Chairman and Managing Director with over 18 years of C-Suite experience, offering expertise in leading complex commercial operations within highly competitive environments to achieve revenue targets. Proven record of transforming negative-cash flow organizations into high ROI-producing entities to raise profitability, shareholder value and sustain business performance. Demonstrate proficiencies in building organizations from the ground up, managing multimillion-dollar profits and generating over US$1B in revenues to accomplish strategic objectives. Long-term interests in leading the Board of Directors to define strategic, operational and tactical plans, implement governance frameworks and steer organizational growth.
Chief Business Support Officer
TCS
2023 — Present
TCS is the largest express courier and logistics company in Pakistan, maintaining several thousand locations within Pakistan and worldwide. In addition, TCS also provides visa applications and delivery services for embassies.
- Responsible for the support functions of Human Resource, Administration, and Procurement.
- These functional areas provide required support to various business verticals within the courier express and logistics domains.
Managing Director
Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Trust (PTET)
2014 — 2022
PTET is one of the largest pension funds in Pakistan, managing over 40,000 retired employees of PTCL. It has investments in real estate, bank deposits, and national saving schemes generating enough revenue to sustain itself. The annual pension outlay is more than PKR 12 billion.
- Transformed a fund acquisition agency into a fund-surplus entity by rationalizing investment strategies to generate annualised returns of over 12%.
- Manage and invest a fund of over PKR 135 billion (US$725 million) in national saving schemes, bank/term deposits and stock/real estate investments to maximize returns at minimal risk.
- Managed two-property assets and administered the pension fund operations of 40,000 pensioners of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited.
Chief Business Development Officer and SEVP
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL)
2010 — 2014
PTCL, a subsidiary of e& (Etisalat), is the largest integrated communication technology company of Pakistan. The group comprises of PTCL, Ufone, and U Microfinance Bank. Furthermore, PTCL has recently acquired Telenor’s operations in Pakistan.
- Managed the carrier and wholesale services, international, corporate and enterprise businesses, comprising 30% of the company’s revenue.
- Held memberships and chairmanships of five committees, including the Enterprise Risk Management Marketing Expense Approval, the Capital Projects Approval and Annual Report.
Founding Managing Director — MENA Region
Catalyst Managerial Services
2008 — 2010
Catalyst is a global project development and management services company with a track record over 15 years.
- Accomplished 2x growth in revenues with a positive EBITDA in the second year.
- Defined a strategy to acquire an oil refinery in Africa and presented a business plan to the Board for approval for a Middle Eastern client.
- Liaised with the Head Office in Sydney and remotely managed the Dubai office to acquire customers, govern client accounts, negotiate and market the company’s consultancy services in the MENA region.
Founding Chief Executive Officer
Warid Telecom
2004 — 2007
Warid Telecom was a greenfield telecom network rolled out in Pakistan by the Abu Dhabi Group. In a short span of time, it gained notable ground in the competitive mobile telephony market landscape of the country. As a result, Singapore Telecom acquired a 30% stake in the company, boosting the operational and financial capability of the company.
- Led the largest greenfield roll-out of Abu Dhabi Group’s first telecom venture within 10 months, the 5th entrant in Pakistan’s GSM Market, acquiring Singapore Telecom’s first investment in Pakistan.
- Acquired the first million customers within 80 days of launch through aggressive sales and marketing campaigns.
- Valued at US$2.9B by Goldman Sachs and HSBC investment banks within two years of launching service while achieving positive EBITDA within 17 months of launch.
EVP and Chief Financial Officer
Jazz (formerly Mobilink)
1993 — 2004
Jazz (formerly Mobilink) is Pakistan’s leading mobile operator and digital company. Since inception, more than 25 years ago, Jazz has maintained market leadership. Jazz is also known to provide services such as Jazz Super 4G, Jazz Cash, and Jazz Wi-fi Devices to its consumers.
Joined Mobilink as Financial Controller and moved up the ranks to hold senior-level positions, including Company Secretary, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President.
- Joined Mobilink as Financial Controller and moved up the ranks to hold senior-level positions, including Company Secretary, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President.
- Negotiated and secured over US $550M in investments and loans through national / international financial institutions.
- Revamped the company operations to realize profitability within two years of completing the transformation program.
- Implemented state-of-the-art procurement systems to guide multimillion-dollar monthly purchases, sustaining bad debt levels at 10% to 20% below the industry average.
- Collaborated with McKinsey to supervise a high-calibre team to re-engineer business processes and augment operational efficiency by over 15%.
- Facilitated the company’s launch and grew market share to cover 95% of Pakistan while maintaining the top position in market share and realizing revenues of over US $1B.
Member, Board of Directors
VPL
2015 — Present
VPL Limited was established in 1996 as one of the premium Operating Companies of the distinguished Panasian Group. The company functions today as the market leader in products, services and solutions provided to a diversified set of customers in the Transportation, Construction, Cement, Mining, Oil & Gas and Power segments of Pakistan. Furthermore, VPL Limited’s Principals include world-renowned car manufacturer Volvo, Volvo Penta, UD Trucks, Sandvik, and Onis Visa.
Chairman, Board of Directors
Sarmuz Investments Limited
2018 — Present
Sarmuz Investments Limited is an investment advisory services company in Pakistan. It manages an investment portfolio of individual and corporate clients.
Former Member, Board of Directors and Audit Committee Chair
Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL)
2014 — 2019
OGDCL is the largest oil and gas development company and is the flagship carrier of the E&P sector in Pakistan. OGDCL is focused on intensifying field development activities, completion of ongoing development projects and utilizing the latest production techniques to augment oil and gas production volumes from its owned and operated joint venture fields.
- Chaired the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors to audit the company’s assets of over PKR 590B, sales revenue of PKR 163B, profit of over PKR 60B and EPS of PKR 13.94.
Founding Chairman and Member, Board of Directors
U (Microfinance) Bank Limited
2012 — 2018
U Microfinance Bank Limited (U Bank) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL). The bank has a network of more than 375 branches across 210 cities in Pakistan and offers a wide range of microfinance loans, deposit products, and branchless banking solutions.
- Joined as the Founding Chairman of the microfinance bank in August 2012 and relinquished the Chairman position on rotation in February 2015 to serve as a Board Member.
- Established the bank from the ground up to launch nationwide operations within ten months and injected fresh equity of PKR 1B while increasing operations to over 200 branches.
Hamid Farooq 