Meet the 2025 Winners of the ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ Alumni Achievement Awards
The ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ Alumni Achievement Award (VC AAA) celebrates the remarkable achievements of the distinguished alumni who have made impactful contributions in their fields, both locally and across the globe. The awardees for this year were honoured at the Alumni Homecoming 2025 event.
Meet this year’s distinguished cohort and learn about their outstanding journeys.
Usman Ahmed
MBA 1995
Group CEO, National Bank of Bahrain (NBB)
Recognised by Forbes among the Top 100 CEOs of the Middle East in both 2023 and 2025, and named a Sustainability Leader of the Middle East in 2025, Ahmed has over 30 years of diverse international banking experience in emerging markets across Europe, the Middle East & Africa, and the Asia Pacific regions.
Ahmed is a senior international banker who currently serves as the Group CEO of the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB), Vice Chairman of Bahrain Islamic Bank, and a Board Member at SICO Bank, the GCC Board of Directors Institute, Injaz Bahrain, and the GCC Board of Directors. He has spent over 23 years with Citigroup and 3 years with Barclays Bank, during which, for the last 17 years, he has held various senior leadership roles as Executive Chairman, Group CEO, Managing Director, and Board Member, covering Corporate & Investment Banking, Capital Markets, Commercial, Consumer, and Islamic Banking in the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bahrain, and Pakistan.
He has previously served on the Boards of the Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers, the American Chambers of Commerce in Malaysia & Bahrain, the Association of Banks Malaysia, Financial Industries Collective Outreach Malaysia, the Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance, the Bahrain International School Association, Citicorp Capital Philippines, and Citigroup Global Markets Malaysia. He actively engages in transformative educational causes and enjoys endurance sports, studying and collecting art, and spending time with friends and family.
Sadia Dada
BSc 2004
Chief Distribution & Marcomms Officer, K-Electric
With over two decades of experience in marketing and communications, Dada drives impactful storytelling and customer solutions with a focus on sustainability and digital acceleration. At K-Electric, she manages the business portfolio of Distribution and Marcomms and serves as a Director on the K-Solar Board. Prior to K-Electric, she worked with Unilever, Nestle, Mobilink (Jazz) and Philip Morris International.
An adventure travel enthusiast, Dada spends her free time advocating for inclusion as an Advisory Board Member of NOWPDP, mentoring young women through her initiative Women in Numbers (WIN), as well as supporting the education of the girl child.
Sherin Ijaz
BSc 2006
Senior Partner, McKinsey & Co.
Ijaz graduated with Gold Medal and was part of the inaugural 2006 Accounting and Finance class. After her BSc she joined McKinsey’s Dubai office; she was the firm’s first direct hire from an undergraduate institution in Pakistan. Ijaz is also the first - and only - female Pakistani to become a Senior Partner at McKinsey (as of 2025).
For over 20 years, Ijaz has built a distinguished career with tenures in Dubai, London and New Jersey. Her expertise includes telecom and life sciences; in addition, she has contributed significantly to social sector work. Her recent work includes developing direct-to-patient platforms that make it easier for people to access primary care diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as pioneering cutting-edge approaches leveraging AI to commercialize products faster and more cost-effectively. By helping bring critical therapies and services to patients sooner, she exemplifies the University’s values of academic excellence, pioneering leadership and impact at scale.
Saad Munawar Khan
BSc 2003 & MBA 2006
Senior Director and Chief Commercial Officer, PepsiCo
Khan leads PepsiCo’s Beverages Business across Pakistan and Afghanistan, driving the commercial agenda for one of the region’s most dynamic consumer markets. He oversees the full commercial value chain, including the national bottling network, trade marketing, revenue management, key accounts, and sales capability development. Under his leadership, PepsiCo has strengthened its market dominance through data-driven execution, customer-centric strategies, and a forward-looking approach to e-commerce and digital engagement.
Beyond his corporate responsibilities, Khan has remained an active contributor to the ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ community. As a former President of the SDSB Luminites Association, he championed deeper alumni engagement and spearheaded initiatives to strengthen the connection between graduates, industry, and the University.
Khan’s career reflects a commitment to excellence, meaningful relationship-building, and continuous learning, demonstrated through his recent completion of the Global General Management Program at Yale University. He remains dedicated to driving positive impact, both within the corporate sphere and across the communities he serves.
Dr. Muhammad Yasir Khan
BSc 2007
Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Khan has been recognised as an influential scholar in his field, including being named one of the ‘50 Influential Researchers Whose Work Could Help Shape 21st Century Politicians’ by the Apolitical Foundation. His work has been published in leading peer-reviewed economics journals such as the American Economic Review and the Review of Economic Studies.
An economist focused on dismantling barriers to state capacity and political accountability in the Global South, Dr. Khan’s work reimagines how non-pecuniary preferences shape the decisions of bureaucrats, policymakers, and citizens. His research offers new insights into the motivations of service providers, the design of public sector wage contracts, and how technology can improve service delivery in settings with weak institutions.
He also leads the Development Economics group at the Behavioral Economics Design Initiative at the University of Pittsburgh and is affiliated with MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).
Dr. Khan was a National Outreach Programme scholar at ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ. He holds master’s degrees from the National University of Singapore and Columbia University, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
Ali Farid Khwaja
BSc 2003 & MSc 2004
Chairman, KTrade
Khwaja is the co-founder of KTrade Securities, Pakistan’s most popular retail investment platform. Since graduating from ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ, he has been working in global financial markets. Khwaja was a Rhodes Scholar and was selected for the Georgetown Leadership Seminar. He was awarded the Pride of Pakistan by the Government in 2025 for his work in bringing investments to Pakistan. He is also on the Advisory board of the Centre for Digital Asset Research at ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ and has been involved with the ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ Centre for Entrepreneurship.
Neha Mankani
BSc 2008
Midwife | Climate Advisor | Founder, Mama Baby Fund
Mankani is a midwife and maternal health and climate specialist committed to improving outcomes for women and newborns in vulnerable settings. She is the founder of the Mama Baby Fund, which provides essential maternal and newborn health services in the climate affected coastal communities off Karachi and supports families with financial assistance, birth preparedness, emergency response and a full spectrum of free of cost maternal and child health services.
She has extensive experience in maternal and neonatal clinical care, program implementation, and midwifery advocacy at both local and global levels, with a focus on humanitarian crises and climate-affected communities.
Mankani’s work has been recognized internationally through awards such as the Heroines of Health Award (Women in Global Health, 2021), the Woman of Courage Award (U.S. Embassy, 2023), and her inclusion in the BBC 100 Women list as a climate hero (2023) and the TIME100 Climate list (2025).
She currently serves as the Humanitarian Engagement and Climate Support Advisor at the International Confederation of Midwives, leading global efforts to strengthen midwifery in humanitarian and climate-vulnerable contexts.
Dr. Zafar Ayyub Qazi
BSc 2009
Associate Professor, Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering, ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ
Dr. Qazi is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ and a Visiting Associate Professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). A faculty member at ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ for the past eight years, his work sits at the intersection of the Internet, AI, and societal impact.
Dr. Qazi’s research has appeared in some of the most prestigious venues in computer science, including ACM SIGCOMM, The Web Conference, and the Internet Measurement Conference. He is a recipient of the Google Faculty Research Award and has been listed among AI 2000’s most influential scholars in computer science over the past decade. He also leads a UNICEF Safe Online project that develops large-scale measurements and tools to protect children from harmful online advertising.
At ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ, he is widely recognized as an outstanding teacher and mentor. He received the University-wide Teaching Excellence Award, and over 50 students from his lab have gone on to PhD and MS programs at some of the world’s leading universities, including Stanford, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon University, among others. He has designed and taught rigorous courses in computer networks, distributed systems, and large language models, and supervised numerous student projects that have led to impactful publications, products, and policy engagements.
Beyond academia, Dr. Qazi is co-founder of Clinpax, an AI medical scribe and consultation assistant that helps clinicians reduce documentation burden and improve quality of care, reflecting his broader commitment to using AI for societal benefit.
Mehreen Shahid
BSc 2009
Founder, Safe Delivery Safe Mother (SDSM)
Shahid is a development practitioner with over 15 years of experience in public health, education, social protection and public-private partnerships. She founded Safe Delivery Safe Mother (SDSM), an NGO delivering essential maternal and reproductive healthcare and disaster support to women in rural and low-resource communities in Pakistan. She has designed training curricula for health workers, strengthened primary healthcare systems, and introduced large-scale digital monitoring tools in partnership with government. SDSM’s over 1000 trained staff support over 500,000 pregnancies and deliveries annually, addressing major drivers of maternal mortality and high fertility nationwide.
She serves as a Senior Advisor with Global Health Visions (GHV) across a range of public health areas. She is working with the Gates Foundation, WHO and GAVI among others and has successfully led projects in Bangladesh, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria and Switzerland.
Previously, Shahid has worked at the Clinton Foundation, the World Bank, and McKinsey & Company in Pakistan, the US, UK, and Middle East. She has a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford and has received her Public Health training from Yale University. In 2023, she received the prestigious National Development Leadership Award by the Ministry of Planning and Development in recognition of her maternal health and flood-relief work in Pakistan. She has spoken at prominent national and global platforms on women’s rights, social justice, gender equity and is a TEDx speaker. She enjoys running, travelling, cricket, and Urdu poetry.
Muhammad Abubaker Umer
BSc 2009
Co-Founder, DAT AI Systems
Umer is a communications technology expert by profession, a public servant at heart, and an entrepreneur in spirit. After completing his Bachelor’s in Computer Science? from ³Ô¹ÏÍ·Ìõ as a National Outreach Programme scholar, he took a leading role in designing and implementing digital media and e-governance solutions for the Government of Punjab. He also won a Chevening Scholarship to pursue a Master’s in Media and Communications Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE).
In 2023, Umer co-founded DAT AI Systems, a company that addresses recurring challenges for organisations with large in-field staff and complex operations. For decades, such organisations have relied on either manual logistics or complex mobile apps to monitor and communicate with their in-field staff. However, these approaches often suffer from issues such as low digital literacy, basic smartphones, and slow internet. DAT AI Systems has engineered a WhatsApp-based platform that overcomes these problems, allowing companies and their in-field staff to synchronise their work seamlessly. This has also contributed to reduction in the exploitation of workers. Their clients include large public-sector organisations, such as the Lahore Waste Management Company.
He also founded DAT Media, a company that delivers simple, authentic, and responsible media solutions through narrativisation, documentaries, and campaigns.
