Hamza Khan

Early life

Born into a rough neighbourhood in Queens, New York City to South Asian immigrant parents, Hamza Khan moved to Canada with his family at an early age. They would settle in Scarborough, Ontario. As he progressed through school, he developed a keen interest in communications and dreamed of one day pursuing the discipline as a career. But having fled poverty back home, his father urged him to become either a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. Overwhelmed by making such a difficult decision, Hamza Khan instead enlisted with the Canadian Armed Forces. After that, a fortuitous internship with Sony Music Entertainment provided him with the clarity he sought, and to this day, he credits his time there with helping him start down the path of what would ultimately become a highly successful, multi-faceted career in communications. 

Before beginning his career in earnest, Hamza Khan earned a post-graduate certificate in business from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management in 2008, and an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Toronto Scarborough in 2010. 

Career

After graduating from the University of Toronto Scarborough, Hamza Khan joined that institution’s Department of Student Affairs. There, he was instrumental in growing the department’s Leadership Development Program, which would quickly become the largest and most dynamic in the country. Khan then moved on to Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), where he helped establish that institution as a national leader in online student engagement within two years. In 2013, Hamza Khan accepted a professorship at Seneca College’s School of Marketing, where he played a vital role in developing Canada’s first social media graduate certificate program. During the same year, he co-founded Splash Effect, a boutique communications agency that served the education, nonprofit, government, and healthcare sectors. 

Drawing from his wealth of experience building and leading teams, Khan delivered his first of two TEDx talks, “Stop Managing, Start Leading” in 2015. The lecture went viral and amassed more than 2 million views. Also in 2015, he co-founded SkillsCamp, a company that offers soft skill training to help individuals and organizations enhance their resilience, leadership, and productivity. In the past, SkillsCamp has worked with notable clients such as L’Oreal, Ubisoft, General Motors, General Electric, and Mercedes-Benz. Hamza Khan remains president of the company.

In 2017, he published his first book, The Burnout Gamble: Achieve More by Beating Burnout and Building Resilience, which became an instant bestseller. Around the same time, Khan was hired as an instructor at Toronto Metropolitan University, teaching courses on professional communication. Not long after, he would take the title of Managing Director, Student Life Network at 55 Rush, Canada’s largest online student resource platform, supporting over 3 million students. 

His second book, Leadership, Reinvented: How to Foster Empathy, Servitude, Diversity, and Innovation in the Workplace was published in 2021, meeting with widespread acclaim in the business world. During the academic year of 2022, Hamza Khan served as the 43rd Ashley Fellowship visiting scholar at Trent University. There, he began his ongoing efforts to explore the connection between leadership and Indigenous concepts of ecological stewardship.

Hamza Khan has been featured in publications such as Inc., VICE, Business Insider, and The Globe and Mail. He has spoken on many prestigious global stages, from the World Youth Forum to TEDx, and is often commissioned by clients such as Microsoft, PepsiCo, LinkedIn, Deloitte, TikTok, as well as hundreds of colleges and universities to consult on matters of communications.

Net Worth

Unknown.