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Safi Qureshey
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Safi Qureshey, information technology (IT) business leader and founder of AST Research Inc., a Fortune 500 company, said one of his first recommendations to the newly-anointed Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, was to cut down the list of appointments he has to make.
In an interview with News India-Times, Qureshey, who is of Pakistani origin and has headed The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in the past, was chosen to be part of the Governor’s Transition Committee to recruit talent for the new administration of California, said the world may yet be surprised by the performance of the ‘Terminator’ as a politician. “As I looked at the positions, there are thousands of them, one of my recommendations to him was to cut out some of the positions, because some of the commissions meet just once a year. My suggestion is under consideration,” Qureshey said.
The new Governor formed his transition team with a view to recruit the best talent available, regardless of political ideology or ethnicity, Qureshey emphasized. “You look at the people on the team ----- it is diversified ----- from Liberal Democrats to Conservatives. And what he has asked us to do is recommend the best people. And I’m getting the word out to the South Asian community. If anybody has an interest to check out the site and don’t think of it as full-time. I have said it can be part time or become a board member. There are committees ranging from acupuncture to transport,” Qureshey noted. He said many South Asians had filled up the forms on the site and then sent him a clip on themselves so that he could recommend them.
His views on the Gov. Schwarzenegger, Qureshey said, had been colored by the movies. “I have had time to go back and study his background now. Over the last 15 years, he has done different things, including getting a business degree from the University of Wisconsin, and working on after-school programs for youth. So his interest in some inner-city areas are not known to others,” Qureshey said.
“Some, who know him better, say he is a very targeted person. He came with $20 to this country. And Hollywood laughed at him in the beginning, including his accent. So I am very hopeful he may surprise people,” Qureshey maintained. “On fiscal issues he will be conservative, but on immigrants, he will be moderate on social issues,” he added.
Qureshey, who just returned from a business tour to the Middle East and Pakistan, is currently with Skyline Ventures Inc., another of his investments. Also, the IT businessman is not new to movies and filmmaking, though of a different genre from that of the Governor. Based in Southern California and having built AST Research, a Fortune 500 public company, Safi has served in the past in former President Bill Clinton’s Export Advisory Council from 1995 to 1999, and traveled with three secretaries of commerce to China, India, Indonesia and Thailand.
Safi has been appointed as Honorary Investment Counselor on the Board of Investment of the Government of Pakistan. He told NIT he had talked to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf by telephone last week when he was in Karachi.
