On the nostalgic grounds of their shared alma mater, Wharton, Simi speaks with Dilawar Syed, the Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). A role he was nominated into by President Biden, Administrator Syed was the highest-ranking Muslim official in the U.S. Government at the time of this recording. WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE.

Syed came to the SBA from the State Department where he served as Special Representative for Commercial & Business Affairs. As the State Department’s top commercial diplomat, Deputy Administrator Syed advocated for U.S. companies to compete and win abroad and helped ensure U.S. competitiveness in markets across the globe. 

Before joining the Biden Administration, Syed held the roles of CEO at Lumiata, an AI healthcare company, and President at software company, Freshworks.  Earlier in his career, Syed oversaw business operations for Yahoo!'s platforms and infrastructure and was a product manager at Siebel Systems and SAP. 

His transition to public service is marked by civic efforts at the federal, state, and local levels. He was the founding Chair of the California Entrepreneurship Task Force with the Governor's Office, served on President Obama's White House Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), and chaired the White House Initiative on AAPIs’ Economic Growth Committee. In that role, Syed led the administration’s engagement with small businesses across the U.S. after the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In 2020, Syed was tapped by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo to help lead Silicon Valley’s pandemic recovery as a member of the Silicon Valley Recovery Roundtable. Syed holds an M.B.A. from Wharton and earned a B.A. in Economics and Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.

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