Entrepreneuring Pakistan: 27 stories of struggle, failure and success (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781986809993)

Azhar Rizvi Author, Serial Entrepreneur, Consultant, trainer and coach, Azhar Rizvi has over 30 years experience of working in a very diverse environment and organizations. He started his career with IT Sector Leading Firm NCR and then over 12 years he served various multi-nationals NCR, AT&T and Unisys. He has served in various capacities starting from sales executive to Director Marketing. During his career he was responsible for handling major Accounts he successfully managed large sales, marketing teams. In 1999 he joined the entrepreneurial world and launched two key IT firm which grew to over 1500 strong workforce with largest BPO Services serving major banks like HBL, UBL, Emirates Bank with Multimillion dollar operations. However, in 2007 he realized the ecosystem was not conducive for the startup in the country and he embarked on a journey and as of today has worked with close to 450+ fast-growth companies and 10,000+ student teams and faculty to develop their business plans and growth strategies and launching successful ventures. In this process He has over a 100 firms have scaled up from a few hundred thousand to multi-million dollars global operations. In the education sector he is playing a key role in cultivating a new environment of promoting entrepreneurship at various universities through several business plan competitions, hackathons, innovation cups, startup weekends and other forums. He is currently working as the CEO of Cambridge Advisors Network. An integral part of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, he has served as Chairman, Standing Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FPCCI). He is also co-founder of MIT-Enterprise Forum of Pakistan, Pakathon Global, OPEN Pakistan amongst others. He is involved in technology projects with the Federal and the Sindh Ministries of IT, the ICT R&D Fund and the Karachi University. He is also author of the book, "Entrepreneuring Pakistan" which carries stories of 27 organizations, social welfare organizations, researchers and students who under his guidance and coaching have broken the barriers and achieved exponantional growth in their respective fields.