Rahfin Faruk completed degrees in economics, political science, public policy and religious studies and a mathematics minor at Southern Methodist University, graduating summa cum laude. Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, he was awarded the school’s Most Outstanding Senior Award. Rahfin is also a Harry S. Truman Scholar. Rahfin is the founding CEO of a Dallas microfinance startup, and he has worked at Grameen Bank, the U.S. Department of State, and McKinsey & Company. At SMU, he served as the sole student trustee on the Board of Trustees. Before that, he was the editor in chief of the student newspaper and ran the school’s student policy center. Rahfin was a fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency, and he has published original research on microfinance and migration. He actively publishes in the Dallas Morning News and the Huffington Post. Rahfin currently works as a Consultant at FSG, a nonprofit consultancy. He is also a researcher for a public scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and Rahfin is presenting papers on ‘the emerging migration state’ at the American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association this fall.
He was a 2016-2017 participant in AGI’s “Transatlantic Exchange Program for Young Minorities: Giving Voice to Future Leaders,” sponsored by the Transatlantik-Programm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland aus Mitteln des European Recovery Program (ERP) des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi).
