The American Pakistan Foundation (APF) has announced the nomination of Saleem Ahmad to its board of directors. Ahmad is the Chairman of the National Incubation Center Lahore (NICL), LUMS. APF hopes that this appointment would strengthen relationships with Pakistan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and pave the road for effective economic diplomacy and engagement between the US and Pakistan’s institutions and people.
APF, headquartered in Washington, DC, is the foremost US-based organisation dedicated to empowering the Pakistani American community and strengthening ties between the United States and Pakistan. APF’s initiatives include the Fellows Program, which fosters long-term professional, economic, and cultural ties between the two countries, and the United Nations Initiative, which facilitates interactions between Pakistani civil society organisations and the United Nations in the interest of socioeconomic development.
Mr. Ahmad’s appointment to APF’s high-profile board signals the beginning of a closer connection with Pakistan’s entrepreneurial young and the facilitation of intellectual capital development at NIC Lahore and LUMS. Along with his leadership role at NICL, Mr. Ahmad serves on the board of OPEN (Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs in North America), which aims to further nurture foreign investment prospects in Pakistan by connecting technology-enabled companies with investors in the United States.
Mr. Ahmad is an accomplished finance expert with more than US$250 billion of investment, restructuring, and advising expertise with leading global financial institutions, including Highbridge (JPMorgan), Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Citi in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Pakistan. He serves as a Senior Advisor to Afiniti, the world’s largest applied artificial intelligence business, and is the Co-Founder of 47 Ventures, Pakistan’s first international venture capital firm.
Mr. Ahmad earned postgraduate degrees from Wharton (UPENN), where he served on the Executive Council; the London School of Economics, where he was a Britannia Chevening Scholar and member of the Court of Governors; and LUMS, where he received the Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Award. He is passionate about entrepreneurship, microfinance, female empowerment, healthcare, literacy, and skills development in Pakistan and has a deep interest in international policy and economic diplomacy as a result of his service as a Corporate Leader to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.