Leena El-Ali

Leena El-Ali is a strategic thinker, social entrepreneur, and international affairs and development professional based in Washington, DC. For more than sixteen years she has worked with a number of international and local non-profit organizations across South and South-East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa in several areas, including: conflict mitigation, governance and peace-building; Islam and democracy, human rights and women’s rights; sustainable development and planning; and impact investing.

From 2005 to 2012 she was also the editor-in-chief and publisher of the Common Ground News Service, commissioning constructive op-eds for Muslim-Western understanding that spanned the spectrum of cultural, historical, religious, political, contemporary and socioeconomic topics, distributing them in six languages worldwide. She has published several of her own articles and essays, appeared on radio and TV talk-shows, and addressed diverse audiences globally on cross-cultural and interfaith dynamics in peace-building.

A former investment manager with a successful career in The City of London for over a decade, El-Ali is a Lebanese-British-American citizen who was educated primarily in Beirut as well as in England. She speaks Arabic, English, French and Spanish.