The Asia Foundation

Expertise: Economics and development in Pakistan; budgeting and fiscal decentralization; governance reforms; corporate governance; and economic policies.

Shahnawaz Mahmood is a program officer with The Asia Foundation in Pakistan. In this capacity he is responsible for the implementation of the Asian Development Bank Regional Technical Assistance Project on Pro-poor Budgeting in Pakistan, developing and implementing economic growth and governance programming, carrying-out research, and identifying opportunities for programming in economic policies.

Mr. Mahmood joined the Foundation in December 2005 from the Canadian High Commission, Islamabad where he served as a development economist with Canadian International Development Agency, Pakistan office. His responsibilities included negotiating and designing a monitoring structure for one of the largest Canadian debt swaps (debt conversion for development) for Pakistan, planning and implementing programs in economic and social development and governance, analyzing the direction of public expenditure and budgetary processes, and preparing economic updates. As a member of the team working on debt swap, he was awarded the CIDA President’s Award of Excellence. Previously, he served as a research officer with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, where he developed and implemented the Code of Corporate Governance. Mr. Mahmood has also worked as a financial analyst with the state-owned telecom company where he was involved in economic and financial evaluation of projects and research on privatization and competition. He has also presented papers on institutional shareholders and corporate governance.

Education: M.Sc. in finance and economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, M.Sc. in economics from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.