Sonal Shah is Professor and the founding Executive Director of the Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation at Georgetown University. Shah, an economist and entrepreneur, has spent her career focused on actionable innovation in the public and private sectors. She has worked in government, business, and the nonprofit sectors. Most recently, she was the Deputy Assistant to the President and founding Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation.
She spent seven years at the U.S. Department of Treasury where she was an international economist working on timely development issues, including post-conflict development in Bosnia, the Asian financial crisis, and poverty reduction in Africa. She then went to Goldman Sachs, where she focused on their environmental strategy and implementation. Following this position, she led Google’s global development initiatives for its philanthropy, Google.org. Shah has also worked at the Center for American Progress focusing on trade, outsourcing and post conflict issues, and she developed and managed policy and advocacy programs for the Center for Global Development. Shah is a co-founder of Indicorps, a nonprofit with the goal of building a new generation of socially conscious global leaders.
Shah serves on the Board of Oxfam, GSMA Foundation, and is the Vice Chair of the Board and Chair of the Development Committee at Social Finance.
Shah received a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago and an MA in Economics from Duke University. She is an Aspen Crown Fellow and a Next Generation Fellow.