WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has nominated a Pakistani-American, Dilawar Syed for the post of deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) on Friday.
According to a statement issued from the White House, Biden said, “This diverse and accomplished team embodies my core belief that America is strongest when it works with our allies.”
Dilawar immigrated to the US from Pakistan as a freshman student to attend The College of Wooster in Ohio, the White House statement said.
Announcing the development on Twitter, Dilawar said he was deeply humbled and honored on the nomination, which is yet to be confirmed by the US Senate.
Dilawar said, “I will put my heart and soul into helping small businesses everywhere in these challenging times. He said the grit of small businesses made America strong.
I’m deeply humbled & honored by President Biden’s nomination of me to help lead @SBAgov as the Deputy Administrator.
If confirmed by the US Senate, I will put my heart & soul into helping small businesses everywhere in these challenging times.
Their grit makes America strong. pic.twitter.com/625UHEWgIP
— Dilawar Syed (@dilawar) March 3, 2021
Dilawar holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and earned a BA in Economics and Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.
Dilawar currently serves as the president and chief executive officer of Lumiata, an “AI for healthcare company focused on reducing healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes”.
He was previously the president at Freshworks where he worked in scaling the software company’s products to thousands of small and medium-scale businesses, according to the statement.
The White House statement noted that Dilawar had a history of furthering civic efforts at the federal, state, and local level focusing on economic growth and entrepreneurship.
He served on President Obama’s White House Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) and chaired the White House Initiative on AAPIs’ Economic Growth Committee, it added.
In that role, Syed led the administration’s engagement with small businesses across the US after the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
This will not be his first interaction with the SBA as he also previously served as a liaison with the SBA and the Department of Commerce on federal initiatives such as the President’s Export Council, said the statement.
Biden previously inducted Pakistani-American Salman Ahmed into his foreign policy team to serve as director of policy planning at the US State Department. This was the second such induction of a Pakistani American in Biden’s team.
Earlier, the president had also selected a Pakistani-born climate expert, Ali Zaidi, to serve as his Deputy National Climate Adviser in December.
