Much of his career was in the United States where he last served at the University of St. Thomas (in Houston, TX).
He served as the dean of Cameron School of Business at the University of St. Thomas, and also held the Cullen Endowed Chair in Economics.
[3][4] Ashraf has been credited with expanding PhD faculty at Quaid-i-Azam University and increasing emphasis on research, which has led to improvement in QAU's rank in Times Higher Education rankings.
[5] QAU was the only Pakistani institution to be included among Top 500 global universities within Times Higher Education 2016-17 rankings.
He also hired a large number of doctorally qualified faculty at IBA.