Date of Birth: September 17, 1957
Place of Birth: Lahore, Pakistan
Education:
Postgraduate Degrees: Public Administration & Educational Planning Management
Professional Experience:
Ms. Naghma Rashid brings over 40 years of experience in the fields of education and development, with a distinguished career dedicated to empowering marginalized communities in Pakistan. For more than 32 years, she served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of DAMEN & Damen Support Programme, a leading organization focused on the empowerment of underprivileged individuals, particularly women, across fourteen districts of Punjab.
During her tenure at DAMEN, Ms. Rashid was instrumental in overseeing the organization's overall management and administration. Under her leadership, the organization expanded its reach through a network that included a head office, three regional offices, and sixty-four field offices. She led a team of over 650 full-time professionals who worked diligently to bring about meaningful change in the lives of the poor, with a focus on women's empowerment through microfinance services, income-generating activities, entrepreneurial skill development, group formation, and collective decision-making at the village level. Her work also facilitated linkages with other civil society organizations, enhancing the impact and sustainability of their efforts.
Ms. Rashid played a crucial role in making women from marginalized communities self-reliant, not just economically but also socially, in a society where women's subjugation is often the norm. Her responsibilities included strategic planning, decision-making, and the overall coordination of activities within DAMEN Support Programme, ensuring the institution operated efficiently and effectively.
Current Roles:
Chairperson of the Board of Directors (BOD), Damen Support Programme: Since her retirement in 2020, Ms. Rashid has continued to contribute to DAMEN as the Chairperson of the Board.
Policy and Risk Advisor to the Board of Directors (Gratis): She also serves as a Policy and Risk Advisor, offering her expertise to guide the organization's strategic direction and risk management initiatives.
Ms. Naghma Rashid's legacy is one of unwavering commitment to the empowerment of women and the upliftment of marginalized communities in Pakistan, leaving an indelible mark on the field of development and social welfare.
Shahzaib is an experienced management consultant, advising clients on complex institutional transformations and performance improvement programs. Currently, he is associated with EY Ford Rhodes.
He is Chartered Accountant from Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP). In addition to this, he is Fellow member of Institute of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) from International Six Sigma Institute. He is also a certified director from ICAP. He has more than 11 years of rich and diversified consultancy experience with two big4 firms.
Specialties:
He is also a visiting faculty member at one of the most renowned RAET in Pakistan and teaches strategy/ business management subjects. He is a public speaker and one the active speaker at Think Ahead with ACCA (professional insight forum).
Syeda Shehrbano Kazim is a development consultant with a focus on capacity building and communications. She has considerable experience in designing and structuring capacity building initiatives, conducting trainings, developing communications strategies and campaigns and managing events.
With a degree in Social Science and Economics from LUMS, she has worked in the corporate and development sector primarily in public relations and content development positions. She has participated in the Sangat residential course in Nepal on Gender, Sustainable Livelihoods, Human Rights and Peace and attended the Harvard Kennedy School executive education course on Financial Institutions for Public Enterprise Development.
She is the editor-in-chief of the Spectrum of International Law, a journal published thrice a year by the School of International Law (SIL) in Islamabad. She is also on the Board of Directors of SIL.
Recent trainings she has conducted have ranged from topics in gender, microfinance, various aspects of communications and cultural orientations. She has also organized trainings in corporate governance, risk management and investment readiness. Moreover, she has conducted a training needs assessment (TNA) of the microfinance sector for the Pakistan Microfinance Network and assessed a State Bank of Pakistan training programme. She is on the Trainers’ Roster at the National Institute of Banking and Finance and regularly conducts part of the Grass Root Level Trainings for them.
She has conducted cultural orientations for the International Catholic Migration Commission for people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds – from regions as diverse as Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan – often working with simultaneous translators. She also designs and conducts customized soft skills training for clients.
Sadaf has nearly two decades of experience in the nonprofit education and skills training space in Pakistan, driving positive social change for youth. She has previously served as Pakistan Country Director for Generation Youth Employment, a McKinsey-founded skills training nonprofit, where she also served as technical advisor to the Punjab Skills Development Fund. Her previous experience also includes The Citizens Foundation the world’s largest chain of nonprofit schools, and Acumen Pakistan, an affiliate of Acumen, a US-based impact investment fund. She has consulted for LUMS a leading not-for-profit university, CIRCLE Women a grassroots digital & financial literacy nonprofit, and Pakistan Children’s Heart Foundation (PCHF). She has an undergraduate degree in computer science and math, and an MBA from LUMS where she received a gold medal for first place overall.
Ms. Manal Bakhtiari with MBA from Lahore School of Economics has over 14 years of experience in the financial and development sector in project management, governance, strategy and worked on Education. Prior to entering the development sector, she worked in the Banking sector as Unit Head Corporate & SME Banking at HSBC. She was part of the core 25 members’ team that started the HSBC bank from scratch in a new market. Most recently she worked as Operations Manager on a USAID project from 2018-2022 where she supervised operations, procurement and the financial division along with providing Technical Assistance on the Programmatic Activities. Ms. Manal has conducted a number of evaluation and consultancies for international organization.
Mr. Arbab has been working in the development and commercial banking sectors for the past 30 years, with a focus on financial inclusion, SME, Agriculture and digital finance. Until recently he served as Senior Advisor, South Asia with CGAP/World Bank, where his main focus was the creation of a $200 million SPV to support SMEs in Pakistan. Prior to this, he served as Regional Director at Enclude, a global consulting and advisory firm. Before joining Enclude, Mr. Arbab was CEO of the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA), a World Bank sponsored Apex institution. He was also a founding member of the management team of the Bank of Khyber in Pakistan’s Khyber-Paktunkhwa Province. In addition, he has served in senior positions with the Aga Khan Rural Support Program and the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan.
