Najma Pirzada has over twenty years of experience working in international organizations from managing a policy consulting group to working in economic advisory and financial institutions. She has worked in New York, London and in several cities in Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad). As part of her diverse work practice she has worked with government regulatory authorities, donor agencies, non-governmental organizations, research organizations and think tanks. She has two Masters degrees, Masters in Economics (with Distinction) from University of London and a Masters in International Affairs (with focus on Economic Policy) from SIPA, Columbia University, New York. Her undergraduate degree was in Economics from the London School of Economics.
She is currently Managing Editor and CEO of Global Village Space Publications Pvt. Ltd. Global Village Space is an online web portal and magazine company that covers national and international news. Whilst managing her consultancy, Governance & Policy Advisors, she has worked on a variety of issues ranging from regional peace building through trade and tourism, conflict resolution through to educational curricula reform.
During her work in Global markets/Treasury in private sector banks (Lehman Brothers & Standard Chartered Bank), she worked closely with governments, Sovereign Wealth Funds, institutional clients (pension funds/asset managers) as well as corporates. At both banks she led teams that marketed global market and electronic transaction products to clients; to provide them business planning solutions and comprehensive hedging tools to reduce their exposures to underlying non-business related/external challenges. Coordinated with various stakeholders including trading and research clients in particular, to find ways to improve their market positioning, through specific structuring of derivative products for them. This included coverage for interest, foreign exchange and commodity exposures. She has organized and presented at workshops for corporates to understand mechanics of hedging tools and their use in their businesses as well as importance of corporate governance in their operations.
Her first job was as an economic consultant in a U.S. economic consulting firm, National Economic Research Associates (NERA); it is reputed for producing high quality analysis to assist clients and regulatory authorities. She worked at NERA both in London and New York, working in close coordination with clients, legal experts and regulators (Mergers and Monopoly Commission in Europe and Federal Trade Commission and Dept. of Justice in the US). Worked on a range of sectors; from assessing intellectual property damages, anti-competitive effects of mergers as well as privatization/reform of electricity networks for UK and France (late 90’s UK, France were undertaking reforms of grids), price-cap regulation, and regulation of energy networks with long lived assets as well as working on other pricing issues related to energy companies.
She has a mix of international and local country practice both in consulting, advisory and in the financial sector. She has worked and interacted with senior stakeholders (both from the private and public sector), written and edited reports along with conducting presentations and workshops. She has many years of experience in advisory work, dissemination of research and using it for outreach. She brings senior management capability in being able to identify strategic issues and take responsibility to drive the strategy forward through collaboration of all stakeholders.
She was a trustee on the Indus Heritage Trust, an economic livelihood project for women artisans. She is member of Track II Dialogues working on Afghanistan/Pakistan and India/Pakistan. She has published extensively in national and international publications on regional, gender, social and governance related issues in Pakistan and the regional countries. She appears on national TV programs. She is a director on the Bestway Cement board and was a director on board of the Lahore Stock Exchange.