About Zia Chishti; A Pakistani Business Magnate in 21st Century

 About Zia Chishti; A Pakistani Business Magnate in 21st Century

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Zia Chishti is a Pakistani American business tycoon and the founder of three-billion-dollar companies – Invisalign, TRG Global, and Afiniti.

Born in 1971 to an American father and a Pakistani mother in Bar Harbor, Maine (the USA), Wilson Lear relocated to Lahore, Pakistan in 1974 when his father passed away. His mother renamed him Muhammad Ziaullah Khan Chishti as she did not want him to stand out or be discriminated against in Lahori society.

Zia Chishti finished his high school education at the Lahore American School and although he wanted to pursue his business goals right after, his mother persuaded him to return to the USA for higher education. He then went on to complete his Bachelor of Arts degree in computer science and economics from Columbia University in 1992 and upon graduation, began his professional journey as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. He worked in both London and New York on mergers and acquisitions before leaving to attend Stanford Business School for an MBA degree which he completed in 1997. Zia has also worked for McKinsey.

In 2001, he was included in the top fifty eligible bachelors list of the United States by People Magazine along with Matt Damon and Tiger Woods. In 2020, he married Sarah Pobereskin. Currently, he mainly operates from Bermuda having previously lived in Washington DC, which had served as the headquarters of his companies.

Zia Chishti is Pakistan’s brand ambassador in the truest sense as he often invites and accompanies many high-level delegations from all around the world for heliskiing trips to the Karakoram mountains. Recently, Princess Beatrice of York, Jose Maria Aznar, the former Prime Minister of Spain, and Matteo Renzi, the former Prime Minister of Italy were among the heliskiing delegation. Mr. Chishti was the recipient of Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 2016 and is also a key investor in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s election campaigns.

While studying for his MBA at Stanford Business School, Zia invented Invisalign – a technology that utilized clear, plastic braces for orthodontic treatment. Subsequently, he co-founded Align Technology in 1997 along with Kelsey Wirth. Within a year, it was not only approved by the Food & Drug Administration but also raised $140 million in venture capital through Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers. This was the same venture capital that invested in Amazon and Google. Since then, Invisalign has served more than 3 million people worldwide and has a market capitalization exceeding twenty-five billion dollars.  After being ousted from the company in 2002, Zia founded Orthoclear in 2005 resulting in numerous legal disputes between Align and Orthoclear. Nevertheless, the former ended up paying the latter around 20 million dollars in settlements. Consequently, Orthoclear halted its operations in the United States.

After his ouster from Align, Zia founded The Resource Group (TRG) in 2002. TRG is an investment holding company focused on business process outsourcing (BPO). As Align Technology had abandoned its Pakistani offices and laid off employees after the 9/11 attacks, Zia purchased these offices and re-hired workers for TRG call centers. In mid-2003, the company was listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) and two years later, it not only operated from the cities of Lahore and Karachi but also acquired numerous American call centers. Currently, it is in 7 countries employing 20,000 individuals with approximately two billion dollars in assets.

Afiniti is an artificial intelligence company founded by Zia Chishti in 2005. It pairs agents in call centers with customers by identifying behavioral patterns. Chishti had written the first draft of Afiniti’s software in 2006 and approximately 10 years later, the company had a two-billion-dollar valuation and was in eighteen countries with a thousand workers employed.

Much of Zia’s success is due to his innovative ideas, his risk-taking attitude, foresight, and determination. All these qualities become evident when one analyzes his professional journey, his failures, and the strong comebacks he made. Invisalign was a game-changer in the field of Orthodontics and although it faced resistance from Orthodontists at first, it quickly became popular with consumers and is now a required certification at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine for graduating Orthodontists. After being ousted from the company, Zia continued to persevere. He bought the offices that were abandoned by Align Technology in Pakistan and rehired the laid-off workers to establish his second billion-dollar company, TRG. Ultimately, he received twenty million dollars in compensation from Align Technologies. This is a perfect example of his perseverance and determination.

Since its inception, Afiniti has been an innovative revolution. It is the first AI system to employ behavioral patterns to pair call center agents with consumers. This has been instrumental in putting Afiniti at the forefront of AI-based technologies.

There is only so much that one can suggest and recommend to an intelligent and highly successful business tycoon such as Zia Chishti. He has not only put Pakistan on the map regarding innovation and multi-billion-dollar companies but has also acted as a brand ambassador by arranging high-level delegation visits to the country for heliskiing and tourism purposes. In the truest sense of the word, Zia Chishti has proven himself to be a Pakistani patriot despite being part of American heritage.

Afiniti has recently diversified into the healthcare sector, and it will be interesting to see how effective the implementation of artificial intelligence will be in this sector. Healthcare organizations rely on positive patient experiences and patient satisfaction to drive long-term revenues and long-term growth. By utilizing AI systems to analyze behavioral patterns and match healthcare professionals with patients, patient experiences and satisfaction can be drastically improved. Not only this, but AI can also aid clinicians in the diagnosis and effective treatment planning. It would be imperative to note, however, that artificial intelligence systems have their own drawbacks including increased unemployment, and data confidentiality and privacy issues. It can be recommended to put systems in place that would ensure that there is minimal loss of jobs as the healthcare sector mainly relies on interpersonal interactions. Moreover, patient privacy and data confidentiality must be ensured for the successful acceptance of AI and Afiniti.

Keywords: Afiniti, TRG Global, Invisalign, Align Technology, Zia Chishti, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Business process outsourcing (BPO), Orthoclear, Kelsey Wirth, Princess Beatrice of York, Matteo Renzi, Jose Maria Aznar, Pakistan Stock Exchange, Amazon, Google, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Imran Khan, Sitara -e -Imtiaz, Columbia University, Stanford Business School, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey.

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