Book this speaker: Zahra Ebrahim

About This Speaker: Zahra Ebrahim

Zahra Ebrahim is the Co-Founder of Monumental. She is an award-winning strategist, educator, and public interest designer. She is known for her innovative, cross-sectoral work and is an established bridge builder across grassroots and institutional spaces.

Over the last twenty years, she has focused on community-led approaches to policy, infrastructure, and service design as well as building teams that can implement bold and innovative initiatives. Prior to Monumental, she built and led Doblin Canada, Deloitte’s Human-Centred Design practice.

In her early career, Zahra led one of Canada’s first social design studios, working with communities to co-design towards better social outcomes, leading some of Canada’s most ambitious participatory infrastructure and policy programs.

Zahra is currently an Urbanist-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, and an Adjunct Professor at the Daniels School of Architecture. She has been recognized as a Next City Vanguard Civic Leader, Ascend Canada’s Mentor of the Year, one of WXN’s Top 100 Women in Canadian Business, and most recently recognized as one of the Urban Land Institute’s WLI Champions.

Zahra is currently a Board member of the Toronto Arts Council, and the Board Chair for Park People. Her work has been featured across international media, and she regularly delivers speaking engagements to audiences across the country. Her forthcoming book, Messy Cities, will be released by Coach House Books in 2025.

Speaking Topics: Zahra Ebrahim

Building Cities for All

How do we build cities that center civility, diversity, and social cohesion when polarization, unprecedented immigration, worsening income and wealth inequality, and religious and racial tensions are fraying our social fabric? In this talk, Zahra combines powerful storytelling together with extensive research to invite audiences to reflect on how we might live together cooperatively in cities that should be places for all to thrive.

On Renewing Civil Discourse

Our ability to have productive civil discourse sits at the center of a healthy democracy. In this talk, Zahra dives deeper into ideas around why it is now so difficult for us to bridge across difference, and how we need to re-learn how to talk to each other. The talk focuses as much on understanding the challenges as outlining possible approaches to how we cultivate the empathy and skills to have healthy dialogue.

Building Inclusive Organizations

In this keynote, Zahra shares stories of 20 years of leading organizations across sectors, and how to build values-led, inclusive teams and organizations. A mix of storytelling and tactics, this thought-provoking session supports anyone looking to build and lead diverse teams.

Human-Centred Design & Innovation

How to bring people into the centre of transformational change

Over the last decade, human-centred design have been central in discussions about innovation and transformational change. The talk will explore how and why more people-centred, participatory methods have become central to the success of institutions and organizations across all sectors.

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