Farooq Zafar
Non Executive Director
Farooq Zafar is an elected Non-Executive Director of ISE Towers REIT Management Company Limited. In the past, he has been elected thrice to the Board of Directors of the erstwhile Islamabad Stock Exchange, one term as the Vice-President (1995) and two consecutive terms as the company’s Chairman (1998, 1999).
Mr. Zafar holds a Bachelors Degree in Economics from the Punjab University and a Masters Degree in Business Management from the Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines. Mr. Zafar has 15 years of international banking experience, having worked with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International from 1976 to 1991, in Hong Kong, Manila, Bangkok, Grand Cayman, Abu Dhabi and Beijing.
As Vice-President of Islamabad Stock Exchange, in 1995, Mr. Zafar was responsible for ISE being the first Exchange in Pakistan, to commence computerized trading. In 1998 and 1999, as Chairman of ISE, he worked extensively with the SECP, to implement capital market reforms prescribed by the Asian Development Bank. The most important reform was, to restrict the executive powers of the Board of Directors and its Chairman, to policy-making and appoint a non-Member Chief Executive, in order to satisfy the SECP and ADB concerns that the role of the policy-making Board of Directors should not overlap with the role of the executive management of the Exchange.
Mr. Zafar was responsible for having American Management Association’s Pakistan office set-up in Islamabad. American Management Association (AMA) is the largest management training company in the world, headquartered in New York. He served AMA as its Director Finance.
In addition to Pakistan, Mr. Zafar has lived in the United States, Soviet Russia, Hong Kong, Philippines, United Arab Emirates and the Peoples Republic of China. He speaks fluent Russian and has working knowledge of Mandarin, Cantonese and Tagalog.