Muhammad Azfar Ahsan, Founder & CEO of Nutshell Group, has been elected as the President of the Marketing Association of Pakistan (MAP), the apex body of marketing in the country. He previously served MAP in various capacities, including his recent role as the Vice President of MAP. Azfar has also served as Minister of State and Chairman, Board of Investment, and Government of Pakistan. He is also the Founder of Corporate Pakistan Group, which represents the elite of Pakistan’s national intelligentsia, including corporate and government leaders, policymakers, academicians, defense personnel, media practitioners, and movers and shakers of civil society.
Other office bearers elected to MAP this year include Saqib Saleem from Arif Habib Investments as Vice President MAP; Jahangir Rasheed from Dalda Foods as Honorary Secretary; and Asim Shafiq from Abbott Laboratories as Honorary Treasurer.
Azfar is a visionary and has brought innovation and growth to all his ventures. He plans to restructure and expand MAP to become a global voice for Pakistan. He hopes to bring his expertise as an influencer and a connector to the marketing landscape, enabling all stakeholders to collaborate for the best global representation of Pakistan.
Commenting on the occasion, Muhammad Azfar Ahsan expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the marketing fraternity for reposing trust in his leadership and allowing him to serve the industry and Pakistan at large.
“My priority is to strengthen and expand the platform of the Association across the country, with the induction of new members and new chapters from the genres of traditional marketing and emerging digital space alike. Being an advocate of diversity, I look forward to more female leadership defining new contours of Marketing,” he said.
As Founder & CEO of Nutshell Group, which is the parent group for Nutshell Communications, Nutshell Conferences, and Nutshell Solutions, he has led and initiated many strategic developments and discussions inside and outside Pakistan. He plans to give the same edge to MAP, by enabling experts to share the best visions for the future.
Azfar is the thought leader behind two of Pakistan’s largest corporate events – LEADERS IN ISLAMABAD BUSINESS SUMMIT (LIIBS) and THE FUTURE SUMMIT (TFS). Through these platforms as well as several other initiatives, he has also hosted hundreds of foreign delegates in Pakistan in the last 2 decades.
Azfar served as the Chairman of MARCON 2016, Pakistan’s flagship marketing event, where he endorsed creativity and innovation as the drivers for business success. He was honoured by the Canada Pakistan Business Council (CPBC) in 2019 and received the “Global Outreach Award” from them. In December 2020, the US State Department featured Azfar in their list of 80 selected alumni of the International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP). These 80 individuals were selected out of 225,000 IVLP alumni worldwide. In May 2022, he received the “Global Visionary Award for Global Connectivity of Businesses and Communities” by the BSV Blockchain Association, further confirming his commitment to the modernization of businesses.
Azfar is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Financial Markets of Pakistan, RYTS Global (Rytsglobal.com), Make-A-Wish Foundation Pakistan, and the Advisory Board of Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital Karachi. He plans to integrate his learnings for the sustained growth of MAP. His mission is to widen MAP’s horizon to include all areas of expertise.
The former Presidents of MAP, S. Masood Hashmi, Talib S. Kamran, Syed Imran Ahmed, Sarmad Ali, and many senior members, shared their felicitations for Azfar on assuming this important role.
