I govern what was sold, what gets delivered, and what gets paid.
Those three sit in different rooms, and the gap between them is where the margin goes missing.
I came to America on a debate scholarship, which is a fair clue to how I am wired. I have always wanted the real argument, the kind that keeps its context and can still move, not a single issue ripped out and argued in a vacuum.
LinkedIn has the work, the titles, the wins, and I am proud of them. It is corporate by design, and it leaves most of me out. This is where the rest of me lives, the thoughts I would rather talk through than sit on.
I was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Pakistan. I got hooked on economics and finance in my A-level classes there, and I have chased that thread ever since. I have been in the US for more than twenty years now, a Pakistani-American with a master's in finance, working in technology.
Home is the counterweight to all of it. I am a father to two boys, toddlers eighteen months apart, which is exactly as much chaos as it sounds. My wife is a commercial real estate attorney, and she is exceptional at it. She keeps me and the boys in check, the harder job by far. Then there is Tsar, our Goldendoodle, almost nine and the apple of my eye. I am a sucker for animals, all of them, and I will speak up for them wherever I can, bees included.
Outside the house, sport runs through most of my life. Football is my first love, soccer to most people here, and I have backed Chelsea since the Zola days, long before the money arrived. The Bulls are my Chicago team, and Jordan is the greatest there has ever been. I take the record over the feeling every time: six Finals, six rings, not one loss when it counted. Longer careers and more appearances do not move me, the numbers settle it.
Watching is one thing, doing is another. In my final year of college I walked on to the football team as a place kicker, well down the depth chart but dressed for every home game, and I would do it again tomorrow. My coach had 1440, the number of minutes in a day, printed on the back of our training shirts, and even now I catch myself counting them. I still lift the way I did back then, no time for CrossFit or whatever the fad is that month, though these days the test is less about plates and reps than whether I can still chase the boys down and haul them off for a bath. Tech and finance keep my head running. Family grounds me and reminds me what the work is for. Lifting, more than any of it, is what keeps me sane.
1440.
Clothes are a weakness, suits above all. If I could do anything else with my life, I would go to Italy and learn to cut a bespoke suit with the Zegna family. What I respect is the discipline and the heritage. They control every step, from shearing the wool to the final stitch, nothing crafted to chase a fad. It is the one piece of clothing I can wear to a meeting or an event and fall asleep in, completely comfortable.
Travel began as a way to eat my way through places I had never been. These days it is more about the boys. I want them to see how other people live, to take in the beauty of different countries and cultures, and of course the food, so they grow up valuing what they have rather than coveting what they do not. I am no fan of flying, but for that I will get on any plane.
Culture matters to me, and so does keeping it open to people who would otherwise miss it. I am a sustaining member of Ravinia's Associates Board.
These are the organisations that matter to me. If you are willing and able, I would encourage you to support them too, with time, money, or both.
I have worked the commercial side of enterprise technology from three seats: a bank, a cloud company, an IT-services firm. Across all three, the same thing was true: money moves faster than any one function can govern it, and the gap is where it leaks. I find it, untangle it, and build the discipline that keeps it from coming back.