Salman Taseer

Salmaan Taseer
26th Governor of Punjab
Incumbent
Assumed office 15th May, 2008
Preceded by	Lt Gen (R) Khalid Maqbool

Salmaan Taseer (Punjabi, Urdu: سلمان تاثیر) is a Pakistani businessman and politician who is the current Governor of Punjab. He is a former Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) member and has served as a minister in the caretaker cabinet of Prime Minister Muhammad Mian Soomro under Pervez Musharraf. Taseer is also the Chairman and CEO of the First Capital and Worldcall Group. He was appointed to the post of governor on 15 May 2008 in place of outgoing governor Lt Gen (R) Khalid Maqbool. by former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf.

Personal life

In his early years Salmaan grew up amongst a host of intellectual stalwarts of the time who used to frequent his house. Salmaan Taseer’s father Dr. M.D Taseer was a PhD from Cambridge, a renowned poet and member of the Progressive Writers Movement, principal of the prestigious Islamia College in Lahore and a leading literary figure of the city. His uncle Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Pakistan’s legendary post partition poet was instrumental in influencing Salmaan’s political views. He did his O Levels from St. Anthony High School in Lahore.

Dr. M.D. Taseer died in 1950 at the age of 49 when Salmaan was 8 years old. Years of struggle and financial hardship followed. Armed with only a one way ticket Salmaan landed in London aged 17. He worked his way through to complete his education and qualified as a chartered accountant (England and Wales) when he was only 22.

Salmaan Taseer is currently married to Aamna Taseer and the two currently live in Lahore. They have six children Shan, Shehryar, Shahbaz, Sara, Sanam and Shehr Bano. Sara is a jewellery designer, Sanam is an artist, Shan handles some of his father's businesses while Shehryar is COO of Media Times Pvt Ltd, which is owned by his father.

Apart from entrepreneurship and politics, Salmaan’s passions include reading books, music and traveling.

Business career

Salmaan Taseer is credited with nurturing a host of highly successful businesses and is greatly regarded for his business acumen and foresight. Early in his career he successfully set up top chartered accountancy and management consultancy firms; Taseer Hadi Khalid and Company (THK) Pakistan (now KPMG) and KPMG, UAE. He was instrumental in establishing the Middle East operations of KPMG. Diversifying his interests, in 1994 he established First Capital Securities Corporation (FCSC), a full service brokerage house with equity participation by Smith Barney Inc USA and HG Asia Hong Kong. FCSC set the tone for investment banking services in Pakistan and together with leading international investment banks worked on important advisory and corporate finance transactions. Since then he has been actively involved in establishing other companies in the financial sector as well as telecommunications, print, media and real estate/property development sectors. Taseer?s companies have been able to attract foreign investment at times when most were shying away from Pakistan. First Capital Group has had significant investment from major international funds and high net worth individuals from abroad. Financial services companies in the group include a mutual fund, an investment management company, leading brokerage houses in Pakistan and Sri Lanka and an insurance company (joint venture with a South African insurance company and Shaheen Foundation).

Salmaan Taseer founded the Worldcall group with a payphone network in 1995 which has grown exponentially over the years to become a major private sector telecom operator with national and regional footprint. Worldcall was a pioneer in introducing innovative products in the Pakistani market which included supervised payphones, prepaid calling cards, broadband and cable networks as well as wireless local loop services. Worldcall has set trends which the entire industry has followed. It worked with top of the line vendors and brought cutting edge technology for the local consumers. Worldcall has the most diversified telecom deployments in the country and is a market leader. Given the strength and positioning that Worldcall enjoyed, majority stake in the company was acquired by Omantel, Sultanate of Oman?s incumbent operator, in 2008.

Salmaan Taseer started his real estate part of the group with acquisition of Pace department store in the late nineties which was then under huge financial debt. With his business insight and good judgment he was able to turn it around in short time and Pace has since become a household name in the country. With its listing in Pakistan and convertible bond listing in Singapore, Pace brand is recognized not only in Pakistan but by international fund managers as well. Today the group has 6 operational shopping malls in different cities and around eight projects under various phases of development. These include shopping malls, apartments/gated communities, office blocks, hotels and resorts and multi use developments. Pace has partnered with Hyatt Regency to bring this prestigious international chain to Pakistan with the first project under advanced stage of construction in Lahore.

Taseer once again took the lead by introducing the first English news channel in Pakistan Business Plus which was followed by the first exclusive kids channel Wikkid Plus. Salmaan is also the publisher of one of the fastest growing English newspaper, the Daily Times and an Urdu daily by the name of Aajkal.

Salmaan Taseer has authored a number of articles on various subjects including investment and finance. He has participated and spoken at numerous telecommunication and financial services related conferences. He has served on the board of the Export Promotion Bureau of Pakistan and currently is on the board of the Universal Service Fund (USF) Company Limited.

Political career

Salman Taseer started his political career in his student era, as a member of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's PPP in the late 1960s. He was a part of the movement for Zulifkar Bhutto's freedom and opposed his arrest and death sentence. He has also written a political biography of Bhutto titled Bhutto: a political biography (1980).

He was insurrected in the notorious Lahore Fort during the MRD (Movement for Restoration of Democracy) and tortured. He has been arrested many times and charged with terrorism, murder and political violence. In the 1988 general elections, Salmaan became an MPA from Lahore and was made the deputy opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly. In the 1990, 1993 and 1997 general elections, he ran as an MNA but lost. He was one of the trusted aides of Benazir Bhutto. He was also arrested by Mian Nawaz Sharif in 1992 and tortured at the Burki Police Station Jail.

His long and historic struggle for democracy and against dictatorship is part of the history of Pakistan.

== References == Mr. Salmann Taseer is a good and most trusted friend of Mrs. Sonia Manio (Gandhi) now head of Indian National Congress. He helped her during marriage with Rajiv Roberto Gandhi (The than India's PM)and he is helping Sonia till to-day.Her real name is Edvige Antonia Albina Manio and she is not actually from Italy but USSR, her father migrated from former USSR to a small village place call Orbassano near Turin in Italy.