Dr Ziyaad is Associate Professor, Lead Researcher (Shariah) for the Centre of Excellence in Social Finance, and Head of Online Programs at INCEIF University. He is the former Associate Dean and Director of Executive Education and of E-learning at the same university. Dr Ziyaad has advised financial institutions and regulators in Islamic finance, regulation, social finance, fintech and sustainability for almost 25 years. His work spans over 20 countries, with more than 12,000 participants attending his training programs on various aspects of Islamic finance. Dr Ziyaad has led numerous consulting projects on policy and strategy for large financial institutions and governmental organisations in the UK, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Pakistan in Islamic banking and takaful, sustainability, sukuk, fintech and social finance advancement. He also served as consultant to the World Bank for sustainable development of Islamic finance in South-East Asia. Dr Ziyaad is also Adjunct Assoc Professor at the Asia School of Business in collaboration with MIT in the US. He served as lead consultant on several sustainability projects for financial institutions in Malaysia, providing social impact and ESG assessments and strategies for value-based intermediation.
Dr Ziyaad is Chairman and member of several Shariah boards internationally, including EduPro in the UK, HSBC Amanah and Munich Re in Malaysia, Tajbank, FBN Quest and One17 Capital in Nigeria, Ayady Takaful and BML Islamic in the Maldives and iConsult Africa in South Africa amongst several others. He holds a Masters and PhD in Islamic Finance from INCEIF in Malaysia, an MBA from South Africa, a BA (Hons) in Business (Finance) from the UK, and certification in the Islamic sciences from South Africa and Jordan. He lectures in Islamic Jurisprudence, Law of Contract, Sustainability and Social Finance, with over 100 publications in academic and professional output. His research areas are in social finance and fintech, sustainability, Islamic jurisprudence and development policy.