Prior to Harvard, he was Senior Research Associate at the
Urban Institute in Washington DC, where he conceived, fund-raised for and led research programs on women’s economic empowerment and growth, the policy implications of forced displacement, and urban resilience building. A former corporate banker at Standard Chartered, he has completed consulting assignments for Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority, International Food Policy Research Institute, the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, US Agency for International Development and the World Bank.