Ameena Saiyid, is the current Managing Director of Oxford University Press in Pakistan. As its head since 1988, she was the first woman to head a multinational company in Pakistan. She built up OUP Pakistan’s publishing programme by recruiting and training editors, designers and illustrators and expanding its operations across Pakistan with an objective to promote Pakistani authors within the country and abroad. She was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for her services to promote Anglo-Pakistan relations, women’s rights, education and intellectual property rights in Pakistan. In 2010, she became the first woman to be elected president of the 150-year-old Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI).
In 2010 she founded and organized the Karachi Literature Festival, the first such literary festival of its kind in Pakistan. She also co-founded the first Islamabad Literature Festival in 2013. Ameena was awarded the French Knighthood, Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, (Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature) by the Government of France in 2013.
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