Atifa Asghar has been named a member of the pitch jury for Panel 2 of the Davos Scaleup Challenge 2027, which covers digital economy, human impact, and consumer innovation. The challenge will be held on October 28, 2026, in Islamabad and is an initiative of the Pathfinder Group and CITADEL. The organizers described her as a senior regional leader, certified board member, strategist, and startup mentor, and said she brings expertise in sales, business-to-business marketing and communications, and public policy advocacy.
The Davos Scaleup Challenge gives promising scaleups a platform to pitch their ventures to experienced leaders. The jury evaluates each company on its innovation, its growth potential, and its prospects for meaningful impact. Scaleups differ from early stage startups in that they already have products, customers, and revenue, so the questions put to them tend to focus on how they will grow, how they will win larger customers, and how they will manage a bigger team and wider market. A juror with a background in sales, marketing, and policy is well placed to test those points.
Panel 2 brings together three themes that cover a wide range of businesses. The digital economy covers companies that build online platforms and services, human impact covers ventures that address social needs, and consumer innovation covers products and services aimed at everyday customers. A juror who has worked in business-to-business sales and in public policy advocacy can judge both the commercial side of a pitch and the broader effect that a company has on its market and community. For founders, feedback from such a juror can show how a company looks to an outsider and which parts of its story need to be sharper before it approaches investors.
The challenge follows an earlier edition run by the same group, whose startup challenge selected seven Pakistani startups to pitch at the Pakistan Pavilion on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos in January 2026. The announcement for the 2027 edition did not list the other jurors, the participating scaleups, or the prizes, so those details are expected to follow. With the event two days away, the naming of Atifa Asghar adds to the jury being assembled for the Islamabad round, which will test scaleups on their innovation, growth, and impact in front of experienced leaders from the business community.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
