Leadership

Selima Ahmad

Country President, Bangladesh

Selima Ahmad MP, an entrepreneur and business leader, was elected as the Member of Parliament of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in the 11th National Election held in December 2018, since than she has been relentlessly working with dedication for the betterment of people of Cumilla-2 constituency (Homna-Titas).

As the President and Founder of Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI) and Vice Chairperson of Nitol-Niloy Group, Selima Ahmad is the developing world’s personification working for the private sector development for the last 30 years. With her deep understanding of business, she focused on developing entrepreneurial talent, organizing financial and marketing resources to enable women get over hurdles. She founded BWCCI in 2001 to empower businesswomen and developed more than 51,497 women entrepreneurs. Her dynamic advocacy brought two policies for women entrepreneurs that include getting bank loans with low interest and without collateral which helped more than 15,250 women receive bank loans. Her advocacy facilitates $12.5 Million, a separate allocation in the national budget for the women entrepreneurs. Under her leadership 23 projects have been completed to build capacity of Women entrepreneurs. She mentors and promotes entrepreneurs and Women Chambers all over the world with special focus on SAARC countries. She got the “Leadership Champion” for the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) of the World Bank Group for the period from June 2020 to May 2022.

She obtained graduation and Masters in Business Management from the University of Dhaka and did short courses from USA, Japan, Denmark and Canada. She is a fellow of Stanford University, USA.

She is the former Director of Janata Bank Ltd., Sonali Bank Ltd. and Bangladesh Development Bank Ltd. She was a Part time faculty member of Dhaka University and American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB). Her work has been recognized by many awards including Oslo Business for Peace Award 2014. Apart from that she has been awarded with Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Award 2013, Islamic Development Bank Prize 2012, Priyadarshini Award 2012, TIAW World of Difference Award 2010 for her accomplishments.