Seema serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Knowledge Initiative (GKI), a innovation consultancy that empowers people to transform systems to bring about a more resilient and equitable future. GKI brings together systems practice, human-centered design, collaboration and learning, to help people design better solutions together.

Seema brings more than twenty years of experience in leading innovation teams to achieve transformative social impact. She has worked across sectors and geographies advising public, private, and civic partners on organizational strategy, culture and change management, investments and program design, and collaborative partnerships. She joins GKI from a leadership position at U.S Agency for International Development. In her role as the Chief of Innovative Design in the U.S. Global Development Lab, she worked to foster a culture of innovation in the Agency, acting as an internal skunkworks lab, training for agency staff in innovation skills and mindsets, and advising teams to integrate innovative design principles and practices into a diverse set of development programs--ranging from Wildlife Trafficking to Palm Oil Deforestation to Global Malnutrition. Prior to that position, she worked to design, launch, and mainstream innovative public-private partnerships and launch the Agency's portfolio of challenge funds and incentive prizes channeling more than $250 million in investments into promising social innovations and enterprises, and supporting their path to scale in systems across the globe.

Seema has also served as a Policy Advisor and Public Speaker for the Center for Strategic and International Studies specializing in citizen voice, leadership and
entrepreneurship in postwar environments, most notably in Afghanistan. Her first professional years were spent in investment banking, where she worked with a boutique investment firm in Silicon Valley and on large global transactions with CitiGroup Europe.