Kiran has always been a bridge. Long before she stepped into a classroom at the Aga Khan University (AKU), she was working in the humanitarian sector, translating the needs of local communities into a language that government officials and CEOs could understand.
Her mission was to ensure that the people most affected by big decisions actually had a voice in making them. However it often felt like an uphill battle. To truly break the glass ceilings in her field, Kiran knew she needed a different kind of armor.
For a woman navigating a male-dominated society, getting the right people to listen can feel like a constant struggle.
“In many of the spaces I have worked in, women remain underrepresented, so claiming space and being able to make your voice heard at the right table is a war in itself,” she says. “My experience at AKU showed me how to break those long-held beliefs.”
Kiran began this transformation as part of the first cohort of AKU’s Women Leadership Academy (WLA). There, she joined a network of professional women from South Asia, East Africa, and Central Asia. The programme gave her the tools to build her decision-making power and confidently claim her seat at the policy table.
Seeking to deepen her understanding of the complex world she worked in, Kiran moved to London for a Master’s degree at AKU’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations (ISMC). Supported by a scholarship, she used this time to explore the intersection of governance, religion and culture – topics that had fascinated her since she was a child in Gilgit, Pakistan.
Living in Europe and visiting museums and historic sites, allowed her to connect her personal heritage with a broader global history. This journey led to a Graduate Traineeship in Nairobi, where she contributed to a multi-country UNICEF project on the green transition and child rights, supporting research that informed published global advocacy reports, including UNICEF’s Our Green Futures and “Why would anyone ask us?”.
Today, she is not longer just a bridge; she is an architect of systems that serve the community.
“It is incredibly liberating to be a woman from Gilgit, sitting at decision-making tables and contributing to policies that respond to what communities actually need.”
