My journey is rooted in deep gratitude. Life’s constant evolution has been my greatest teacher: inviting reflection, challenging assumptions, and pushing me to pursue “better” with discipline. That commitment to relentless refinement sits at the center of how I think, work, and lead.
Growing up in Pakistan, I was on a foundation of quiet resilience (from my mother) and a growth mindset (from my father). Early on, I became obsessed with how things work, whether it was flying kites with precision, mastering the flute, or exploring computer hardware and electronics.
By my teenage years, I had completed a Diploma in Computer Hardware, which deepened my interest in networking. I studied the MCSE and CCNA/CCNP curricula and learned by doing, configured systems, and got my hands dirty with Cisco switches. Over time, my curiosity expanded beyond technology into journalism and political science. Back then, these fields felt unrelated. In hindsight, they shaped a core part of my identity: the technical literacy to understand machines and the systems thinking to understand society. Along the way, I continued exploring across domains—from music and design to languages—building a broad, interdisciplinary base.
In 2009, I co-founded Omnicore with my dearest friend, Salman Aslam. What began as a digital agency quickly evolved into a vehicle for impact, helping shape digital policy across the UK and Australia. For more than a decade, I lived the practitioner’s path: bootstrapping, scaling, delivering, and developing the reflexes that only come from responsibility and repetition.
To further cement my experience and our clients’ experience, I did an MSc in Digital Marketing Leadership and the publication of my book Digital Passport (Selected Top 100 Digital Marketing Books of All Time) for aspiring digital marketers.
In 2018, despite commercial traction, I reached a moment of reflection: practitioner skill alone was not enough to navigate what I wanted to build next. I needed more rigor and more depth in entrepreneurship, strategy, and decision-making under uncertainty.
I made a decision to “go against the winds.” I paused to upgrade my entire operating system.
That reflection ultimately led to a PhD in Management (researching startup failure and funding success). I also pursued executive education in Strategy (Harvard) and Innovation (Stanford) to strengthen how I connect theory to action. The result was more than a change in expansion of capability, from an execution-driven operator to a more research-backed, systems-oriented builder.
Today, as a Judge of National Competitions at AMA, a Fellow of the RSA, a Fellow and Chartered Marketer at CIM, I operate as a scholar-practitioner: able to zoom in on technical detail while also zooming out to the macro-strategic landscape.
My mission is to bridge the gap between academic insight and commercial pragmatism, helping founders and emerging leaders reduce strategic ambiguity, make defensible decisions, and build institutions that are ethical, resilient, and high-impact.
I believe that to build better companies, we must build better people.
Now, it is my turn to pass that discipline forward.
This note would be incomplete without acknowledging the mentors, teachers, supervisors, friends, family, and inspirational leaders who shaped my thinking and strengthened my courage to take principled risks.
Zahid Qureshi, Salman Aslam, Ustad Hanif Khan, Dr. Abdul Samad Qureshi, Mohammad Asif, Clark Berger, Terry Allan, Russell Williams, Dr. Trevor Morrow, Dr. King Omeihe, Dr. Henry Patrick Winston, and Jim Rohn.