Noorain Khan

Noorain Khan is a dynamic leader, executive, and philanthropic strategist who brings a powerful blend of acumen and empathy to her work across civil rights, law, policy, women’s leadership, and the arts. Through her work at the Ford Foundation, the White House, and the Girl Scouts of the USA, she has propelled initiatives that expand opportunities, shape culture, and catalyze positive change.

Noorain is Chief Innovation Officer of the Ford Foundation, where she leads Mission-Related Investments, the Office of Strategy and Impact, and Ford Global Fellowships while driving a new innovation agenda to accelerate the foundation’s and the broader social sector’s impact. She returned to Ford after advising private philanthropic clients and serving as a Senior Advisor at the investment firm XN.

Noorain previously spent nearly a decade at the Ford Foundation, where she built and led the first-ever discretionary program team under President Darren Walker. She shaped the foundation’s most ambitious and flexible funding efforts, which included launching Ford’s work in disability rights and growing it into the largest private funder of disability rights in the world. Noorain co-founded and incubated pioneering sector-wide efforts such as the Disability & Philanthropy Forum, the first US philanthropy-serving organization focused on disability rights, and the Disability Inclusion Fund at Borealis Philanthropy, which has moved over $14 million to 72 disabled-led organizations through participatory governance, centering disability leaders as decision makers.

During this time, she also led groundbreaking efforts in culture and narrative change—including the Blueprint for Muslim Inclusion and the acquisition of Amy Sherald’s historic portrait of Breonna Taylor jointly by the Speed Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. She helped spearhead Ford’s historic $1 billion social bond effort during COVID-19, an unprecedented move in philanthropy that exemplified outside-the-box thinking in a moment of crisis. She is the subject of a Harvard Law School case study on public sector leadership.

Noorain credits the Girl Scouts with sparking her interest in social impact during her experience as a troop member in her native Michigan. After being active in the organization for over three decades, she was elected the National President of Girl Scouts of the USA, presiding over 1.8 million members and chairing its National Board of Directors. As the first millennial and first Muslim American to hold the position, Noorain has led historic efforts in strategy, transformation, governance, sustainable revenue, and inclusion and belonging.

She earned a JD from Yale Law School, where she was a PD Soros Fellow, an MPhil in Migration Studies from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a BA from Rice University. Noorain began her career as an attorney in the corporate practice at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. 

Noorain was previously a Senior Policy Advisor on the National Economic Council at the White House. She has served on the boards of Vote.org, the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, Pillars Fund, and the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. She is the recipient of the George Parkin Service Award for outstanding contributions to the Rhodes Trust and was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. 

Her monthly newsletter about purpose-led careers, Mission Critical, reaches over 20,000 people. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Sabeel Rahman and their two children, and co-leads Daisy Troop 2134.