Ahmed Fahad is a dynamic product and growth leader who has a successful history of building and scaling consumer products up to hundreds of millions of users. From co-founding some successful startups to innovating FinTech and mobility, he has proved himself to be a transformative figure in the global tech industry. Currently from Singapore, his journey from an indefatigable upbringing in Bangladesh to becoming one of the significant players in the international tech ecosystem is awe inspiring.
Early Life and Education
Though initially born and brought up in Bangladesh, Ahmed Fahad was raised by a single mother. That made him evolve into a very resilient and appreciative person for creating opportunities for others, and these values would eventually articulate his career pursuits.
The effort in academics finally led to the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) at the University of Dhaka, where he graduated direr after studying Finance and Economics. The entry point IBA is known to be very tough: the acceptance rate is only 1.5% at that institution. This makes everything very significant, given that it reflects the students’ excellence as well as determination. Previous schooling for him was done at Scholastica, an English school that the few top tier in Bangladesh has for O and A levels.
Professional Journey
• Pathao: Scaling Up the Top Consumer Tech Platform in Bangladesh
In 2015, Ahmed Fahad joined the Pathao founding team, a company that plans to operate with different permutations of mobility and logistics dynamics in Bangladesh and Nepal. As Senior Vice President and Head of Product, Fahad played a key role in developing the major services of Pathao: ride sharing, courier logistics, food delivery, and digital payments.
The number of users grew from zero to more than 10 million people under his leadership, making Pathao the region’s largest consumer tech platform. Fahad’s product strategy and vision went on to help the company onboard over 300,000 drivers, 30,000 or more merchants, and 10,000+ restaurants across multiple cities.
During his time, Pathao raised more than $50 million in venture capital funding, scaling operations from profits to value beyond $100 million. Not just growing business for Pathao, his work focused on opportunity creation and empowered thousands to earn their livelihoods in Bangladesh and Nepal.
• Dhaka Rides: The Initial Steps of Entrepreneurship
Fahad is the founder of Dhaka Rides, a carpool platform just before Pathao. This budding initiative, however, was soon shut post its pre-seed stage. This experience, however, acted as a major learning curve for Fahad, who now uses these learnings in other ventures.
• Wind: Innovating Cross-Border Payments
Fahad is one of the founding team members who created Wind, a cross-border remittance application using stablecoins for fast and low cost transactions. As Chief Product Officer, Fahad led the development of seamless Web2 like user experience using Web3 technologies.
In 2022, the early stage company garnered $3.8 million in pre-seed financing from Global Founders Capital and Spartan Group. It provides self-custodial wallets, high yielding stablecoin strategies, and access to digital assets for users. Fahad envisions Wind as a means through which lives can be transformed by availing huge financial opportunities motivated by individual experiences.
• Bitsmedia: Driving Growth at Muslim Pro
Currently, Fahad is spearheading growth at Bitsmedia, the creator of Muslim Pro, the most popular Muslim lifestyle app worldwide, with over 170 million downloads globally. Fahad is all about user acquisition and monetization of the app. He also has perspectives on new verticals like travel, wellness, and so on. Recently, the company has completed a significant round of $20 million, thereby placing itself among the heaviest in the tech ecosystem targeting the global Muslim community.
• Venture Leadership: Team Ignite Ventures
Apart from being a part of the operational roles, Fahad also serves as a Principal in Residence at Team Ignite Ventures, at the San Fransisco Bay Area. He has seed-stage investments concentrated on AI, B2B SaaS, and FinTech, and assists startups in going through this complicated phases of their growth and scale.
Freelance and Early Career
Before taking up any leadership roles, Fahad worked as a freelance developer and designer on several projects on platforms like Upwork and Fiverr. Throughout 2013to 2015, he was involved in many projects with the startups in fields like logistics, healthcare, and media. He would take into account his technical competences relevant to web development, graphic designing and digital marketing.
Core Skills and Expertise
• Fahad has engaged in numerous different careers, all of which provide him with an incredibly varied skill set that covers:
• Product Leadership: From Pathao to Wind, Fahad has been exceptional both in product strategy and doing the actual work of scaling products to millions of users.
• FinTech Skills: Work at Wind reveals his talents to blend today’s leading edge blockchain innovations with the age old tenets of traditional finance.
• Growth Strategies: Fahad has been responsible for driving user acquisition, revenue growth, and geographic expansion for Bitsmedia and Pathao.
• Adept in Technology : With excellence in web development, UI/UX design, and agile project management, Fahad bridges the gap between product design and technical implementation.
• Storytelling and Communication: Fahad can inspire and educate through storytelling and communication, elements that are apparent in his YouTube channel and also his podcast which have garnered over 4 million views from around the world.
Impact Beyond Business
Besides his successful career, Fahad genuinely cares for the empowerment of people. The voyage from a very humble beginning has given him an inspiration to make opportunities, especially within underserved places. Pathao has been able to generate livelihoods for thousands of drivers, merchants, and restaurants.
Fahad’s storytelling projects, such as those on YouTube, bring together conversations with professionals or changemakers who share insights and lessons that inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Conclusion
Ahmed Fahad’s career is a perfect example of resilience, innovation, and the drive to create change. Whether it’s creating technology platforms that redefine industries or innovating in decentralized finance or sharing his journey to inspire others, Fahad is everything one can think of regarding an ideal visionary leader. He is a model of how one needs to be as a leader.
Ahmed Fahad’s life story inspires every budding entrepreneur that nothing is impossible with determination and vision. With sky as the ceiling, Ahmed further continues to steer growth at Bitsmedia and break new ground in FinTech and mobility.
As the technology landscape changes rapidly, Fahad finds the best balance between product innovative development and a people-centric program. Thus, his influence will continue with the passage of time until shaping technology and opportunity on a truly global scale.
Here are all social media of Ahmed Fahad
Facebook: 40K followers
YouTube: 62K+ subscribers
