Hilton Humanitarian Prize Juror; Founder, Women for Women International; Co-Founder, Daughters for Earth
People Magazine named her as one of the “25 Women Changing The World” in 2016, Foreign Policy Magazine named her as one of the “100 Leading Global Thinkers,” and Fast Company identified her as one of 100 of “The Most Creative People in Business.”
At the age of 23, Salbi founded Women for Women International, a grassroots humanitarian and development organization dedicated to serving women survivors of wars by offering support, tools, and access to life-changing skills to move from crisis and poverty to stability and economic self-sufficiency. Under her leadership as the organization’s CEO (1993-2011), the organization grew from helping 30 women upon its inception to more than 400,000 women in eight conflict areas. It also distributed more than $100 million in direct aid and microcredit loans that impacted more than 1.7 million family members.
Salbi is also the host and creator of several TV shows including “#MeToo, Now What?” on PBS (2018), “The Zainab Salbi Project,” original series on Huffington Post (2016), “The Nidaa Show” with TLC Arabic where she started with the historic first interview of Oprah Winfrey in the Arab world, and a new original series with Yahoo News! “Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi.”
Salbi is the author of several books including the national bestseller “Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam,” “If You Knew Me You Would Care,” and her latest, “Freedom is an Inside Job.”
Zainab is currently the co-founder of Daughters for Earth, a $100 million fund aimed to mobilize women to actively engage in climate change solutions by leading efforts for land preservations.