Get Updates!
Membership
Khurrum Wahid is a founding member and current National Chairperson of Emgage Action and Emgage Political Action Committee (PAC). He was the National Chairperson of Emgage Foundation from its inception. Khurrum is a partner at Wahid Vizcaino LLP. He has over 100 jury trials in a wide range of federal and state matters in civil, administrative, and criminal fields. He was recognized by New Times Magazine as lawyer of the year in 2007, and by Florida Trend Magazine’s Legal Elite in the area of criminal law since 2011. His practice focuses on white collar crime, complex fraud matters, homicides, and national security cases. Before entering private practice, Khurrum served several years as a Senior Trial Attorney at the Neighborhood Defender Service (NDS) of Harlem. Prior to working at NDS, Khurrum gained extensive trial experience as an Assistant Public Defender in Miami, Florida. Khurrum received his B.A. from the University of Toronto and his J.D. from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California. Khurrum is admitted to practice law in Florida, New York, and various federal Courts. Khurrum has been appointed by the Florida Supreme Court to their Standing Committee on Fairness and Diversity since 2015. He was also a founding member of the Florida Bar’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion which was formed in 2010. In 2017, he was awarded the Henry Latimer Award by the Florida Bar for his work towards diversity and inclusion.
Saman Qadeer Ahmad is a corporate attorney and community activist who is committed to ensuring the representation of minorities and marginalized communities within the political process. She began her career in government service by working for the U.S. Congress and the United States Trade Representative. After serving in the Obama Administration, Saman went on to work for Coca-Cola’s bottling operations in Pakistan where her work focused on Foreign Direct Investments, Government Affairs, and Corporate Social Responsibility. After moving back to the United States, Saman began her own law practice that focuses on Business, Politics, and Philanthropy. Currently, she serves on the Maryland Democratic Party, AAPI Leadership Diversity Council; the Board of Directors for Interfaith Works; and on the Board of the Montgomery County Muslim Council. Saman is a graduate of the Howard University School of Law and currently lives in Maryland with her husband and two young children.
Afsheen Shamsi, President of the Princeton Community Democratic Organization, Co-Chair of the South Asian American Caucus, and Mercer County Director of the Muslim Caucus for the NJ Democratic State Committee, is a proud Pakistani American who migrated to the United States in the late 1990s. She is elected as Committeewoman to the Princeton Municipal Democratic Committee and Mercer County Democratic Committee. During the 2020 election cycle, Afsheen co-chaired NJ Muslims for Biden (NJM4B) and formed a very diverse leadership team. NJM4B hosted roundtables, town halls, fundraised, and led phone banking efforts for the Biden campaign. Afsheen was also very involved with Muslims for Biden, Muslim Women for Biden, and the Pakistani American Initiative at the AAPI Victory Fund, and worked to engage Muslim and Pakistani communities in support of the Biden campaign.
She was elected to the Board of Education for Princeton Public Schools where she was an advocate for equity and worked to address bullying issues in the district. She was also appointed to the Princeton Human Services Commission and later to the Princeton Civil Rights Commission (CRC) where she worked to empower community members and create a more inclusive Princeton. She also recently served on an ad hoc committee of the Princeton Civil Rights Commission to develop a Racial Equity Impact Assessment Toolkit to address institutional and structural racism at the municipal level in Princeton. Afsheen has advocated for the rights of minority communities including on issues around biased-based bullying and for stronger protections for children in schools with the NJ State Legislature. She currently serves on the board of the ACLU-NJ and during the Trump era, Afsheen drafted a resolution with help from the ACLU-NJ and Make the Road NJ calling on our elected officials at every level to reunify immigrant families and to build a more compassionate and humane immigration system – the resolution was passed by several NJ towns and cities. Afsheen holds an M.S. in Strategic Communications from Columbia University and a B.A. in International Studies from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Imad currently serves as an Advisor and Consultant for multiple tech companies around Austin. He also serves as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence and Mentor for Capital Factory and a Venture Partner for NextGen Venture Partners. From 2013 to 2016, Imad was the Vice President of Business Development at The Zebra, where he oversaw half of the company’s business operations and helped grow the company from a pre-revenue seed-stage venture to an 8-figure revenue company that secured a $17MM Series A round. Prior to The Zebra, Imad was the Vice President of Sales at CreditCards.com, the credit card subsidiary of Bankrate (NYSE: RATE). Overseeing traffic monetization efforts, client relationships, sales, and various strategic initiatives, Imad patented a new financial advertising process and helped double the company’s revenue to just under $200MM. Prior to joining CreditCards.com in 2008, Imad held various engineering and management positions at Intel Corporation. Imad earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Parvez Ahmed is Professor of Finance and the Director for Diversity and Inclusion at the Coggin College of Business, University of North Florida (UNF). In 2017-18, he served as Director of Graduate Programs at UNF’s Coggin College of Business. He was also the founding director at UNF’s Center for Sustainable Business Practices. In 2009, he was named a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. Prior to joining UNF, he taught at Penn State University (PSU) in Harrisburg and University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte where he also served as the founding Faculty Advisor for the Student Managed Investment Fund. At PSU, he was also the Associate Director of the Center for Economic Development. His research work has appeared in several major finance journals such as the Journal of Wealth Management, Journal of Portfolio Management, Financial Management, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Investing, and Financial Review. He coauthored a book titled, “Mutual Funds – Fifty Years of Research Findings.” He also published in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law.
Mr. Habib Nasibdar is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mindcubed. An avid technology enthusiast, Mr. Nasibdar began his career as a software engineer, writing C++ code for stock trading platforms. Throughout his career, Mr. Nasibdar has been privileged to deploy and lead the deployment of numerous complex, enterprise-wide systems.
Mr. Nasibdar is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and holds a Master’s degree from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He also earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Mumbai in India. Mr. Nasibdar is a member of the board for the Virginia Emgage chapter, where he consistently contributes to public policy discussions for the betterment and advancement of all Virginians. Mr. Nasibdar currently resides in Arlington, Virginia, and enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter.
Dr. Asif Ilyas is a surgeon and medical school professor in the Philadelphia area. He has been involved in various philanthropic, civic, and social initiatives focusing on advancing engagement and empowerment of the underserved and underrepresented. In addition to serving on the Emgage national board, Dr. Ilyas also serves as Chair of the Emgage Pennsylvania committee. Besides his professional and social activism pursuits, Dr. Ilyas is married and a father of three teenagers, and is an avid Philadelphia sports fan.
Abdalmajid Katranji is active with several local and national community service organizations. For over 30 years, he has been active in serving the Muslim American community. He currently serves on the Boards of Impression 5 Children’s Museum, Carefree Medical and Dental, which provides medical care to underserved populations, the Ingham Regional Refugee Council, which provides social services to refugee populations, Syrian American Council, and Atlantic Humanitarian Relief. He has traveled the globe providing surgical services for humanitarian missions, and is also active in several initiatives promoting interfaith dialogue and community-based action. He is an experienced public speaker and has been interviewed and reported on by several media outlets such as CBS, US Arab Radio and Television, Deutsche Welle, and BBC World Service. He has had the honor of presenting at several conferences including at the United Nations, United States Institute for Peace, the European Union, Muslim Mental Health Conference, and the Global Conference on Muslim Studies sponsored by Michigan State University. He is the chairperson of Hama Foundation, Katranji Family Foundation, and The Syria Institute.
Lama Alzuhd is an Emgage National C4 board member, and serves as the Vice Chair of the Emgage Michigan Committee. She is a Palestinian-American community organizer, who has worked on Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for MI Governor, several local campaigns, and the Michigan Democratic Party’s coordinated One Campaign. By training and at her day job, Lama is a polymer chemist whose work focuses on upcycling plastic waste and researching sustainable alternatives for chemical applications. Lama holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Michigan.
Nazar is a Principal Investor in the energy and real estate markets. Over the past 20 years, Nazar has led investments in developing and acquiring over $2 billion of energy and real estate assets in North America, Europe, and Asia. Nazar is on the boards of Emgage Action, Islamic Learning Center of NYC, and the Zakat Fund of NYC. Nazar graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Finance and a B.A. in International Relations.
