Felicia Khan is an international development professional with 25+ years of experience working across sectors with partners to co-create and build assets and opportunities for social impact. She is experienced at facilitating learning, developing tools and resources, and contributing to systems change initiatives in countries in Asia and Africa, as well as the U.S.
Ms. Khan is a Senior Fellow within the Scaling Innovations practice at Results for Development (R4D). She works with the International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA) — a coalition of bilateral, multi-lateral, and philanthropic agencies — to promote innovation as a critical driver to achieving sustainable development. She collaborates with IDIA members and partners to increase the understanding and visibility of innovation, to encourage learning through development of resources and tools, and to scale innovation and transform systems. She has led research and managed IDIA’s working groups focused on innovation, equity and gender equality, promoting technical, institutional and social innovation. More recently, her efforts have included promoting fair funding, more equitable partnerships and localization towards greater agency and systems change. Previously at R4D, Felicia led participatory research on Strengthening Innovation Ecosystems and served as a technical advisor to the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to fortify Research and Innovation Systems (RISA) in six countries in Africa. She also worked in support of the UN/World Bank high-level panel on water to spur innovation in the water sector.
Prior to R4D, Ms. Khan served as a consultant specializing in learning, knowledge management issues and systems change working together with philanthropic, non-profit and academic institutions. Projects ranged from coordinating Living Cities’ initiative to support equitable rebuilding following Hurricane Katrina to launching the Ford Foundation’s GrantCraft initiative on the practice of grant-making. Her interests in innovation and social change grew from community development work in India, the Philippines and elsewhere. She has also collaborated with the Harvard Business School, where she conducted research and co-authored resources for MBA/MPA courses focused on social entrepreneurship and organizational and societal change.
Ms. Khan also served as the director of the U.S. office of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), an international research and training NGO focused on participatory development.
Ms. Khan is also an engineer, having worked for AT&T and Lucent Technologies providing global telecommunications solutions in 40+ countries. Ms. Khan holds an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, an MS in interdisciplinary telecommunications from the University of Colorado and a BS in engineering from the University of New Hampshire. She speaks English and French.
