The King Husein Global Business & Intercultural Peace India Award in Advocacy goes to Zainab Patel. Zainab Patel is head of inclusion, diversity and equity (IDE) at Pernod Ricard India where she helps deliver on the company’s commitment to creating a culture that enables employees to feel safe, to thrive, and to bring their most authentic selves to work. And for many, that also includes their faith journeys. Her advocacy not only spans a career that has included heading diversity and inclusion at KPMG India, but also working at the United Nations to advance human rights, gender equality, and health in India and across the Asia Pacific Region. She also puts her convictions to practice in her private business venture, Trans Cafe, to help people in that community – who often only find work as badhai dancers, beggars or sex workers – have gainful, safe and meaningful work.
Zainab Patel is transgender and one of the petitioners in the National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India case on transgender rights and in the marriage equality case. She currently works with Pernod Ricard India as the Chief – Inclusion and Diversity; prior to this she worked with KPMG as the Director – Diversity and Inclusion. Zainab holds an MBA in HR and was the National Manager – Health and Human Rights at the UNDP country office in India and was the regional policy analyst on human rights in Asia. Her areas of interest are health and social development issues and has over 20 years of national and international work experience. She also is a social entrepreneur and employs 18 trans and non-binary folks through her two initiatives in Mumbai – The Trans Cafe and The Transformation Salon. Zainab currently serves as the Western India representative in the National Council for Transgender Persons.