Nina Ahmad

Ahmad was born and raised in Bangladesh and lived in the middle of the Bangladesh Liberation War. When she was 21, She moved alone to the US where she received an undergraduate degree in Michigan. She then moved to Philadelphia in 1983 to pursue a PhD in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. She married Ahsan Nasratullah and settled in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, where they raised their 2 daughters.[3]

After stints at Wills Eye Hospital and serving as President of a life sciences company, she became involved in government affairs as the executive vice president of government affairs at JNA Capital, a real estate company. During this time, Ahmad became the first Bangladeshi-American to be appointed to a position in the Obama Administration when President Barack Obama appointed her to the Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in 2014, while also serving on Michael Nutter's commission on Asian American Affairs while he was Mayor of Philadelphia.[4]

Ahmad also had a large role in the governance of the National Organization for Women, becoming the President of the Philadelphia Chapter in 2013, until being appointed to serve in Mayor Jim Kenney's administration as Deputy Mayor of Philadelphia for Public Engagement. She served in that position for a year before resigning to run for Congress. When electoral conditions changed, she instead ran and lost a bid for Lt. Governor, at which time she returned to serving on the National Board for the National Organization for Women before heading the Pennsylvania Chapter as its president.[3]