Ms Farzana Karim-Haji joined the Aga Khan University (AKU) in 2001 to work on strategic planning and development of AKU's emergi​​ng international projects in Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. In 2006, she took on a new and expanded role of establishing and developing AKU's University Partnerships Off​ice, responsible for the management, d​evelopment and strengthening of academic partnerships and collaborations with national and international Universities at AKU and also within the Aga Kh​an Development Network (AKDN). Her portfolio includes harnessing resources, implementing AKU's partnership strategy, and establishing programmes and activities as part of various partnerships, a key one being AKU's flagship International Internship Programme that br​ings interns from various partner institutions to AKU and AKDN campuses and sites. ​

Before joining AKU, Ms Haji worked at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), based in New York, ​as a policy specialist on international development issues, focused on poverty alleviation and gender development supporting UNDP offices in 166 countries. In addition, she has consulted for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in the area of human rights and gender development. She received her BA (Honors) in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley, and her MSc in International Development from the London​ School of Economics and Political Science. She also completed a Post Graduate degree in Islamic Studies and the Humanities from the Institute of Ismaili Studies.​