Imran Rahman

Imran Rahman is the Special Advisor to the Board of Trustees at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), a private non-profit university established in 2004, with a liberal arts philosophy towards higher education and sustainable development as its main guiding principle. He joined ULAB in 2006 and served as the Vice Chancellor, Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean of Business.

His main responsibilities include working with the Vice Chancellor and the Board of Trustees on strategic issues and process improvement. He guides the university’s external collaboration efforts within the country and internationally. As Dean of the School of Business, he is working with the Directors of the MBA, EMBA and BBA Programmes to bring about an entrepreneurship focus in the taught programmes. He guides and oversees the activities of two key research centres, one dealing with sustainable development and the other with entrepreneurship and social research.

On behalf of ULAB, Imran serves as the executive trustee of the Edward M. Kennedy Center for Public Affairs and the Arts, a ULAB project which is fully funded by the US Embassy in Dhaka. He is also a founder director of the Foundation for Learning, Teaching and Research (fLTR) which aims to improve capacity and quality of teaching and research in universities.

Prior to joining ULAB, Imran was a faculty member at the Institute of Business Administration at the University of Dhaka for twenty-two years. In 1994, he joined hands with friends to set up a merchant bank in Dhaka, that he managed for nearly six years. He served as independent director in two public limited finance companies.

Imran studied at the Manchester Business School, University of Dhaka and the London School of Economics.

He has been a singer and guitarist since 1997 with Renaissance, one of the oldest musical bands of Bangladesh.

Imran is married to Humaira, a leading fashion designer of Bangladesh. Between the two of them, they have five children, four of whom are settled in Canada and one in the US.