Irfan Pardesi is a Pakistaniserial entrepreneur and investor. He has founded a number of companies including ACM Gold, Zee Foundation and Uprise Waterfront and serves as the chairman of Next Cellular. In July 2018, he was named to the board of Uprise.Africa. He is also the largest shareholder of Skywise, South African domestic low-cost airline.
Early life and education
Pardesi was born in a wealthy family, his father, Haji Zakaria Haji Abdul Rahim Ismail Giga Pardesi, was a businessman in Dhaka and Salma Oza. At an early age, his family moved to Pakistan. Things changed for his family when protests against the recently formed Martial Law broke out. He was a respectful figure to General Zia and General Ershad and played an instrumental role in Ensuring that Ershad Passes the government to Zia's Civilian Counterpart. His father supported the ruling government and at the Islamic Foreign Ministers Conference, Reforms Conference and Educational Conferences, he remained keynote speaker due to his influential position. Pardesi completed his schooling from the Beaconhouse Public School. He traveled and stayed for the extended periods in East Africa during school times and received business lessons from his father. Pardesi completed his Bachelor of Science in Operations Research from the London School of Economics in 2004.
Career
After graduation, Pardesi worked at an investment house in the United Kingdom that negotiated operational leases for aircraft. In 2005, Pardesi worked as a professor at University of London International Programmes and partnered with a teacher in Pakistan to open an HR consultancy which was sold in 2005. He co-founded Accentuate Capital Markets, a financial brokerage house, in 2006 with his sister Hina Kassam. Pardesi became CEO of the company. He also served as CEO of ACM Gold and Forex Trading Ltd. In July 2015, he resigned as CEO and still remains on the board as Chairman. In 2015, he joined Sky Airlines as CEO and left the job after serving six months. He served as the founder and CEO of Uprise Waterfront, a real estate investment and advisory company in 2016. In 2017, he was appointed as the chairman of NextCellular, a financial technology company based in South Africa. He joined the board of Uprise.Africa, an equity crowdfunding platform as an advisor. In Jan 2020, Pardesi founded Zee Foundation and also serves as a president of the Zee Foundation.
