Zia Chishti: Biography in Details
Who is Zia Chishti?
Zia Chishti is an American investor and business executive. Zia Chishti is the co-founder and CEO of Afiniti, which employs artificial intelligence to optimize and improve consumer interactions.
Zia Chishti: Bio, Age, Parents, Siblings, Ethnicity, Education
Zia Chishti was born in 1971 in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA. He is 53 years old as of 2024 and has American nationality. Meanwhile, he was born Wilson Lear and is of American-Pakistani ethnicity. His full name is Muhammad Ziaullah Khan Chishti.
His father’s name is George Lear, but his mother’s name is unknown. Meanwhile, his father was an American, and his mother was from Pakistan. Following the death of his father in 1974, he and his mother moved to Lahore, Pakistan.
Education
He attended Lahore American School and graduated. He later relocated to New York City in 1988 to attend Columbia University. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and economics in 1992. He graduated from Stanford University in California with an MBA in 1997.
Zia Chishti: Professional life, Career
After graduating, Zia Chishti began working as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions in New York and London. He also served as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in London.
In 1997, he co-founded Align Technology, a medical device company in Sunnyvale, California, and served as CEO and chairman. In 1998, the FDA granted Align Technology authority to market and promote Invisalign. Align Technology went public on the NASDAQ in January 2001, with a $1 billion valuation. Furthermore, he left Align Technology in 2003, selling his stock in the company.
He then became the founding chairman and CEO of The Resource Group (TRG). TRG’s first acquisition was the Pakistani business of Align Technology in Lahore, which Align had sold in 2001. He floated TRG on the Karachi Stock Exchange in July 2003. By 2005, the company had opened offices in Karachi and Lahore, as well as funded and purchased American contact centers.
Chishti and other former Align Technology employees co-founded Orthoclear, a medical device firm, in 2005. In 2006, the business settled a patent infringement complaint filed by Align, which paid $20 million for Orthoclear’s IP. He eventually shifted his concentration to TRG.
In 2005, he launched Afiniti in Washington, D.C., with TRG owning nearly half of the company’s equity. Chishti, Afiniti’s CEO and chairman, authored the first draft of the company’s software on his dining room table in 2006.
The product leverages artificial intelligence to boost call center productivity. Chishti remained Afiniti’s CEO and chairman of the board, which included directors John W. Snow and José Maria Aznar. By 2017, The Resource Group was an equity vehicle with a number of subsidiaries, notably the offshore corporation TRG International.
Zia Chishti: Net worth, Salary
As of 2024, his net worth is assumed to be approximately $5 million, with his annual salary and income being reviewed.
Zia Chishti Rumors, Controversy
On November 16, 2021, a former Afinit employee, Tatiana Spottiswood, testified before the US House Committee on the Judiciary concerning sexual harassment. According to her, Chishti assaulted and beat her on a business trip to Brazil in 2017.
She further said that Chishti grabbed her buttocks and called her a “bitch” because she refused to grasp his hand. Chishti resigned from Afiniti and TRG on November 28, 2021, following this allegation.
Zia Chishti: Body features, Height, Weight
He is 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) tall and weighs approximately 68 kgs (150 pounds). Furthermore, he has brown eyes and black hair, but his other bodily mesuremnets are unclear.
Social media
Currently, he is not active on any social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.