Rashid was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He has a post graduate degree in Economics and has completed a Certificate of Micro Finance, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Rashid has been employed in financial services for over 20 years including the banking, consulting, regulation and NPO industries. For the past five years Rashid has operated as an independent consultant, working on a number of credit market-related assignments in South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Cambodia, Nepal, Ghana and Jordan. His work in Kenya through FSDK primarily centred on the Association of Kenya Credit Providers (AKCP), an association that seeks voluntary credit data submission between bank and non-bank credit providers. Rashid produced, inter alia, a business plan and operations manual for the AKCP.