Who is Dilawar Syed? Biden’s nominee for Small Business Administration
Washington: President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced his intent to nominate Dilawar Syed to serve as Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Dilawar Syed is President and CEO at Lumiata, an AI for healthcare company focused on reducing healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes. Previously, Syed was President at Freshworks where he helped scale the software company’s products to thousands of small and medium businesses. Syed has driven civic efforts at the federal, state, and local level focusing on economic growth and entrepreneurship.
As the founding Chair of California Entrepreneurship Task Force with the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, Dilawar drives inclusive entrepreneurship bridging coastal regions with the state’s rural heartland. He served on President Obama’s White House Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) and chaired the White House Initiative on AAPIs’ Economic Growth Committee.
In that role, Syed led the administration’s engagement with small businesses across the U.S. after the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Syed also served as a liaison with the Small Business Administration and the Department of Commerce on federal initiatives such as the President’s Export Council. Syed holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and earned a B.A. in Economics and Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin. Syed immigrated to the United States from Pakistan as a freshman student to attend The College of Wooster in Ohio.