Profile
Naeem Sarfraz is a former Naval officer, retired ship-owner, businessman and philanthropist.
Navy
He joined the Pakistan Navy in 1959, where he served for 15 years. During his naval career, he had a variety of operational roles, including command of three warships and as Staff Officer to the Fleet Commander. Mr. Sarfraz participated in both the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan wars. He is a graduate of the Royal Naval College Dartmouth, and as a cadet, was part of the Royal Navy’s aid to civil power operations in British Guyana. He specialized in Navigation and Tactics at the Royal Navy School of Navigation, HMS Dryad.
Commercial
After resigning from the navy in 1974, Mr. Sarfraz served as captain of several merchant ships. Eventually, he set up his own ship-owning business, based in New York, owning and operating a fleet of ships worldwide, which he ran for 16 years. He returned home to Pakistan in the early 90’s, where he invested in some of the country’s pioneer ventures in oil & gas exploration, oilfield services, aviation, logistics and defense. Currently, he chairs the family office, which has investments in agriculture and natural resources.
Philanthropy
Mr. Sarfraz is an active philanthropist in Pakistan. He established the Fazaldad Human Rights Institute, which he chairs, through which he has provided human rights education to tens of thousands of children, school teachers, police officers, and judges, in over 150 towns across Pakistan, particularly in its rural areas. Mr. Sarfraz also founded the Pakistan Optimist Sailing Association, and established over a dozen children’s sailing clubs across the country. He has written extensively in national newspapers, and spoken at numerous international conferences on security issues, as well as issues related to human rights.
Public Services
Mr. Sarfraz has served on a number of government task forces and committees over the past 20 years. Most recently, he was appointed Chairman of the government’s Task Force on the Maritime Industry to help revamp Pakistan’s ports and shipping.
He is also the driving force behind a major national initiative to utilize Pakistan’s inland waterways for transportation, where he is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Government of Punjab’s Inland Water Transport Development Company.
He is also a Research Fellow at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.