Former finance minister, Hafeez Shaikh, is one of six persons remaining on the board of directors of the Afiniti group, whose founder Muhammad Ziaullah Khan Chishti was ousted as CEO and Director over sexual assault charges.
While the list doesn’t sport any new names as the fallout from scrutiny should reflect, it has come to our attention that Pakistan’s ex-Finance Minister, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, was already a Board of Directors (BOD) member at Afiniti before Chishti’s fall from grace.
Chishti spent years putting Afiniti together, assembling a stellar team of advisers that included three former chiefs of state, including the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and former US Military Commander, Admiral Mike Mullen. Other members include Spain’s sixth President, Jose Maria Aznar, and the 73rd US Treasury Secretary, John Snow.
Following the latest developments, several individuals from the top management at Afiniti have abandoned ship to steer clear of the fallout. The few big names that left the company also included the former U.K. Prime Minister, David Cameron, who resigned from the board last week, claiming that when he joined the company, he was unaware of the sexual claims against Chishti.
Other high-profile departures included the former Premier of Bermuda, Dame Jennifer Smith. However, an international daily later revealed that she quit her role on the board of directors of Afiniti about five months ago. She explained that said she resigned from the post in June due to personal reasons.
Chishti, who previously ran two billion-dollar companies before being ousted, invented the Invisalign dental brace and launched a $47 billion braces business.
He was born in 1971 to a Pakistani mother and an American father in Maine, United States. He and his mother went to Lahore after his father died in 1974. He returned to the United States after graduating from the Lahore American School, earning a bachelor’s in computer science and economics from Columbia University in New York and an MBA from Stanford.
Chishti’s rapid descent began on November 16, when a former employee of one of his companies, Afiniti, testified before the House Judiciary Committee, alleging that Chishti sexually and physically attacked her shortly after she joined the company.
Source: Pro Pakistani