Change-Pakistan

Member Postings

June 3 2009:  Pervez Hoodbhoy looks at the prospects for a Taliban takeover and touches upon the insufficiently examined cultural genocide underway in Pakistan:  http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/whither-pakistan-five-year-forecast    

The Situation in Swat

The army action in Swat and other parts of North and Northwest Pakistan represents a critically important initiative, which could have wide-ranging implications, both positive and negative, for Pakistan. Already, millions of people have been evacuated from their homes as a result of this action.  Please (1) comment on the principal challenges and opportunities represented by the unfolding situation, or (2) provide your key observations or questions regarding this situation or (3) suggest ways that the community, interest group or profession to which you belong or other communities, interest groups or professions could contribute most positively in this situation.

Imran Zualkernan

Imran Zualkernan

Professor; Information Technology

Computer Science and Engineering and Engineering Management

American University of Sharjah

 

Imran teaches engineering management and computer science and engineering at the American University of Sharjah in the UAE.  His current areas of research include IT-business alignment maturity models, agile development processes, strategy, knowledge management and advanced learning technologies.  He has over 70 refereed publications in international journals and conferences spanning various fields including artificial intelligence, cognitive science, management science, computer science and engineering, software engineering, information systems management and statistics.  He is a recent recipient of the IBM faculty research award. 

Prior to joining American University of Sharjah, Imran was the Chief Technology Officer for Knowledge Platform, an e-Learning company in Singapore. He was also the founding Chief Executive Officer of Askari Information Systems Limited in Pakistan.  Earlier, Imran served as a Principle Software Design Engineer for a robotics company in Minnesota.  He also served on the faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Penn State University in College Park, Pennsylvania.

Imran received B.S. and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1991.  He later conducted post-doctoral research in knowledge management at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Imran was born in Pakistan and is a citizen of the United States of America. He loves large off-road motorcycles and if often found biking in northern parts of Pakistan. Imran is still thawing from the many years spent in Minnesota.

Fawad Zakariya

Fawad Zakariya
Executive; Information Technology

 

Mr. Zakariya is Vice President of Business Development in the Software and Technology Partners team at the global application software company SAP. Previously, he was with SAP's Corporate Strategy team in the Office of the CEO, where he focused on the firm's acquisition strategy.

He remains actively engaged as an angel venture investor and advisor to technology startups such as Appirio and Soleo Communications and is a limited partner of Hadley Capital, a buy-out fund in Chicago focused on investments in the manufacturing sector.
Prior to joining SAP, Mr. Zakariya was a Principal at Advent International, an international private equity and venture capital firm. At Advent, he focused on investments in the enterprise and infrastructure software and voice and data communication sectors. He led several of the fund's private equity investments and represented Advent on the Board of Directors of several portfolio companies, including Nauticus Networks, Mendocino Software and Entigo Corp. Prior to Advent, he was at Dillon Read Venture Capital in New York, where he served on the boards of two portfolio companies and completed eight transactions. He has also worked as an investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company in their New York office.
Born and raised in Pakistan, he serves on the Board of the South Asian American Forum (SAAF), a PAC that promotes a progressive policy platform working with US policymakers.

Mr. Zakariya received a BA in Economics from Haverford College and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is based in the Silicon Valley in Northern California.

Kamran R. Siddiqi

Kamran R. Siddiqi

Executive

VISA International

 

Kamran heads up the Middle East, Levant and Pakistan region for VISA International, the world’s largest electronic payments company.  VISA International operates in about 200 countries.

Kamran has lived and worked in Pakistan, Thailand, Singapore, Melbourne and Dubai, where he is currently based.  He has had interest in and involvement with non-profit organizations and NGOs across Pakistan, Asia-Pacific, Australia and UAE, including work with World Vision, the world’s largest charitable organization.

Kamran’s interests include wide-ranging study and research on India and Pakistan history and the Abrahamaic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).

Kamran has an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management, Philippines.

Ali Jehangir Siddiqui

Ali Siddiqui

Entrepreneur

JS Group

Ali Siddiqui is an entrepreneur.  He is a Member of the Executive Committee at JS Group (www.js.com), one of Pakistan's largest conglomerates.  JS Group companies have 23,000+ employees as at December 31, 2008.  At JS Group, Ali is involved in building some of Pakistan's fastest growing companies including Airblue (Pakistan's second largest airline), Azgard 9 (Pakistan's largest denim exporter), Pak American Fertilizer (two former state-owned fertilizer plants) and PICT (a port terminals operator).

Prior to JS Group, Ali was a Director at Crosby Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and was based in Hong Kong.

He supports a number of philanthropic initiatives and is a Board Member of JS Group's charitable foundation, the Mahvash and Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation as well as the Acumen Fund, a global non-profit venture fund.

Ali holds a BA in Economics from Cornell University.  He enjoys skiing, travel and reading.
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Hafeez Shaikh

Hafeez Shaikh

Development Expert; Former Minister; Private Equity

Partner, NSR Partners

 

Dr. Shaikh is a General Partner of New Silk Route Partners and the Chairman of NSR Dubai. Dr. Shaikh joined New Silk Route Partners in September 2007 as a General Partner of NSR Partners and Chairman of NSR Dubai. In addition to providing overall leadership, he focuses on private equity opportunities across the Middle East and Asia out of the Dubai office.

Hafeez was a Minister in Pakistan for six years (2001-2006), with a portfolio including Privatization and Investment. He has over 25 years experience in policymaking and management. His term as the Minister for Privatization & Investment has been the most successful in Pakistan’s history. 34 transactions worth Rs. 300 billion (USD 5 billion) were completed in a transparent fashion in banking, telecom, electricity and manufacturing. The period also saw a 500 percent increase in FDI from $1 billion to $ 5 billion per year.

Previously, Hafeez was Country Head of the World Bank in Saudi Arabia and also led assignments and advised more than 18 countries of Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa as a senior World Bank official. Some of these countries include Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Romania, Czech Republic, Argentina, Bangladesh, Jordan, Qatar, Malta, Botswana, Tanzania and Ghana.

During this time, he led teams in the successful privatization of various sectors in many countries, including the fields of telecommunication, electricity, transport, aviation, banking and manufacturing. Subsequently, Hafeez advised the governments of Iran Kuwait, and Libya in privatization transactions and national economic strategy.

He also set up the Watan Foundation to provide healthcare, drinking water and basic vocational training in the least developed parts of Pakistan.

Before joining the World Bank, Hafeez worked at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Hafeez graduated from Boston University with a Degree in Economics

Talat Sadiq

Talat Sadiq

Executive; Information Technology

 

Talat leads Calypso’s global professional services organization. Prior to joining Calypso, a software provider delivering trading applications for the capital markets industry, he worked as CIO and VP of Global Trading systems for Citicorp investment bank.  In that position, he was responsible for the management, development, standardization, and implementation of FX trading systems worldwide in all of its dealing rooms. Talat previously served as VP of Worldwide Field Technical Support and Global Alliances, at SUN Microsystems and as VP at Monchik-Weber, a premier integration and market-data company on Wall Street, where he managed the custom development of trading systems for all major brokerage firms and banks.

Dr Nafis Sadik

Dr Nafis Sadik

Development Expert

UNFPA

 

Dr Nafis Sadik began her professional life as a physician, practicing obstetrics and gynecology in rural communities in Pakistan. She was appointed Pakistan’s director-general of the Central Family Planning Council and held the post of deputy in 1968. In 1971, she joined the United Nations and became a technical adviser to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Chief of its Programme Division in 1973. From 1982 to 1987, she served as assistant executive director. In 1987, she was appointed executive director of UNFPA becoming the first woman in the history of the United Nations to lead one of its major voluntarily funded programs.

She is currently special adviser to the United Nations secretary-general.

Nafis was the first female recipient of the Hugh Moore Award in 1976 (named after the pioneering American) for bringing notice to the world population crisis. She has been named an Eminent Person for the International Year of Volunteers (IYV). She is also on several boards of directors of organizations sharing mutual interests.

Nafis is a published author with works on reproductive health and family, population and development, women, and gender and development. 

She is a member of the Association of Pakistani Physicians in the United States; and was elected to the 1988 Fellowship ad eundem of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the United Kingdom.

She was educated at Loreto College (Calcutta) and received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Dow Medical College (Karachi). She interned at City Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland in gynecology and obstetrics; and completed further studies at The Johns Hopkins University. She was a post of research fellow in physiology at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario (Canada). 

Syed Iqbal Riza

Syed Iqbal Riza

Diplomat

Former Under Secretary-General, United Nations

 

Iqbal Riza is an experienced diplomat and expert in conflict resolution.  In January 2005, he was appointed by Secretay-General Kofi Annan as Special Adviser, in which capacity he continues with SG Ban Ki-Moon.

Prior to this, SG Annan had appointed Mr. Iqbal Riza as his Chef de Cabinet in January 1997, a position he held until January 2005.  Previously, Mr. Riza had served as Special Representative of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Coordinator of United Nations operations in Bosnia Herzegovina from February to December 1996.

Prior to this assignment, Mr. Riza was Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of Peace-keeping Operations, where he worked from March 1993 to January 1996. Before that he served as Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Chief of the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL), since August 1991.

Previously, he had been head of the United Nations Observer Mission for verification of the electoral process in Nicaragua (ONUVEN) (August 1989- August 1990); Director of the Division for Political and General Assembly Affairs (1988-1989); and Director of the Office for Special Political Affairs (1983-1988).  From 1980 to 1987, he was a senior member of the small team coordinating UN efforts to bring about a negotiated end to the Iran-Iraq war, with numerous missions to the capitals and to the front.

Mr. Riza also held the post of Principal Officer in the United Nations Department of Public Information (1980-82) and Secretary of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (1978-1980).

Prior to joining the United Nations, Mr. Riza served with Pakistan’s Foreign Service from 1958 to 1977, holding various diplomatic assignments in London (1966-1968), Khartoum (1964-1966), Bonn (1962-1964), Madrid (1959-1961) and Foreign Office (1958-1959). He served as Director of the Foreign Service Academy in Lahore (1968-1971), and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Pakistan Embassies in Washington DC (1972-1976) and in Paris, where he also acted as Deputy Permanent Representative to UNESCO (1977), resigning due to differences with the policies of the Government..

Mr. Riza was born on 20 May 1934 in Lonavla, India, and has a MA degree in Political Science from the University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan, and a MA degree in International Law from Fletcher School of International Law, Boston, USA.