Zahra Ebrahim

Zahra Ebrahim is the co-lead of Doblin’s Canadian practice. Her experience helping large organizations innovate has led her to obsess over process and experience design, and how organizations embody the creative behaviour they seek to infuse into the things they put out to the marketplace. An adaptive mindset, she believes, is the key element to creating institutional innovation that lasts. She cares as much about the mindset of the organization as she does the products and services they innovate.

Before joining Doblin, I founded and led archiTEXT, one of the first design-based innovation studios in Canada—focused exclusively on innovation that drives greater social change. I spent a decade working with Canada’s largest charities, philanthropic organizations and governing bodies to help them understand how to better engage the people they’re trying to serve in the process of creating solutions. I’ve piloted and taught programs at OCAD University, the Museum of Modern Art, and currently teach at the University of Toronto.

When she’s not obsessing over process, she’ll find any excuse to talk about Jane Jacobs and the organization whose board she chairs, Jane’s Walk. You’ll also find her hanging out with my fellow urbanists, working actively to make community-led change happen in the city and pretending that she knows where to find cool music.