Dr. Ashfaq Ishaq has more than thirty years of experience as entrepreneur, educator, manager, researcher, and civil sector leader. He launched his first business at the age of fifteen, which paved the way for him to self-finance his education in Pakistan and his graduate studies in the United States.  He began his professional career at the World Bank, where he analyzed industry projects, conducted seminal research on entrepreneurship and co-authored Success in Small & Medium Scale Enterprises (Oxford University Press, 1987).  He left the World Bank to join the economics faculty at the George Washington University and was occasional lecturer at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. 

During the 1990s, as CEO of USA International, Inc., Dr. Ishaq developed private energy projects in emerging economies, advised international clients on acquisitions in the U.S. banking sector, conducted an independent assessment of a $1.2 billion World Bank financed private power project, evaluated privatization of Kazakhstan’s largest tire factory, and participated in management buyout of a New York business publication.  He regularly contributed to Institutional Investor and Infrastructure Finance.  In 1994 he was invited to make the first-ever presentation at the World Bank headquarters on Build Own and Operate/Transfer (BOO/BOT) projects.