Kamal Ahmad is the Founder of the Asian University for Women. He also serves as the President & CEO of the Asian University for Women Support Foundation based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and in that capacity spearheads a global effort to mobilize resources for the University.
Growing up as a teenager in Bangladesh, he founded at age 14 a series of highly successful internationally-funded alternative schools for underprivileged children. As a freshman at Harvard College, he also founded and ran the Overseas Development Network – a national network of 70 campus student groups dedicated to engagement in and promotion of grassroots international development.
He served on the staff of the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation and UNICEF prior to entering law school. While practicing law with the New York law firm of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson (1996-2000), he also conceived and co-directed the World Bank/UNESCO Task Force on Higher Education & Society (www.tfhe.net). He has also practiced in London with the US law firm of Mayer Brown from 2001-2003. His law practice focused on corporate mergers & acquisitions.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of BRAC USA. He also served as a jury member for the Cartier Award for Women’s Entrepreneurship.
He is a recipient of a number of awards including United Nations Gold Peace Medal & Citation Scroll, given by the Paul G. Hoffman Awards Fund for "outstandingly significant work in national and international development;" Time magazine College Achievement Award, which cited him as "one of 20 most outstanding undergraduates in the nation;" Global Leader for Tomorrow Award from the World Economic Forum; and the John Phillips Award from his alma mater the Phillips Exeter Academy.
He holds a B.A. from Harvard College and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. He is admitted to practice law in the State of New York.
Speeches/Talks:
Kamal Ahmad proposes the creation of AUW in a speech at the United Nations
Kamal Ahmad's World Bank speech
Kamal Ahmad on the Harvard Crimson: "From Bangladesh to Boston" (March 11, 1987)
Kamal Ahmad's remarks upon receiving the John Phillips Award from Exeter (Exeter website)
