Dr. Imran Batada

Dr. Imran Batada is a technology leader, educator and policy voice with 24+ years of experience in organizational strategy, policy development, digital innovation and research. He is the Chief Digital Officer & Founding Director, Center of Information & Technology at IoBM, and President & CEO of the Pakistan Freelancers Association (PAFLA).

Current roles

He joined the Institute of Business Management (IoBM) in 2021 as Chief Technology Officer and today leads its digital transformation as Chief Digital Officer. His team built myIoBM, an in-house enterprise university management system that ran its first live registration for around 6,500 students without downtime, alongside business intelligence dashboards for senior management and a modernised digital infrastructure.

In May 2026 he was appointed President & CEO of PAFLA, the national body for Pakistan’s freelance workforce, where he champions policy, recognition and global opportunities for Pakistani freelancers.

Building IBA’s technology

Before IoBM, Dr. Batada spent many years at IBA Karachi, where he served as CIO & Founding Director of the Center for Information & Communication Technology (CICT) and as a member of IBA’s Executive Committee (2013–2020). He led ERP, cloud and business intelligence programmes and established Pakistan’s first university Tier III data center.

At IBA he also conceived and founded the Sindh Research Incubation Centre (SRIC) with the Government of Sindh, giving technology start-ups mentoring, workspace and government-backed seed funding, and led a capacity-building programme that trained 1,200+ Sindh Secretariat officials in IT, information security and business intelligence.

Skills for a digital Pakistan

Dr. Batada is committed to giving back to society. Under his leadership, 25,000+ students, professionals and officials have been trained for the digital economy. This includes 10,000+ young people under the Government of Sindh’s Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Program (BBSYDP), and a near decade-long partnership with NAVTTC for the Prime Minister’s youth skills programmes — first at IBA and now at IoBM. He personally designs and teaches programmes in AI, Power BI, data analytics, digital marketing and freelancing.

Consulting & international experience

His professional journey took him to the United States, where he worked with market-leading companies. He has since delivered 150+ digital transformation projects and provided consultancy to private and public sector organizations, including the Government of Sindh, and served on the HEC ERP Technical Team guiding ERP adoption across Pakistan’s universities.

Author, speaker & researcher

He is the author of “Digital Pakistan,” a roadmap for government, industry and academia, and hosts the Digital Pakistan podcast produced by IoBM. He has written 100+ newspaper articles on technology and the economy, and is a regular voice on TV, radio and in the press.

A frequent keynote speaker and moderator, he has spoken at ITCN Asia, GITEX Global in Dubai, the Global Digital Forum in Moscow, InfoSec and the Pakistan CIO Summit, among many others. His peer-reviewed research on ERP, e-learning and digital skills has been published in journals and presented in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Paris, Rome and Dublin. He has also taught at several of Pakistan’s leading universities.

Recognition & boards

His work has earned him the World CIO 200 “Legend” award from the Global CIO Forum six times (2020–2025), the Tech Leader Excellence Award at the 2026 World CIO 200 Summit, and the Living Legend Excellence Award (2018). He has served on the boards and committees of FPCCI, P@SHA, PIPFA, ICAP’s Digital Assurance & Accounting Board, the IBA Executive Committee and others, and as a jury member for national technology awards.

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