Harajli formally took over October 1. The timing also places the handoff squarely within ACCESS's run as one of the most closely watched Arab American institutions in the country, at a moment when the organization continues to expand programming even as it navigates a broader national conversation about Arab American civic and political representation. For a community that has watched Dearborn emerge as a hub of Arab American political and cultural life — from the Arab American National Museum to a rising wave of local elected officials — the ACCESS transition is less a single news cycle than a generational marker: the same institution that helped professionalize services for Arab Americans over the past three and a half decades is now passing day-to-day leadership to someone who built much of its internal infrastructure from the inside.