Our Founder

Alongside his always-positive attitude, it is his ability to inspire as well as to teach that fuels Hafeez Lakhani’s results. Having begun his work in selective admissions in 2000, Hafeez has mastered an approach to working with students in which he infuses powerful elements of motivation into expert one-on-one instruction.

Inspired by a beloved summer job as a camp counselor, Hafeez first became a mentor, then Director, of Youth Together, the largest inner-city high school mentoring program at Yale. A perfect scorer on the SAT and ACT, Hafeez also became an SAT tutor and quickly understood that his students especially propelled toward success when they felt motivated by larger, more personal goals, such as earning a place in an undergraduate community that they’ve long aspired to join. Slowly, by getting to know students beyond the immediate task at hand, Hafeez began to craft his personalized approach to instruction that has become the cornerstone of Lakhani Coaching.

A former non-profit field worker in India and commodities trader on Wall Street, Hafeez spends his time, when he isn’t working with students, writing literary fiction and creative nonfiction. He has been awarded fellowships from Pen Center USA and The Center for Fiction, and his work has twice been lauded as a “Notable Essay” in Best American Essays, alongside publication in The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, and Salt Hill, among other great journals. In 2015, The Huffington Post praised Hafeez as “one of eight fantastic new writers to look out for.”

Hafeez serves on the Board of the Santa Fe Art Institute and is Founder of Lakhani Scholars, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization providing $10,000 scholarships of college admissions coaching to high achieving low income students.