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Play video: Islamsha Amlani '11 - Diversity (1:18)

Islamshah Amlani '11
“I don’t know of many universities other than Thunderbird that provide engagement with so many different cultures and countries. The class trip to Geneva is just one example of the hands-on exposure we received.”


Islamshah Amlani '11

An interest in things small led Islamshah Amlani ’11 to career aspirations on a grander scale.

Working in the field of nanotechnology with Motorola in positions ranging from engineer to staff scientist, Amlani has been involved in the evolving field of tiny technology for decades.

“I basically watched projects from the design perspective – what are the deliverables? How is the project linked to the strategic vision of the company? My technological role was never to look at how the products could be marketed or how the final products would encompass those technologies.”

But with his Thunderbird Executive MBA, that could all change. “I always wanted to learn the business aspect,” says the Pakistan native who moved to the United States at age 17, earning bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in the sciences.

His ultimate goal is to work in some capacity for the Aga Khan Development Network, an organization that promotes economic development and focuses on health, education, culture, rural development and institution building in underdeveloped regions of the world. “It could be in a voluntary capacity or it could be in a paid capacity, but whatever I do will require me to manage programs that are spread in different countries, not localized in one.” Aga Khan employs some 60,000 people across the globe.

The quadrilingual Amlani, who speaks Pakistani, Hindi, Urdu and English, is currently working on collaborative technical research with multiple universities, including Arizona State University, Perdue, Stanford and Rice. “When our Phoenix division of Motorola moved to Illinois, I chose to remain here. I was attracted to Thunderbird because of its international flair, and because it was local. I have an 18-month old and a four-year old, so I didn’t want to have to travel from Illinois back to Arizona for school.”

Staying put, he says, allowed him to focus on the completion of his Executive MBA. “Another one of my goals is to transition to less technically dense work and have more business engagement that allows me the opportunity to meet people from different countries.”

Thunderbird’s exposure to diversity, he feels, will help with those aspirations. “I have been a part of culturally and academically diverse groups my whole life – study groups, project groups – but being among my Thunderbird classmates, I felt as though I hadn’t really seen much of the world compared to them. It was very eye-opening.”

Amlani says that his goal was to enroll in a program that was well grounded in international management. “I’m not disappointed,” he says. “This program allowed me to achieve some balance between my career and my family as well.”

The program allowed him to achieve more than that, however. In June 2011 - prior to his December 2011 graduation - Amlani took on the role of Manager of Technology Strategy at Honeywell Aerospace in Phoenix. In this role, he leads a team of experts responsible for strategic planning of the advance technology ($75 million +) and intellectual property portfolio across Honeywell Aerospace. His role also includes driving the alignment of technology roadmaps with Marketing and Product Management roadmaps, competitive intelligence, technology scouting and the R&D investment prioritization process. "I am deeply aware that landing this position was possible because of what I learned at Thunderbird and from each of my cohort peers."