Press Release: 24 Sep 2018 Karachi

Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) announced the new Office Bearers and Central Executive Committee Members of the Association at the Annual General Meeting at a local hotel in Karachi.

The New Central Executive Committee will comprise of

Chairman – Syed Ahmad

Syed Ahmad is founder & CEO of DPL, a leading software company based in Islamabad. Like no one else, DPL is setting a trend in Pakistan defying popular culture with its own counter-culture movement called “Rebel Ethos”. DPL’s mission statement reflects this: “Liberating minds to become the model IT enterprise in the region”.

Syed founded DPL in 2003 with three co-founders straight out of university. Learning from its ruthless mentor i.e. the market, DPL is now a multi-million dollar company that has top global companies as its clients in the US and Northern Europe. Syed wants to build DPL into the first large-scale IT company from Pakistan that can compete at a global stage with likes of InfoSys and Accenture. In order to achieve its goals, DPL is focusing on building a team comprised of top talent and giving them an environment and culture that is no less than Silicon Valley. DPL has already won various awards and recognition and currently going through the high-growth phase.

Senior Vice Chairman – Muhammad Zohaib Khan

As Founder and CEO of A2Z Creatorz, Muhammad Zohaib Khan, oversees all local and international corporate business development, joint venture and partnerships. As a Technical IT Professional, he engages with upcoming technologies and directs the company to ensure the attainment of sales and profit goals in order to earn maximum return on invested capital. He is responsible for the formulation of current and long-range plans and objectives and represents the organization in relations with its customers and the business and nonbusiness communities.

Vice-Chairman – Badar Khushnood

Badar Khushnood is a Cofounder and Partner at Bramerz, a leading and a pioneer full-service digital media & marketing agency in Pakistan. Badar primarily focuses on Growth Hacking two Bramerz product ventures, Fishery & Publisher.

Badar was recently Twitter’s Country Representative for over a year and was Google’s Country Consultant for Pakistan for 9 years before joining back Bramerz. He acted as a one-man-army-on-the-ground for Google & Twitter liaising closely between internal teams and all-things Pakistan! He has also worked for ASUSTeK, SMEDA & Nishat Textiles. Badar is also a founding board member and an active mentor at several tech incubators & accelerators including Plan9, LUMS LCE (NIC Lahore) and The Nest I/O, Invest2Innovate, Telenor Velocity and NIC Islamabad. Badar has also been judging at APICTA (Asia Pacific ICT Alliance) for the last few years.

Badar brings along more than 18 years of rich and diverse experience working with leading brands in the global tech space. In his previous lives, Badar secured his Masters in Economics & Management from the Lahore School of Economics (LSE).

Treasurer – Talhah Munir Khan

Talhah is working as CTO at Knowledge Platform since November 2001 and where he leads the technology team. He also manages the Pakistan operations of the business. Talhah has extensive experience in building effective teams, leading engineering operations, talent acquisition, management and engagement, strategic thinking and alignment, program management, creating customer-focused culture, ensuring cross-functional collaboration and use of performance support to drive delivery excellence. Having focused on learning solutions for the past fifteen years, he has deep knowledge of heterogeneous e-learning standards and numerous learning technology.

Central Executive Committee Member – Sultan Hamdani

Mr. Sultan Hamdani is a Partner & Senior Consultant at Maison Consulting & Solutions. With an MBA degree in hand from Institute of Business Management, he started his career with SmithKline & French which later merged with Beecham and became SmithKline & Beecham. He founded MaisonConsulting.com in 2004. In his leadership, Maison has achieved the highest accolades and recognition at Microsoft level and has done more 250+ successful projects across multiple countries.

Sultan is a volunteer director at the Pakistan Children Heart Foundation (www.chhri.com)Sultan volunteers to be a mentor for the IT industry startups and is a regular to accompany the Pakistan delegation to the Asia Pacific ICT Awards.

Sultan is also part of the General Body of FPCCCI. His wide exposure on industries, make him easy to successfully provide a solution to any business operations.

Central Executive Committee Member – Barkan Saeed

CEO at Vizteck, he has a strong background in strategic execution, architecture, marketing automation, CRM automation and digital solutions. He co-founded PolarStrategy, a SugarCRM reseller partner providing CRM automation and marketing automation solutions. Also Co-founded Vizteck, which is a digital platform application development company mostly working with startups and also investing in them.

He is passionate about #startups and #executive learning and manages a group by the name of Shana Bashana with 40+ tech executives. The group uses regular meetups between members as a way for executive learning.

Central Executive Committee Member – Asif Peer

Currently serving Systems Limited as the CEO and MD – the same company where he began his career as a software developer in 1996, and now, also serving as a Member of the Board of Directors for Visionet Systems and Systems Limited.

Having majored in CS at the NUCES, he completed his MBA in Marketing and Finance from IBA Karachi. He took a challenging role at the U.S. office, and then took on a wider array of responsibilities, focusing on delivery and projects. He went on to serve as the COO of Visionet Systems from 2008 to 2012 in the U.S. before returning to Pakistan and taking charge of Systems Limited as CEO.

In the current role, he works closely with customers, partners, vendors, and governmental institutions while leading the multi-million-dollar expansion program for Systems Limited. The company has a market cap of $80m, it employees 3500 people and spans across 6 countries with ongoing projects in many other countries.

During this tenure, the company did its IPO and won several accolades, including prestigious awards by the industry associations and Principals.

Central Executive Committee Member – Dr. Shoab A Khan

Dr. Shoab Ahmed Khan is Professor in the College of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences & Technology. He is an inventor of 5 awarded US patents and has 260+ international publications. His book on Digital Design is published by John Wiley & Sons and is being followed in national and international universities. Dr. Shoab Ahmed Khan has more than 22 years of industrial experience in companies in USA and Pakistan. He has been awarded Tamgh-e-Imtiaz (Civil), National Education Award 2001 and NCR National Excellence Award in Engineering Education. He is a member of the Board of Governance of multiple groups in the Ministry of IT and Commerce. He has also served as a member of the National Computing Council and National Curriculum Review Committee.

Central Executive Committee Member – Jawwad Ahmed Farid

Jawwad has served as CEC member and treasurer on multiple occasions, mentors the P@SHA Asia Pacific ICT Awards delegation, volunteers time for the judging and selection of PASHA ICT Awards companies.

Jawwad’s speciality is enterprise risk systems for the financial services sector, he is a Fellow Society of Actuaries and an MBA from Columbia business school. He is also an alumni of FAST ICS Karachi – Class of 1992.

Central Executive Committee Member – Abbas Ali Khan