Imran Malik Awan

Imran Malik Awan, a multicultural and multilingual interfaith leader, strongly believes in the value of putting our faiths in action to bring people together through community service. Seeing service and care for humanity at the core of all belief systems, he has worked for the past twenty-seven years to bring people together in positive ways. Imran translates “thinking globally” into “acting locally” by nurturing a sense of cohesion and collective vision among various communities in order to improve local and regional services and build successful programs.

Imran currently serves as the appointed commissioner of the Columbus City's Community Relations Commission (CRC). In the past he has served on the Columbus Mayors’ Faith Leaders Action Group (FLAG). In Dublin he is the chair of the Community Inclusion Advisory Committee (CIAC) and has previously served on the Dublin Police Department's Chief Justin Paez’s Advisory Board. Beside these appointments, Imran has served and led a plethora of non-profit organizations of Central Ohio and beyond. 

Imran has been an Advisory Faith Leader to the Community Resiliency Initiative of the Divided Community Project, a collaboration between Columbus Bar Association's alumni and the academic alumni of OSU’s Moritz College of Law. He is also one of the few prominent faith leaders who serves as the advisory BoT to the Columbus city's very own - the Washington Gladden Social Justice Park of America , the first of its kind in the USA.  Imran is the past chair of the American Islamic Waqf's Board of Directors and past President of the Executive Committee at Noor Islamic Cultural Center (NICC),where he has led the Outreach, Interfaith and Media Relations departments in those respective roles. He is currently also serving as the President of the first NICC satellite campus. He is the founding member of the Safe Alliance of Interfaith Leaders (SAIL) of Northwest Columbus; the founder of Abraham’s Tent, a central Ohio interfaith service organization; and also founding member of the Columbus Faith Coalition's prayer team against domestic violence, bullying, and human trafficking; He's an active board member of the leadership team of the Veterans Interfaith Bridge (VIB) of Ohio; and has also served as the chair of the Social Responsibility Committee of the Hilliard YMCA’s Board of Directors.

 In all these roles he has worked across Central Ohio’s increasingly diverse and rich cultural spectrums to find opportunities to build bridges and relationships through conversation, engagement, and broad-based participation.

Imran’s dedication to community service is widely recognized and respected. He received the 2023 Michael A. Meyer Upstander Award for Spirituality, given by Cincinnati’s Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center for his interfaith and bridge building work. In 2022 he received the Social Justice Living Faith Award from the Spiritually Network of Ohio. Imran was a 2019 finalist for the Every Day Hero Award from the Columbus Dispatch. In 2016 earned the Community Service Leadership Award from the Asian American Commerce Group (AACG) of Ohio. In 2015 his tireless work earned him a Jefferson Award for Interfaith and Outreach efforts in Central Ohio; the same year the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) recognized Imran with a Community Service Award for collaborative communal efforts resulting in faith-in-action service opportunities involving diverse interfaith and cultural groups in Ohio and beyond.

Born in Pakistan and raised in Bahrain, Imran grew up witnessing his parents living and breathing the essence of a saying of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) — that the best human being is the one who is beneficial to others. Imran came to the United States in 1996 as an international student at Wright State University in Dayton. He graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering and went on to earn a Master’s degree in Management and Leadership from Antioch University in Yellow Springs. In addition to his community service, Imran works in the Telecom and Information Technology industry focusing on program, product, and project management areas. He is married to Atifa Malik, and they have three children: Hussnain, Raiyaan-Ali, and Soha Dua’a.