Ikram Sehgal

Ikram Sehgal, the first Pakistani POW to escape from India in 1971, was given battlefield promotion to the rank of Major on December 13, 1971, while commanding a rifle company in the Thar Desert. An expert on Pakistan-Bangladesh relations, he is the author of the slogan ‘Two Countries, one Nation’ and the advocate of Greater Bangladesh in the form of ‘Association of Eastern States of South Asia’ (AESSA) concept for the last 30 years. He is a regular speaker at various defence institutions and international think tanks worldwide. As Chairman, Ikram Sehgal oversees two major private security companies in the Pathfinder Group’s Security Services Division (SSD) Security & Management Services (Pvt) Ltd and Wackenhut Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd as well as leading IT firms in the Financial Services and Technology Division (FSTD). Among them Virtual Remittance Gateway (VRG), recognized by the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) ‘Edison Alliance’, ranked third globally for ‘digital financial inclusion’ with more than 13.5 million Asaan Mobile Accounts (AMA) presently in Pakistan. For more than 20 years, Ikram Sehgal has hosted the Pakistan Breakfast at the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos for Heads of State and other prominent figures. Formerly Chairman of the Karachi Council of Foreign Affairs, he is now its Patron-in-Chief KCFR. He serves on WEF’s Board of ‘Partnering Against Corruption Initiative’ (PACI) and was part of its Global Agenda Council (GAC) for Counterterrorism. He has been Co-Chairman of the Pakistan Committee of the ‘Swiss Asian Chamber of Commerce’, Geneva, and now SwissCham ASIA as well as Director of the former EastWest Institute USA for over 20 years. He is on the Executive Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE) and Vice Chairman of the Board of Management (BOM) Quaid-i-Azam House Museum. He served on the Board of Directors of Bank Alfalah for 16 years and was elected Chairman of K-Electric in January 2019. He is also a Director at the Business Advisory Board (BAB) of International Organization for Migration (IOM), Geneva for a dozen years. Ikram Sehgal regularly contributes weekly articles on the OP-ED page for The Nation, Nawa-i-Waqt, The News, and Daily Jang and also contributed frequently to Daily Times, Express Tribune, Daily Express, and others. For some time, he was the anchor of TOUGHTALK on ARY TV and till recently he frequently appeared as a ‘Defence and Security Analyst’.