Dr. Arshad Ahmad, Vice Chancellor of LUMS University in Pakistan, has been selected as this year’s AIB International Educator of the Year by the Academy of International Business (AIB). This distinguished honor will be conferred on Dr. Ahmad on July 7th 2022 in Miami at the Academy of International Business’s annual international conference. We wish to congratulate Dr. Ahmad on his noteworthy achievements and the huge impact he has had in enhancing transdisciplinary, global learning and education among students, scholars, managers, and leaders worldwide. Such efforts and achievements give us all reason for hope.
On behalf of myself, the AIB Fellows, and the award’s nominating committee—Klaus Meyer (Chair), Nancy J. Adler, Jose de la Torre, JT Li, and Kendal Roth—please join us in congratulating Dr. Ahmad on his selection for this well-deserved honor.
Lorraine Eden, Dean, AIB Fellows
About Arshad Ahmad
From succeeding as a finance professor, Dr. Arshad Ahmad went on to use international management approaches to create global, regional, national, and local practices-of-excellence in learning and education that address the world’s grand challenges and most pressing needs. Based both in the economically advantaged West (Canada) and South Asia (Pakistan), Dr. Ahmad has re-conceptualized the meaning of global transdisciplinary learning and is transforming global education through inclusive, world-wide action and learning networks.
Dr. Ahmad’s education (BA Accounting/Finance, MBA Finance/International Business, PhD Education Psychology) provided a foundation for his career in global educational leadership. During his initial three decades as a finance professor in Canada, Arshad questioned the limitations imposed by traditional disciplinary boundaries. He began promoting collaborations among disciplines, schools, and with business. IB provided the impetus to take his initiatives beyond national borders. Dr. Ahmad’s global leadership positions at such global learning organizations as Academics Without Borders, Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and the International Consortium for Educational Development reveals some of the many ways in which his leadership has expanded business thinking regionally, nationally, and globally. His adage Learning Without Borders captures his overall mission and now guides the university he leads.
Several key accomplishments contributed to Dr. Ahmad’s selection as AIB’s 2022 International Educator of the Year: During his term as Vice Chancellor, LUMS became the first business school in Pakistan to achieve AACSB accreditation as well as the country’s only institution to be included in the Times Higher Education‘s rankings of the world’s top 40 universities in 2021. Under his leadership, LUMS has made significant progress in diversity, inclusion, and equity, by instituting a 50% tuition scholarship for all women entering a graduate program. The university’s National Outreach Programme also earned LUMS the 2021 Global Platinum Award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). These distinctions, along with Dr. Ahmed’s consistent commitment to transdisciplinary global learning and developing institutional initiatives to address South Asia’s grand challenges, are among the many reasons he will be honored at AIB 2022 Miami.
