Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) has welcomed Asim Ishaq Khan as Executive Director, Digital Economy. PDA described him as a senior innovation and digital transformation strategist with more than 17 years of experience across telecom infrastructure, policy and regulation, digital public services, and the digital economy. At Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), he managed Internet Protocol (IP) bandwidth and backhaul requirements for major operators and led engagement with the regulator on fibre rollout and right-of-way, work that PDA called the least visible layer of a digital economy, even though every online service depends on it.
At the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KPITB), he co-authored the Digital Policy of the province and co-designed a $5 million digital economy programme supported by The World Bank Group, taking it from evidence gathering through appraisal, approval, and early implementation. During the same years, he set up a network of innovation centres across seven districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a publicly funded business process outsourcing (BPO) facility. From 2020, he led the National Incubation Center, Peshawar (NIC Peshawar) under the Ignite National Technology Fund programme of the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication.
More than 250 startups came through NIC Peshawar, raising over $22 million in investment and creating more than 14,000 jobs. He hosted the KP Investor Summit at the centre and launched Invest Lab, an angel-investor education initiative. As Vice President, Tech Innovation at LMKT, he went on to lead a national portfolio of digital innovation programmes that has mobilised more than $75 million in revenue and investment across more than 900 startups. PDA said that a digital economy grows when founders can find capital and investors can find ventures worth backing, and that building this pipeline has been the work of Asim Ishaq Khan for the past six years.
PDA said that he brings operator, policy, development finance, and venture experience to the authority, and that its digital economy work will draw on all of it. The announcement was made through the official LinkedIn page of the authority, which welcomed him aboard and said that it looks forward to working with him. His appointment places a specialist in telecom infrastructure and startup ecosystems in charge of the digital economy portfolio at PDA, and further details about the priorities of the portfolio are expected to be shared as he begins his work at the authority.
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