TV anchor
Sidra Iqbal is a celebrated Youth Icon of Pakistan. She is accredited with many esteemed accolades in the fields of Youth-Activism, Youth led development & Women Entrepreneurship and Television Media. Sidra Iqbal is the first and the only Pakistani to win the prestigious English Speaking Union's International Public Speaking Championship in London, UK. She emerged a winner among 58 participants from 28 different countries, an accomplishment for which, she was feted at the Buckingham Palace and awarded the winner's certificate by HRH Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh. In July 2011, Sidra became the First Pakistani to be invited as a Judge to the same esteemed international pavilion, the English Speaking Union's International Public Speaking Championship 2011, with co-judges like Lucy Hockings(Presenter, BBC World). Sidra, during her student life, represented the Pakistani youth as an Youth Ambassador and a Change Activist at a variety of power-packed forums in Australia, Cyprus, Japan, Hong Kong, Turkey, Switzerland, UAE, UK and US.
Sidra was awarded a full scholarship by the ESU Commonwealth to a Summer International Relations Program at Oxford University, UK in 2006. In 2007, Sidra was part of the special international youth committee envisioned byPrime Minister Gordon Brown at UK and presented the 'Young People's Proposal for a Better World' at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland. Sidra was a part of Pakistan’s delegation to the esteemed marketing professionals forum: AdAsia 2011 in Delhi, India.She regularly speaks at youth conventions, colleges and universities across Pakistan.
Sidra is a prominent television broadcaster in Pakistan since 2006 and has a number of signature shows, productions and momentous coverages to her credit. Her shows have featured a number of VIP guests from Heads of States, Policy makers, corporate heads and celebrated popular icons. Sidra especially enjoys a country-wide strong youth fan base, who keenly follow her comment and advise on youth issues and self-empowerment. In July 2012, Sidra became the first Pakistani anchorperson to host the official digital platforms of the International Indian Film Awards 2012 (IIFA), the mega Bollywood extravaganza of immense global popularity in Singapore, a project that expanded Sidra’s fans base across borders.
In Early 2007, Sidra started her career in the Public Relations Industry in as the Vice President, Oglivy & Mather, Pakistan. She played a key role in coordinating with Ogilvy PR, New York in 2007-2008 as it was appointed by the Government of Pakistan to manage Pakistan’s image in the international press. She also served her assignments at Singapore and Hong Kong offices of Ogilvy PR. Today she is an entrepreneur and founder of Statuspro 360, one of Pakistan's foremost Integrated Brand Communications firms.
The story behind ToffeeTV.com is quite simple - it's an initiative that takes songs, stories and activities for children in Urdu, animates and publishes them for online consumption. Combined with Hindi, there are at least a billion people in the world who understand Urdu, and the amount of content that is being produced in the language for young kids, is virtually non-existent. From a business perspective, there is huge potential for ToffeeTV.com and something Garib and her team strongly believe in. Garib has worked with ACCA for a number of years and hopes to keep the straight-faced financial folks, smiling!
Dr Afra Sajjad is ACCA regional head of education for Middle East North Africa South Asia (MENASA) region. In this role, her main focus is to work with national offices in the MENASA region to drive professional accounting education excellence through engaging relevant stakeholders on best practices of student support, exploring excellence in tuition support and continuous professional development. Dr Sajjad has been associated with ACCA since 2005 in various policy and education roles. She has worked on a number of policy projects and consultative responses pertaining to narrative reporting, financial reporting, auditing and corporate governance. She is on the editorial boards of ACCA magazines Teach Accounting and Accountancy Futures. She has been the lead project manager for a number of donor funded projects including the European Commission project on sustainability reporting, DFID project on micro-finance and International Finance Corporation projects on corporate governance and gender diversity. With a doctoral degree in financial reporting from the Dublin City University, Dr Sajjad’s research interests include corporate governance, business ethics and integrated reporting. She has presented papers at national and international conferences including the World Congress of Accountants.
Amin Rajput is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) as well as a Certified Internal Auditor. He did his chartered accountancy with KPMG Pakistan Office. Later, he joined Caterpillar, Saudi Arabia where he worked for a decade in various positions in Finance & Audit departments. Since last five years, he has been working as Head of Internal Audit in the Power & Petroleum Sectors with two major Utility Companies of Pakistan engaged in the business of Generation, Transmission & Distribution of Electricity & Natural Gas. Amin has also served on the Board of Governors of the IIA Karachi Chapter and was engaged in the training & mentoring of CIA students.
Arif Masud Mirza was born in Karachi and moved to England where his parents migrated in 1968. He is a fellow member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and currently the Head of ACCA Pakistan.
Fatima has over sixteen years of change management, organizational structuring and human capital management and development experience through strategic formulation and oversight, service delivery and project management roles. An MBA from LUMS, Class of 1997, she has developed specialization in Human Capital Development, Change Management, and rewards and remuneration. In addition to extensive project experience in strategic change and human capital management, she has led projects focusing on the development of organizational strategies that integrate their human resources practices with their long-term strategic business plans and capacity building with intensive training programs. Her extensive experience has allowed her to partner and advise clients across leading private, public and multi-national sectors at the Boardroom level.
Haroon has a diversified experience in the field of technological and professional education. He has worked as a corporate trainer for many years and holds to his credit training senior professionals of many multinationals.
Naqvi is the Chief of Staff, Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary of Tameer Microfinance Bank Limited, a Telenor Group Entity. He is responsible for contributing to strategy making and execution for the core microfinance lending and branchless banking businesses, to oversee the financial control, treasury and corporate secretarial departments as well as act as the central overseer for all staff activities.
Monis Rahman is the Chairman and CEO of Naseeb Networks, a leading provider of recruitment, social networking, classifieds and related services in Pakistan. He was #6 in Forbes Magazine list of "Ten Big Hitting Asian Businessmen under 50". Under his leadership, Naseeb Networks is Pakistan's 8th fastest growing private company according to the Harvard University Professor Michael Porter's All World Pakistan Fast Growth 25 rankings, clocking in at 8,500% growth since 2007.
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Rasul Jan graduated with a doctorate degree from Ireland and a post docrate from USA. He has over 35 years of teaching and research experience, with 145 publications to date. He has presented papers in 9 international conferences held in UK, USA, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, Nepal, Russia and Turkey and more than 30 papers in conferences both within and outside the country.
Currently heading ACCA Islamabad, Noor has to her credit a solid experience in finance & management including management of investment, treasury and corporate finance functions in public and private sectors. Noor works extensively with CEOs, CFOs & HR directors helping them to grow their business by induction and training of world class finance talent, cutting edge thought leadership and continuous professional development for the finance staff.
Working in ACCA for the past one and a half years, Rehan Uddin is the Head of ACCA Karachi and leads the southern region of ACCA Pakistan. He is responsible for leading the delivery of ACCA strategy in this region to achieve membership growth and establish and maintain high-level relationships with each of ACCA's critical stakeholders. His professional career, spanning a period of more than 10 years, is concentrated in the financial services sector, primarily in capital markets. An accountant by profession, he brings with him an extensive experience while having worked with renowned names like PwC, SECP and Crosby Securities before joining ACCA Pakistan. He is a member of ACCA and ICAP, as well as CFA Charter holder.
Dr Sadia Nadeem is the Head of FAST School of Management, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Islamabad, Pakistan. She began her professional career as an electronic engineer in Pakistan and then moved to London where she studied and worked for 13 years. She holds an MBA and a PhD in Management from Cass Business School, City University, London, UK. Dr Nadeem has carried out research and consultancy work in large private and public sector organisations. She has over 15 years of experience in the field of HR, and has presented her work at many national and international conferences. Her current areas of interest are high performance work systems, cross-cultural HRM and leadership. She is currently working on several national and international projects which cover areas of global leadership competencies, trust across cultures, performance management and organisational justice. Prior to her move to Pakistan, her primary areas of research were work-life balance, change management and discrimination and disadvantage in the labour market. She uses both qualitative and quantitative techniques for her projects. Dr Nadeem is a Chartered MCIPD (UK) and an active member of the US Academy of Management, the SHRM chapter in Pakistan and HR Forum Islamabad.
Shaban Khalid started his career as a manager trainee at Ittehad Steel Industries and is currently the director sales & marketing. He is also the managing director at Mitsubishi Islamabad Motors since 2004 being the youngest CEO in the automotive (3S Dealerships) industry in Pakistan at the time. Shaban is also the founder of the Young Entrepreneurs Forum (YEF) of ICCI, the first forum for young entrepreneurs within any chamber of Pakistan. Under this role, Shaban has worked extensively to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit and working to change the mindset of the youth to encourage them to be job creators rather than job seekers. He is also the founding member of the Commonwealth Asia Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs (CAAYE) Alliance supported by the Commonwealth Secretariat, including other member organizations from India, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Shaban was also invited as one of the seven delegates for the summit from Pakistan to attend President Obama’s Summit on Entrepreneurship in 2010, and also invited to meet Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at the Commonwealth Day Reception earlier this year. Shaban organized the first policy advocacy Young Entrepreneurs Conference in 2012 to promote the entrepreneurial mindset among the youth of Pakistan that was attended widely by national and international delegates. Very recently, he has initiated the Indo-Pak Young Entrepreneurs bilateral pave the way for people to people interaction of the two countries, and to enable a friendship towards track to diplomacy, towards an environment of peace and trust. He has also spoken at numerous Platforms in Germany, Brussels, Poland, Czech Republic, China, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, USA and UK. Shaban has a bachelor’s degree from Pepperdine University, USA.
Dr. Shaukat A. Brah is the Chief Executive of Karachi Education Initiatives. He is also a Professor of Operations Management and the Dean at Karachi School for Business & Leadership (KSBL). Previously, he has served as Dean of the Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan, and as Dean of the College of Business Studies, Al Ghurair University, United Arab Emirates. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Houston.
Suleman Ansar Khan has spent the last ten years working globally in different capacities as an Entrepreneur, Management Executive, Academician, Product Development Specialist, HR Consultant and Trainer. His expertise lies in Organizational Development and Change Management with a focus on creating effective corporate cultures and streamlining processes to develop customer-centric organizations. Among his various training and consultancy assignments internationally, include securing a patent in the United States for pharmaceutical giant, DuPont for a new water purification technology.
Walid is the CEO of Pakistan’s Leading schools Roots International Schools – Pvt Ltd now the third largest education system - a model private sector educational institution styled on the modern educational system of international standards promoting 21st century education achieving standards in quality all-round education. Established since April 1988, Under his leadership Roots has innovated modern education standards, with universally acclaimed academic excellence and all-round development of students with nearly 15,000 students and branch network of 65 Campuses and a presence in more than10 cities across Pakistan. Walid has been the master mind behind providing the infrastructure for the expansion of the school system. He contributed extensively to the enrichment of financial processes and business process reengineering. His vision and business process mapping has yielded results in the form of rapid growth and expansion with the proper support systems to sustain it. He has also played a pivotal role in the Roots Education System and community empowerment initiatives providing educational incentives to underprivileged students by delivering text books, notebooks and essentials in order to attract them to school. He has also worked closely to empower women who constitute 51% of our population by providing them training in computer skills and vocational training so as to raise their self esteem and dignity. He has also played a pivotal role in establishing partnerships and collaborations with international education bodies such as Intel, I net, Microsoft, TiE, Confucius Centre, Goethe Institute, University of London, Cambridge, WWF and Ministry of Environment and provided global exposure to his students by sending them to international competitions such as Mondialago, IGGY Summer U, IGGY Winter U, ISFIT Norway, NUS Computing Camp Singapore, Tianjin Festival China, International Children Festival Xian Jiang, International Children Culture and Games festival Antalya etc.