–
July 21, 2022
Mr. Dilawar Syed
Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs
U.S. Department of State
Serving in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, Special Representative Dilawar Syed leads efforts to support the export activities of U.S. companies through commercial advocacy and to create a level playing field for U.S. companies overseas. Most recently, Mr. Syed was CEO at Lumiata, a healthcare AI company. Previously, he was President at Freshworks where he helped scale the software company’s products to thousands of small and medium businesses. Earlier in his career, Syed was an executive at Yahoo! platforms and data division. Mr. Syed has driven civic efforts at the federal and state level in addition to his global work in business and entrepreneurship. In the Obama Administration, he played an active role in promoting the State Department’s Global Entrepreneurship Program, as well as President Obama’s White House Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) and the White House Initiative on AAPIs’ Economic Growth Committee. He 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. Mr. Syed holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor’s in economics and computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin.