Zafar earned a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.S. in Industrial Relations from Iowa State University, and a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT at the University of Poona, India.  He teaches courses in new product development, developing sustainable business models, marketing strategy and management, and advanced consumer insights. He has taught at the MBA level at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, the Czech Management Center in the Czech Republic and at the executive level at Steinbeis University in Germany.  He also leads international study abroad programs for DePaul students to India, Japan and the Middle East.  For his teaching, he has been awarded the Lawrence W Ryan Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award 7 times, the DePaul University Excellence in Teaching Award 2 times, and the Gus Economos Distinguished Graduate Teaching Award 2 times.

Zafar is also the author of business and scholarly articles which have appeared in journals such as Journal of Marketing, California Management Review, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Service Research, and Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. 

Zafar has worked in business-to-business marketing for Thermax Corporation, India.  Zafar is the Principal Consultant at Erudite Consulting, which he founded in 2005.  He has 15+ years of consulting experience, having worked as a consultant to various corporations, including Knowles Electronics, Terumo, Alfa Laval, Skoda, Walgreens, Motorola, Healthpoint, DHL, ISACA, Pohang Iron & Steel Company, Zenith Corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, and the Iowa Department of Transportation.

He is the co-founder of Friends for India’s Development and Assistance (FIDA), a not-for-profit founded to educate tribal children in rural India. He is fluent in English, Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Gujarati. He speaks German at an intermediate level, and reads Arabic at a basic level.