Search KSBL
Hussain Dawood is a Pakistani industrialist and ardent philanthropist. He chairs an array of profit and not-for-profit ventures namely Dawood Hercules Corporation Ltd. the group’s flagship holding arm with investments in foods and energy, Engro Corporation Ltd., the largest Independent Power Producer in Pakistan; Karachi Education Initiative, which funds the graduate management school Karachi School of Business & Leadership, and The Dawood Foundation, with its legacy of establishing various education and health institutions across the country.
His social responsibilities include Memberships of the World Economic Forum and its Global Agenda Councils of Anti-Corruption and Education. He was conferred the award “Ufficiale Ordine Al merito della Repubblica Italiana” by the Republic of Italy. Hussain Dawood holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA, and is a graduate in Metallurgy from Sheffield University, UK.
Mr. Siddiqui retired as an Air Commodore from the Pakistan Air Force in 2003. His last post was as the Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Administration) at Pakistan Air Force Headquarters. For his meritorious services to the PAF, he was awarded Tamgha-e-Imtiaz (Military) and Sitara-e-Imtiaz (Military).
He was commissioned in the GD(P) Branch of the Pakistan Air Force in 1974. He is a qualified flying instructor and has flown over 8000 hours on different aircraft including C-130, Boeing-707 and Dassault Falcon 20. He has served as a VVIP and Presidential pilot during his tenure of service and has held various key Command and Staff appointments in the PAF. He served as Director of Air Transport at Air Headquarters from 1996 to 1998 and commanded an operational air force base with over 8,500 personnel from 2000 to 2002.
Mr. Siddiqui holds an M. Sc. in Defence and Strategic Studies from Quaid-e-Azam University, an M. Sc. in Strategic Studies from Karachi University, a B. Sc. (Honours) in War Studies from Karachi University and B. Sc. Avionics from Peshawar University. He is also an alumna of the National Defence College.
He is Chairman JS Investment Limited and JS Air (Pvt) Limited and serves as Director on the board of Mahvash & Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation, Hum TV Network Limited, Karachi Education Initiative, Karigar Training Institute and Fakhr-e-Imdad Foundation.
Sabrina Dawood is currently the CEO of The Dawood Foundation & Public School and Director of Engro Foods Limited, prior to which she has been working in various companies of the Dawood Hercules Group, such as Dawood Hercules Corporation Limited and Dawood Lawrencepur Limited in marketing, corporate communications, administration and CSR. She holds an MSc in Medical Anthropology from University College London and a BA from London School of Economics in Anthropology & Law.
Mr. Abdul Samad Dawood joined the Board of Engro Corporation in 2009. He currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Dawood Hercules Corporation, where he has been a director since 2002, and has also previously served the company in an executive capacity.
Mr. Dawood’s rich and diverse experience of management and governance spans 18 years, with a special interest in mergers and acquisitions. He has led more than $4 billion worth of M&A deals, including the Dawood group’s acquisition of HUBCO from National Power International Holdings B.V. in 2012 and the sale of DH Fertilizers to Fatima Fertilizer Company Ltd in 2015. He also played a leading role in the merger of Engro Foods into global dairy giant, Royal FrieslandCampina N.V., based on the convergence of their values, goals, and abilities to address Pakistan’s nutritional challenges; he has since served as the Chair of the Board of FrieslandCampina Engro Pakistan. In addition to this, Mr. Dawood is an active director on the board of Pakistan Business Council, a pan-industry advocacy group that promotes easing of barriers to enable Pakistani businesses to compete in regional and global arenas. In line with his areas of interest, he is a director and trustee of Boards across varied industries including financial investments, energy, and education, some of which are the Dawood Foundation, Dawood Lawrencepur Ltd, and Reon (Pvt) Ltd. In addition to these responsibilities of governance, Mr. Dawood has previously served as the Chief Executive Officer for Dawood Hercules Corporation Ltd and Cyan Ltd, and is an active member of the Young Presidents Organization.
Mr. Dawood is a graduate in Economics from University College London, UK and a certified director of corporate governance from the Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance.
Hasan Irfan Khan is an advocate admitted to practice before the hon’ble Supreme Court of Pakistan and has been practising corporate, commercial and Intellectual Property law since 1993. He is an internationally acclaimed lawyer and is legal adviser to many ‘Fortune 100’ and ‘Fortune 500’ Companies in Pakistan. He is a member of the Board of Governors, World Wildlife Fund (WWF Pakistan) and Chair, Human Resource Committee since June 2008, and Member Executive Committee since April 2010. Mr. Khan has been a member of the Board of Management, Punjab Institute of Cardiology for over 7 years; his last term ending June 2011. He is the Managing Trustee of the Irfan Family foundation, “Asifa-Irfan Foundation” which focuses on health, education, poverty alleviation, protection and conservation of the environment.
Mr. Khan has authored and co-authored key chapters for numerous legal publications of International repute. He has drafted proposed laws in the public health, pharmaceuticals and the agriculture sectors as well as Intellectual Property laws. He is also one of the five co-authors of the Electronic Transactions Ordinance 2000. He is a member of the Patent Advisory Committee of Higher Education Commission and has also been a member of numerous law-related advisory committees to the Government of Pakistan.
Mr. Khan was visiting faculty at LUMS and the Punjab University Law College and has lectured at NIPA, Pakistan Staff College, Foreign Trade Institute and the Federal Judicial Academy Islamabad. Mr. Khan has delivered presentations and lectures at innumerable international and local conferences. He is member of the Lahore High Court and Supreme Court Bar Associations and many international associations such as INTA, ITMA, CPA, APAA, AIPPI, IBA, Law Asia.
Dr. Asghar Zaidi is the Rector of the Karachi School of Business & Leadership (KSBL). An Oxford-trained economist, he has spent nearly four decades in universities, government and international organisations, in Pakistan and across Britain, Europe and Asia. In 2021 the President of Pakistan awarded him the Tamgha-i-Imtiaz, one of the country’s highest civil honours, for his global research on population ageing and his leadership in higher education.
At KSBL, he leads the School’s mission of Developing Character-Driven Leadership, guided by the vision of its Founder and Chairman, Mr. Hussain Dawood: “Develop your character and good manners to become a true leader.” Having completed the Oxford Leadership and Character Programme in September 2026, he now runs an adapted version of it for KSBL’s faculty and staff, the people who shape students most closely.
Leading Pakistan’s universities
Dr. Zaidi studied mathematics, statistics and economics at Government College Lahore, and 35 years later returned to his alma mater as its Vice Chancellor (2019 to 2023). In those four years, GCU’s score in the HEC’s performance assessment rose from 28.98 to 75.49. The University opened 18 new departments, including AI, Education, Global Studies and Law. It made admissions merit-based through entrance tests and interviews, turned its budget deficit into a surplus, and built an endowment fund that grew to Rs 1.5 billion. He also served as Vice Chancellor of the University of the Punjab, one of the country’s largest universities, and of Baba Guru Nanak University, Nankana Sahib. Before joining KSBL, he was Provost of the University of Management and Technology (UMT), Lahore, where he set up new units for student success and for AI in teaching, and widened UMT’s international partnerships.
A global career
He earned his DPhil in Economics at Oxford under Sir Tony Atkinson, one of the world’s foremost economists of poverty and inequality, after degrees from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. He was a Marie Curie Fellow of the European Commission at Oxford and a researcher at the London School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tilburg University. In 1999 he was selected for a funded place at Harvard University’s pension reform workshop, run with the World Bank Institute for policymakers and experts from around the world. He went on to serve as Economic Advisor in the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions; Senior Economist at the OECD in Paris; Director of Research at the UN-affiliated European Centre in Vienna; Professor of International Social Policy at the University of Southampton; Professor of Social Gerontology at Seoul National University; and Professor of Public Policy at UMT, Lahore.
Research that shapes policy
Dr. Zaidi is widely regarded as an authority on population ageing. From 2012 to 2018 he led the Active Ageing Index for the European Commission and the UN Economic Commission for Europe.
The Index shows how well countries help older people stay active, healthy and independent, and has since been used across Europe and Asia. He built similar measures for the UN in Asia and the Pacific, for HelpAge International and for Age UK, and has advised UNDP, UNFPA, the World Bank and the European Commission.
For his work in Pakistan, he began as a Staff Economist at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, later advised the Federal Bureau of Statistics on measuring poverty, led studies on dementia and on the rights of older people in Pakistan with HelpAge International and the British Council, and wrote the 2025 national report on ageing in Pakistan. In early 2026, he drafted a report for the Punjab Government on a multidimensional child poverty index, with technical guidance from UNICEF.
He has published five books, 52 peer-reviewed journal articles and 25 book chapters, including in volumes from Cambridge and Oxford University Presses, and more than 30 reports for UN agencies, the European Commission and governments. He also writes for the World Economic Forum, The Conversation and Times Higher Education, and regularly for The Express Tribune and The News, where his recent articles argue that Pakistan’s universities should form character by design.
Continuing roles and service
He is an Associate Professorial Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Population Ageing, a member of the World Health Organization’s Technical Advisory Group for the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing, and Global Dean (Innovation) at the Kotler Business School, Canada. He is the Chief Patron of Door of Awareness, a Lahore charity providing free education and vocational training, and on the Executive Council of Alzheimer’s Pakistan.
Dr. Zaidi knows how Pakistan’s universities work, has seen how leading institutions abroad are run, and believes the country’s future leaders must be people of character as well as competence.
Dr. Noman Ahsan
Director General Coordination Sindh Higher Education Commission
Hon’ble Mr. Justice Mohammad Abdur Rahman
Hon’ble Justice High Court of Sindh
Professor Wajidi has been an Acting Vice-Chancellor, University of Karachi. He has held several other positions which include: Dean Faculty of Commerce & Business Administration, Dean Faculty of Arts, Dean Faculty of Education & Chairman Department of Public Administration, at the University of Karachi. He has a teaching experience of 38 years and has produced 30 PhDs and 3 M.Phil.s.
Professor Wajid is a Fellow, Institute of Chartered Managers, Pakistan, Fellow, Royal Society of Medicine, and his name has been inscribed on the Wall of Honour, Royal Society of Medicine, London, UK. He is President, Pakistan Chapter, Association on Employment Principles and Practices (AEPP), New York, US. He is also a Member, Journal of the Council of Employees Responsibilities and Right (CERR), AEPP, New York, US.
Professor Wajidi is, at present, a Professor of Public Administration at the University of Karachi. He specializes in the areas of Human Resource Management, Strategic Management, Personnel Management, Comparative Public Administration, and International HRM.