Noorain Khan

Senior Advisor to the President, Ford Foundation

Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship awarded in 2008 to pursue a JD in Law at Yale University.

Noorain Khan is the child of immigrants from Pakistan.

About Noorain Khan

Noorain Khan is Senior Advisor to the President at the Ford Foundation, where she leads cross-foundation strategic initiatives. She previously oversaw the foundation’s global discretionary grantmaking and served as a key partner on the foundation’s historic $1B social bond offering in 2020 that drove major investments in organizations to combat the crises of COVID-19 and systemic racism. Noorain also launched and led Ford’s work in disability rights, growing it into the largest private funder of disability in the world. She is the subject of a Harvard Law School case study on public sector leadership.

She previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor on the National Economic Council at the White House, as Chief of Staff at Teach For All, and as an attorney at Wachtell Lipton.

In 2023, Noorain was elected Girl Scouts of the USA’s 27th National Board President, making her the chief volunteer of the largest girl-led organization in the world.

Noorain has received the George Parkin Service Award for outstanding contributions to the Rhodes Trust and was honored by Rice University’s Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality with its Distinguished Alumna Award.

She is a graduate of Yale Law School (JD, PD Soros Fellowship), Oxford University (MPhil, Rhodes Scholarship), and Rice University (BA). She is the daughter of immigrants from Pakistan.