Ali Ahmad is a Leadership Circle member of the Harvard Kennedy School Dean's Council. With over two decades of global asset management, private equity and cross-border deal structuring and financing, he advises boards of leading institutions and governments on economic policy, intellectual property initiatives, financial markets and sustainable development and foreign policy.
Ali is the Founder of Singapore-based Makara Capital, a global financial services company that was founded in 2005. Makara specializes in fund management, private equity as well as structuring and financing, with a core focus on innovation, infrastructure and energy.
Ali is Principal of the Makara Innovation Fund, one of Asias largest IP and innovation driven private equity funds.
Ali serves on the Board of Directors of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), which is the lead Government agency focused on innovation and tasked with building a vibrant and robust IP-enabled ecosystem for Singapore.
Ali serves on the supervisory board of Austrian Anadi Bank in Vienna. The bank founded in 1896 is at the forefront of the digital revolution, challenging traditional banking models with its unique hybrid bank approach of innovation, efficiently serving both online and offline clients is possible through the bank's multi-channel strategy.
Ali has served as member of the Government of Singapore, Committee on the Future Economy (CFE) set up by the Prime Minster to focus on Innovation. The Sub-Committee was tasked to study and implement the use technology to help create value and to develop economic strategies aimed at advancing Singapore’s position in the future economy.
Ali has served as Strategic and Policy Advisor to the senior leadership of the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) over the last decade. In this role, Ali undertook multiple assignments to build and strengthen Singapore’s connections to foreign governments and other international stakeholders, including working on a number of special projects for the founding Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew.
Ali has previously worked at Morgan Stanley, The World Bank and Goldman Sachs and Co.
Ali holds a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University (Kennedy School), a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Physics from Bowdoin College, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University.