He did not set out to build a career in finance. Like many middle-class Pakistani children of his generation, Amjad Waheed initially wanted to become a doctor. When he did not secure admission to medical school, the setback quietly redirected his path. He enrolled in a commerce degree, a pragmatic decision that would ultimately shape one of the most influential careers in Pakistan’s asset management industry.
That shift became decisive when he moved to the United States to pursue an MBA. During his graduate studies, finance and investments began to stand out, not merely as subjects but as systems that shaped economies and human outcomes. There remained, he recalls with candour, a personal desire to carry the title of “doctor.” If not through medicine, then through scholarship. He went on to complete a doctorate in business with a concentration in investments at Southern Illinois University, USA spending four years immersed in research and teaching.
Academia followed naturally. Throughout his MBA and doctoral years, he taught undergraduate students, and after completing his PhD, he joined Tennessee State University as an assistant professor of finance, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses. By the end of nearly a decade in classrooms, however, Waheed felt he had reached a natural endpoint. The theories were solid, but the pull of real markets, capital allocation and institutional decision-making had grown stronger than academic life.
When he returned to Pakistan, he chose not to pursue a faculty role despite offers from leading institutions including LUMS. Instead, he entered the financial industry directly, assuming a chief executive role at a mutual fund company in Lahore. It was an unconventional entry point. He had not worked his way up from analyst to manager. Pakistan itself was new to him after years abroad, and the operating culture posed its own challenges. Still, the transition proved formative. The experience gave him an early, unfiltered view of leadership, accountability and market realities.
He later moved into brokerage operations as chief operating officer at AMRO Equities, before being appointed head of investments at National Investment Trust, then the largest mutual fund company in Pakistan. The role took him to Karachi and placed him at the centre of Pakistan’s capital markets during a critical period of institutional development.
His career then took a regional turn. Dr. Waheed joined Riyad Bank in Saudi Arabia as a fund manager, overseeing between seven and eight billion dollars in mutual fund assets. At the time, he was among the largest fund managers in the Middle East. The experience broadened his exposure to global capital flows, regulatory environments and investor behaviour across borders.
After five years in Riyadh, he returned to Pakistan to take on what would become his defining role. He was appointed chief executive of NBP Funds, then a newly formed asset management company. Over the next twenty years, Waheed built the firm from the ground up. Today, NBP Funds manages approximately PKR 560 billion across money market, bond, equity, pension and Islamic funds, making it one of Pakistan’s largest and fastest-growing asset managers.
The growth, he notes, came despite deep structural challenges. Pakistan has fewer than one million mutual fund investors in a population exceeding 250 million. By comparison, India has roughly 52 million. Savings rates remain low, financial literacy uneven and distribution costly in a low-fee industry. Mutual funds are still not a household concept in the way banks are. Yet Waheed believes progress, though slow, is real. Digital onboarding has accelerated, retail participation has expanded and awareness is gradually increasing.
Looking ahead, NBP Funds is preparing to move beyond listed equities. The firm has applied to launch infrastructure funds, aiming to channel private capital into sectors such as transport, energy and agriculture. As public development spending declines under fiscal pressure, he sees private investment as essential to sustaining economic growth of the country. Models used in India and China, include infrastructure, private equity and real estate funds that offer alternative investment avenues to investors.
Dr. Waheed’s assessment of Pakistan’s broader economic trajectory is measured but unsparing. In his view, the country’s underperformance relative to peers such as India and Bangladesh stems primarily from two failures: insufficient investment in education and poor population planning. Secondary school enrolment remains far lower than regional comparators, while rapid population growth has diluted gains in productivity and public services. Without sustained investment in human capital, he argues, economic acceleration will remain elusive.
He is equally direct about reform priorities. Fiscal discipline, a smaller state footprint, privatisation of loss-making state-owned enterprises and a reduction in punitive tax rates are, in his view, prerequisites for growth. High taxation on corporates and the salaried class, combined with high utilities prices & inflation, has constrained demand, capital formation and job creation. Since the private sector generates the vast majority of employment, policy must shift decisively in its favour.
Beyond finance, Waheed has pursued a quieter but deeply personal mission. Inspired by the American Civil Liberties Union during his years in the US, he helped establish the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan. The organisation takes constitutional and public interest cases to court, including litigation to enforce the constitutional right to free education for millions of out-of-school children. Environmental and civil rights cases form part of its growing portfolio. Though still young, he hopes the institution will one day play a meaningful role in strengthening civic accountability.
When asked about legacy, Waheed points not to balance sheets alone but to institution-building. Professionally, he takes pride in helping expand retail participation in mutual funds and modernising distribution through digital channels. Personally, he hopes his contribution lies in strengthening awareness of basic human rights, spreading economic & financial literacy, and long-term nation-building priorities.
For a man who never planned to enter finance, Amjad Waheed has spent nearly three decades shaping how capital is pooled, deployed and understood in Pakistan. His career reflects not a straight line but a series of pragmatic decisions, each compounding into influence, scale and institutional depth.
