The triumph of hope: Syed Babar Ali at 100

At the expense of sounding self-referential, we would like to state the following: there is quite simply no Pakistani business leader other than Syed Babar Ali about whom we at Profit would write a cover story simply because he had reached a milestone birthday.

Syed Babar Ali is important for the following reasons: in a country that lacks institutions, he has built them; in a society that woefully lacks trust, he builds companies that his counterparties and stakeholders tend to trust a great deal; and in a society content with complacency, Syed Babar Ali seeks out innovation.

If Pakistan ever develops a world-class economy, with a highly educated workforce, companies that invest and innovate, and a financial system that banks on ambition, it will in large part be because Syed Babar Ali (and a very small handful of others) dragged the country kicking and screaming in that direction.

He is also important for another reason: as the living memory of Partition and the pre-independence era fades away, he is the last remaining link among major Pakistani business leaders to that era, a symbol of understanding just how far the country has come from its beginnings.

On Monday, June 30, 2026, he will turn 100 years old. We can learn a lot about the story of Pakistan’s economy through the story of his life.

First, for the uninitiated, Syed Babar Ali is the man who, through joint ventures, brought to Pakistan the following list of major global companies: Coca Cola, Nestle, American Express, Hoechst, Alliance Insurance, Mitsubishi Corporation, Bayer, and Tetra-Pak.

But he is best known as the founder of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), the best institution of higher education in Pakistan, bar none.

Of course, he is someone who has made a lot of money, to be sure, but that is secondary as he points out in one of his interviews: “I don’t care if I am the tenth richest man of Pakistan or the hundredth. I want to be known as someone who ran a good business rather than a big business.” He is someone whose eyes are always set on something yet to be gained. 

The roots of such a man lie in the relentlessness of his drive to learn. “My life’s mission is never to be satisfied,” he says at one point. One could, for instance, marvel at the 94-year-old man learning during Covid how to grow paan, learning about plants and trees, watching TED talks, and cooking up new recipes. One cannot but think of Tennyson’s Ulysses, grown old yet determined still to “drink Life to the lees.” Yet no less important to his worldview has been an absolute insistence on integrity and honesty. For someone of his breadth of experience and realised success, his life has been remarkably spotless of any scandals. 

He once said: “Once you give up your inquisitiveness and the desire to learn, you are dead and I don’t want to die before I am dead.” Given the sharpness of his mind even at his age, and the pugnacious willingness to engage in conversations about how things could be improved - the sheer drive to make a difference even towards the fading light of one’s life - one cannot but wonder at the capaciousness and magnanimity of such a mind. 

 Early Life and Early Business

Syed Babar Ali was born in 1926 in a household of enterprising businessmen. His grandfather Syed Wazir Ali had set up shop in Ferozepur in 1875, where his career involved supplying resident British troops with their needs, including food, clothing, and so on, as the need might be. He brought his two sons – Syed Maratib Ali and Syed Ahsan Ali – with him into the business. Yet, unfortunately, on a visit to Lahore in 1900, Syed Wazir Ali passed away, and the sons shifted their headquarters to Lahore.

The sons continued in this line of business, and over time became trusted suppliers to the British Indian Army. They kept winning contracts, not only for Lahore, but for various regiments all across India. The timing here is critical to understand.

In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, the total number of personnel in the British Indian Army were about 250,000, which included non-combatant support staff. Then came the war, and the size of the Army skyrocketed to more than 1.5 million, with more than half being from Punjab. To be an important supplier to the British Indian Army in Lahore suddenly became far more profitable as the sheer size of the force increased six-fold.

Money kept coming, and the brothers made their way up into Lahore’s elite circles, composed primarily of Muslim and Sikh landlords and Hindu businessmen. By the time little Babar was born in Lahore to Syed Maratib Ali, the brothers had established a name for themselves, and regularly rubbed shoulders with the political and cultural elite of Lahore.

It was in this milieu that Syed Babar Ali grew. Under his mother, Mubarik Begum, herself a scion of the Faqir family that had served the Sikh court in the 19th century, he gained appreciation for local languages and literatures, while his father and elder brothers tried to initiate him from a very young age into the worlds they moved in. From age 6, Syed Babar Ali had to sit at the table whenever there was a guest visiting the house. “The boy should not be idle,” his father had reasoned. Whenever the family travelled to Murree in the summers, his father would often take him to the canteen of the British Army contingent stationed there. From an early age, Syed Babar Ali learnt how to deal with people, how to take stock of them, and how to forge and develop relationships. This would be a skill his whole career would depend on.

As he grew up and attended school, first at Sacred Heart, then at Aitchison College, he began to develop a personal vision of how one should live, under the influence especially of his mother. 

Around the time he was at Aitchison, the Second World War broke out, and the interwar army suddenly found itself swelling in size by ten-fold to hit 2.5 million men, the largest volunteer army ever assembled in human history. This, too, was an important commercial opportunity for his family to capitalize on.

He completed his bachelor’s degree from Government College Lahore, and afterwards was sent to the United States to the University of Michigan for higher education in 1947. 

While the young Babar was studying, debating politics, and travelling across the United States, Pakistan achieved independence. Sir Zafrullah Khan, a close friend of the family, was leading the Pakistan declaration at the United Nations in New York, and upon the request of Syed Maratib Ali, Babar was allowed to hang around the Pakistani delegation and attend sessions, sometimes even as the main representative. He was already being brought up to speed to hold his own in such high circles.

Upon his return to Pakistan, he found that his family – since it was one of the few that actually had money – was tasked by the government to assist in helping provide for the people of this newly created state. They were tasked, for instance, with helping with the import of cotton and wheat, and also to set up industry in Pakistan. Prior to the partition, the family already had set up a textile mill (in collaboration with Sir William Roberts) and ghee and soap factories (in collaboration with the Lever Brothers) in Rahim Yar Khan. The government inducted the family into the management of more cotton mills, while they themselves bought a new cotton-seed oil mill in Hyderabad. Syed Babar Ali was thrown into the deep end as soon as he arrived.

And this is where he cut his teeth. Taking up base in Karachi, he was tasked with handling machinery for the textile mill and dispatching it from the Karachi port north to the textile mill in Rahim Yar Khan. At the same time, Syed Babar Ali was charged with frequenting the oil mill at Hyderabad, and trying to support it in any way he could with anything they needed. And as time grew on, he frequently travelled abroad to maintain contact with the agents of the family’s business, collaborate with newer merchants, and to assist with the export of oil cake and cotton to the United Kingdom, Russia, and Egypt, among others.

In the meantime, the family had also set up a joint venture with Ford Motor Company, as their main dealer in Pakistan. Here too was Syed Babar Ali involved, and in 1950 was sent as a representative of Ali Motors to Ford in the United States to try to procure spare parts for military vehicles. This was one of his earliest successes, where he was able to procure the material and learn in the meantime how to do so on the job. The family business kept growing with the establishment of Treet Razor Blade Company (as a joint-venture with the American Safety Razor Corporation of New York) as well as the founding of IGI insurance (in partnership with Alliance Insurance, a UK based company). 

Syed Babar Ali was learning the ropes and already assuming responsibility for key support functions. Yet he still had to make his mark, to do his own thing. And the opportunity for that soon came.

Packages and Other Ventures

A Swedish Packaging Company called Åkerlund & Rausing had repeatedly offered Treet its packaging products, but the offers did not come through because the latter felt that the price was too high. Then, in 1954, Syed Babar Ali was visiting the Scandinavian region, and felt perhaps he should meet with them and posit that rather than buying from them, it might be better to enter into business with them and set up a Pakistani packaging company. The Swedes liked the idea, and helped set the factory up in Lahore, and supplied talent and machinery to boot. 

Perhaps more than the company itself, what had a great impact on the young businessman was the mentorship of Ruben Rausing, the majority owner of Åkerlund & Rausing. As Syed Babar Ali describes, at the time of their meeting he was 28, while Ruben was in his 60s. And it was here that he first saw the gelling together of visionary values and the pragmatic reality of running a business. In fact, Syed Babar Ali later compared him to a father figure. One of Ruben’s pronouncements that he cherished was one that insisted on the absolute centrality of trust and honesty to the practice of business: “The most important thing in running a business is that you have got to trust your people. If you cannot trust them, don’t go into business.” To this, Syed Babar Ali added, “This trust will only come if you have the discipline in your blood and bones that you can’t cheat”.

It is from Rausing that Syed Babar Ali learned the practice of leadership, just as the latter was setting up a business for the first time. Syed Babar Ali fondly recalls an incident where Rausing was planting oak trees and said that since the harvest would take a minimum of 70 years to achieve, “none of my children will benefit from it, but maybe my grandchildren will.” Here Syed Babar Ali developed his belief that a leader was someone who had to look beyond themselves - and also beyond the present - and have their eyes fixed on the goal. The goal was the most important.

As he was running Packages, he also learned how to create a team. “A leader never thinks of himself as a leader. He is one of many. His real success is the people around him doing a better job than he does,” he says at one point. And it was here that at Packages, he started building a culture where teams and individuals were empowered to work together, to do the best job they could, and to contribute to the success of the institution. No one was more important, not even Syed Babar Ali. And the practices at Packages reflected that: employees were sent abroad for training, even to lead newer ventures, and the company continued to work with just about anyone who would - including their customers - to position themselves in a way to stay ahead of the curve. “If the business doesn’t keep growing, it will die. Hameshgi tou sirf khuda ki zaat ko hai. [Immortality belongs only to God].”

As Packages continued to chart new heights, newer business opportunities emerged. The Rausings sold their stake in Åkerlund & Rausing in 1965, and focused their energies on a new company called Tetra Pak, which dealt in liquid packaging. And, again, it was through a joint venture with Syed Babar Ali that they were able to establish in 1984 Tetra Pak Pakistan, a rare joint venture for Tetra Pak. 

Joint ventures with foreign companies have been the main strategy that Syed Babar Ali employed. For instance, let’s take the example of how he brought Nestle into Pakistan. He had started MilkPak as a joint venture with Tetra Pak and Danish Turnkey Dairies. While Tetra Pak would provide packaging for the milk, and Danish Dairies would provide the processing technology, the management of MilkPak was intended to manage the dairy operations. But they soon realised that milk did not in itself offer margins high enough to sustain the operations, and nor were the partners able to support them in what they needed. They started looking into other products such as powdered milk, baby formula, and so on.

As had been their practice they sought a foreign partner, and entered into “serious discussions” with Friesland. Yet one day they heard that a senior executive from Nestle wanted to visit their office in Lahore. The visit went quite well, and both parties recognised the merits of a joint venture within the first half hour. Nestle would obviously bring in the technology, the brand power, and the product, while Syed Babar Ali and company, with their extensive local experience would provide the practical know-how to scale the business.

And this strategy has landed him partnerships with some of the biggest names in the world such as Coca Cola, American Express, Hoechst, Bayer, Sanofi, Tri-Pak Films, etc. One can see why this model would appeal to someone like him. A partnership relies on a shared goal and realisation that the achievement of that goal is in the best interests of both parties. It is also not hard to see how the early grooming that Syed Babar Ali had under the shadow of his father and brothers, where he learnt how to maintain relationships and rely upon the strength of one’s connections has been an integral part of his worldview. It goes back to his no-nonsense, yet morally charged, way of conceiving an enterprise. 

One remarkable thing about his joint ventures is not simply their success, but the sheer number of these successes. For a space such as Pakistan’s, this is striking. And that too speaks to the kind of reputation Syed Babar Ali had built for himself. You would want to enter into a partnership only with someone whom you believe would help you succeed. That global giants thought so of him is a testament to his track record. But, the possibility merely of success is insufficient. One also has to trust in the way the other party runs their business. When he was asked about the reason behind so many successful foreign joint ventures, Syed Babar Ali replied that it was because of the way he approached business: “I treat my partner the way I want him to treat me.” 

This ethos is also reflected in another of his statements that “We have had separations, but never a divorce.” Business is serious business, but even more serious is the relationship between two parties. There is solid pragmatic sense in this; why would you want to leave a bad taste in the mouth? No one benefits from that. And no one recognised this better than the subject of this piece.

Lahore University of Management Sciences

In 1973, something happened. Syed Babar Ali was suggested by a colleague to enrol in the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University. The 13 weeks he spent in that program changed his vision of what he wanted to do in his capacity as a leader. As he mentioned later, “the time there was very rewarding; one got to feel that one knew very little, but that everybody also knew very little.” While at Packages, he had already realised the importance of such training. At the time they used to send around 20 employees abroad for training every 3 months, but the effort was limited mainly to the company.

Things changed when Syed Babar Ali was drafted under Bhutto to lead the National Fertiliser Corporation in 1974. And it was there that he realised how acute the need for a training programme for managers was. The number of well-trained professionals was just not enough to sustain the ambitious programme, and when he returned to the private sector after three and a half years, an idea took hold in him: something modeled on the Harvard Business School needed to be set up in Pakistan.

This soon became an obsession as he went on to discuss the idea with other major businessmen of Pakistan. In a personal capacity, he continued to make many visits to Harvard and finally approached Javed Hamid, a Harvard MBA, who was working at the International Finance Corporation at the time. Syed Babar Ali enlisted his help, as well as the support of several professors in leading American universities, to finetune the ideas the university would be based on, the curriculum that would be taught, as well as the method of pedagogy it would use. He started raising funds and there was no shortage of connections that Syed Babar Ali could approach to contribute to the university. For the charter, he set up a meeting with the then ruler Zia ul Haq, who readily granted the request to set up a Business School that would enable it to grant its own degrees.

This was an opportunity for Syed Babar Ali to make a real contribution to the mould of society by shaping the upcoming generation of leaders. As he explained, “a university is different from a business in that while in the former you are looking at the balance sheet, the profitability, and the product, in the latter you are looking at the next generation. You are working with unknowns here”. Yet here again, this vision of what the university was supposed to achieve was personally influenced by the driven mania of Syed Babar Ali, who took a personal interest in expanding it, attracting world class talent, and shaping its vision for the students who were to graduate its portals.

This was his personal project. He compared himself to a blotting paper, saying that wherever he saw anything on his travels abroad or in the world of business, he would try to bring it back and see if it could be implemented in LUMS. He would come and spar with the faculty and challenge them on whether they were doing the right thing? What could he do to help them succeed better? But what he looked for most of all was a passion in the people who were in charge: “You don’t want to drag them to a meeting and then they come half an hour late! You’ve got to have that fire burning in you: let me go to learn, let me go and see, let me go and smell here - you need that kind of passion!” In fact, it can be argued that a great determinant of LUMS’ success has been the personal involvement and imposing, ambitious vision of Syed Babar Ali.

He himself has been the biggest practitioner of his ideas. As LUMS grew from a business school to a full-fledged university, he would often be seen roaming about the campus, accosting just about anyone and asking them about their experience, just before health stepped in and restricted his mobility. His passion has been almost intimidating; at one point, he said “Mein LUMS ki khatir bheek mangnay ko bhi tayyar hoon. For the sake of LUMS, I am willing even to beg.” He has demanded excellence, even as he has exerted his time and energies into the project. One of his targets, which might bring a smile to some faces, is that he wants a Nobel Laureate from LUMS in the next 50 years. But, the eagle-eyed benefactor is quite serious. 

And this founder’s dream for the graduates of LUMS is manifold, and these visions offer insight into the kind of man he himself is. He wants them to be honest above all. He wants them to be hungry for knowledge at all times, like he himself is. He wants the student to be a lover of the country, but not in a superficial way; rather, he wants there to be a “direct pull of the soil to the individuals’ soul,” and that can only come through the love of the country and the study of “the great thinkers this soil has produced, local music, and culture”. And finally he wants them to give back to LUMS; that is how, in his mind, institutions prosper. 

This is not simply a matter of LUMS, but rather offers a great window into the soul and fire within the grand man of Pakistan. 

A Life Beyond the Circle

Syed Babar Ali, for all his business accomplishments, is greater because of his insistence on giving; it is giving only that assures the future. And this is what has been the mainstay of his life as he has grown older. You and me, our personal arbitrariness is important to be sure; but what’s perhaps more important is the prerogative to give back, to share, and to sacrifice one’s energy for a better world, which one might not get to see themselves, but whose coming on would be assured by one’s drive to make a positive difference in the world.

And this world is something that has been important to Syed Babar Ali. And it is a very particular world. He has been someone who is remarkably cosmopolitan, but who is tied fervently to local roots – though the route he took was circuitous. He remarks how during his time at Aitchison he was taught only the British perspective on Indian history, and how he had to go through a personal journey to become more cognisant of the ‘complex’ he had developed for the British. In that journey, he has had to rely on teachers, one of whom was Victor Kiernan, who he later found out was a card carrying Communist.

His other mainstay has been literature, and this he has his mother to thank for. The only subject that he ever failed, as he recalls, was Urdu in school; embarrassed, he was forced to take classes from a special tutor appointed by his mother, Mubarik Begum, who herself was quite interested in local literature and cultural expression. She counted Allama Iqbal as one of her interlocutors in Lahore, and upon her travels across India with her family, she often visited authors. And under her influence he picked up an interest in the classical poets of the Persian tradition in particular, including Saadi and Rumi, and local Sufi tradition, such as Bulleh Shah and Sultan Bahu, something he has continued to cherish as he settled into advanced age. Even at Packages, he involved his old teachers and friends of the family into this initiative, with the consequence that Packages published multiple editions of the works of many regional poets.

He has been more than a businessman, then, in his capacity as a university founder and even cultural revival in a sense. Then there’s also the fact that there is good, hard sense in what he is talking about. In his autobiography, for instance, he deplores the state of military spending in both India and Pakistan. He says “One F-16 costs as much as a university,” and implores us to imagine “if this could be cut down to half and that money applied to health and education, what progress the two countries could make”. Who could disagree with this? Of course he has achieved so much, but now things have been handed over into newer hands: the businesses, the university, and other non-profit organizations.

Looking back on his career, we can see how Syed Babar Ali has spent his life trying to make things better. Listening to him you get the feeling of someone extremely curious, willing to learn, but also of someone who has a strong ethical sense and insists on following it through to the end. From someone so earnest, someone who recognises the amount of work to be done, someone who walks the talk, one can take advice. One only hopes that many with the same drive, determination, generosity and selflessness such as his rise up from the ranks of the millions whose lives he has so warmly touched.