Zainab has 15 years of experience in starting, designing, and managing innovative initiatives in sustainability having managed frontier projects on entrepreneurship, climate, energy and cities with deep dives in the circular economy, mobility, and tourism.

Currently, she is the Regional Innovation Specialist at UNDP Pacific where she provides design, learning and experimentation support to 16 countries. Prior to this role, Zainab was the Head of Experimentation with the Accelerator Lab Pacific – Fiji since Oct 2019 where she led the work on sensemaking, systems thinking, foresight and experimentation.

Zainab joined UNDP from Xynteo where she worked on pilots on circular economy with Unilever and energy transition with Shell. Previously, she was Project Lead – Urban Innovation for the World Resources Institute where she led incubation, acceleration and regulatory sandboxes with government and private sector partners.

Zainab is a national of India and has a master’s degree in social entrepreneurship and a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She is a trained facilitator and coach, loves writing, reading, doing yoga, and taking long walks.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/zainabkakal
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zainabkakal/