Our Senior Leadership

An image of Amin Qazi, a co-founder of AQL Labs. A headshot of a man with dark hair, glasses, and a beard wearing a suit and tie, smiling against a plain background.

Amin Qazi

Chief Innovation Officer, co-Founder

Before founding AQL Labs, Amin was a Senior Program Officer for the Postsecondary Success strategy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest global strategic philanthropy. Amin advanced the foundation’s understanding and investment in advanced technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cloud infrastructure, leveraging these innovations to help colleges improve student persistence, student supports, and advising. Before this, Amin led the design and implementation of a next-generation data warehouse at the University of California San Diego. He was the founding CEO of UNIZIN, a consortium of major research universities enrolling millions of students and advancing digital transformation and analytics. Amin is also the inaugural Chief Digital Officer at the University of Maryland Global Campus, and has extensive business strategy consulting experience with Accenture and KPMG. Amin is a prior edtech founder and CEO and has degrees from the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota. Amin is based in Austin.

An image of Rahim S. Rajan, a co-founder of AQL Labs and CEO. A headshot of a man wearing glasses, a white shirt, and a gray blazer, against a dark background.

Rahim S. Rajan

Chief executive officer, Founder

Before founding AQL Labs, Rahim was Deputy Director of Innovation and Technology Enabled Solutions in the Postsecondary Success strategy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest global strategic philanthropy. During his 12-year tenure, he developed, managed, and directed strategy and investments across multiple portfolios, including digital learning, HBCU digital infrastructure, developmental education reform, and student advising and support systems. Rahim’s leadership and investments led to significant advances in innovation, R&D, and evidence-based reforms across higher education, including adaptive learning, scaling developmental education reforms, improving faculty professional development in evidence-based instructional practices like active learning, and building affordable, high-quality, national-scale postsecondary models. Prior to this, Rahim played a crucial role in scaling globally JSTOR, Aluka, and ITHAKA - three mission-driven organizations founded by the Mellon Foundation. Today, these digital platforms serve hundreds of millions of learners and thousands of educational institutions around the globe.

Rahim serves as Vice-Chair on the board of Directors of the Seattle Colleges Foundation, as an independent Director of the venture-backed startup Lumen Learning, Climb Together, and AI Transfer and Articulation Network (ATAIN). Rahim was a finalist judge for the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Future Finder competition in 2023 and is a finalist judge in the learning engineering Tools competition for postsecondary innovations. Rahim completed his postsecondary education at Boston University, the University of Chicago, the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, and the University of Cambridge. Rahim is based in Seattle.

Dr. Garikai Campbell

Entrepreneur in Residence & CEO, Jaali

Dr. Garikai Campbell is CEO of Jaali. Jaali supports higher education institutions by providing high impact AI-enabled solutions that support their mission. Before launching this venture, Campbell served in a number of leadership roles across higher education. As Deputy Director for Strategy, Planning and Management for the Postsecondary Success team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he supported the team’s efforts to strengthen higher education’s return on investment and doing so more equitably. 

After beginning his career as a mathematics faculty member at Swarthmore College, Dr. Campbell earned the Mathematical Association of America's highest teaching award for early-career teachers, the Henry L. Alder Award, before developing new systems for advising and supporting students as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. As Acting Dean of Students, he led the student affairs office through the Great Recession, and as Associate Vice President for Strategic Planning, worked with faculty,  staff, students, alumni, and board leaders to develop a comprehensive strategic plan for Swarthmore. He went on to serve as Provost at Morehouse College, Knox College, and UNC Asheville, where he led efforts to diversify faculty, spearheaded development activities and the implementation of scholarship, academic, and student success programs, and helped guide UNCA through the myriad of COVID challenges.

In addition, Dr. Campbell has played a leadership role in a number of innovative programs designed to engage and retain students underrepresented in STEM disciplines. He worked with the Professional Development Program at the University of California, Berkeley to increase enrollment and improve the success of African American, Latinx, and Native American students in graduate mathematics programs; helped design and administer alternative assessments for the Vanguard Scholarship Program of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME); taught and consulted for the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) Program to strengthen women’s success in graduate mathematics programs and the CalTech Freshman Institute to support underrepresented students transition to CalTech; and supported and advised leadership on diversification efforts at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Senior Advisors to AQL Labs

  • Headshot of a Senior Advisor to AQL Labs. Close-up portrait of an elderly woman with short, curly gray hair, smiling, wearing gold earrings and a white top, with a blurred modern indoor background.

    Dr. Estela Bensimon

    Dean’s Professor Emeritus in Educational Equity and Founder of Center of Urban Education, University of Southern California

  • Headshot of a Senior Advisor to AQL Labs. Portrait of a middle-aged man with a beard and short dark hair, smiling, wearing a dark suit jacket and a light purple shirt, against a plain background.

    Josh Jarrett

    General Manager & SVP for AI Strategy, Wiley and Executive Chair, SkillUp Coalition
    Formerly, McKinsey & Company, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Postsecondary Success, InStride

  • Headshot of a Senior Advisor to AQL Labs. A middle-aged man with a beard and glasses, wearing a dark suit, light blue shirt, and striped tie, smiling at the camera.

    Dr. Vistasp Karbhari

    Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Texas Arlington
    Past President, University of Texas Arlington

  • Headshot of a Senior Advisor to AQL Labs. Professional woman with short hair, wearing a gray blazer and orange blouse, smiling in front of a blurred background.

    Dr. Robin Martin

    CEO of Navigating Courage
    Board Chair, Complete College America
    Formerly Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Postsecondary Success

  • Headshot of a Senior Advisor to AQL Labs. A portrait of an elderly woman with blonde hair, glasses, and pearl earrings, smiling outdoors with green foliage in the background.

    Dr. Barbara Means

    Principal Researcher
    at Digital Promise and
    Founding Director of SRI’s Center for Technology in Learning

  • Headshot of a Senior Advisor to AQL Labs. Portrait of a man with glasses wearing a dark blazer and collared shirt, standing indoors with a blurred background of wooden panels and windows.

    Dr. Serguei Netessine

    Senior Vice Dean for Innovation and Global Initiatives & Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Innovation at The Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania; Scholar at Amazon

  • Headshot of a Senior Advisor to AQL Labs. A middle-aged man with light gray hair, wearing glasses, a dark suit, white shirt, and a patterned yellow tie.

    Lou Pugliese

    Boston Consulting Group
    Founding CEO of Blackboard, Moodlerooms; Former Senior Innovation Fellow at Arizona State University

  • Headshot of a Senior Advisor to AQL Labs. A smiling man with glasses and curly gray hair, wearing a dark suit and a light blue shirt.

    Greg Ratliff

    SVP for Global Advisory, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
    Formerly MacArthur Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Postsecondary Success