About

Malini is an award-winning civil society leader with more than three decades of experience in the sustainability, climate change and human rights fields. Her life in the global environmental movement, across public, private and voluntary sectors, has been documented by the British Library as part of its life stories Oral History project.

Malini serves as CEO of GLOBE Legislators, also known as GLOBE International, and holds several other positions as part of a portfolio of leadership roles in the climate, governance and sustainability sectors at local, regional and international level.

She is presently honored to curate the first-ever Baku Climate Action Week (30 September-4 October 2024), under the auspices of the COP29 High Level Champion and COP29 Presidency. This builds on the success of London Climate Action Week, where she serves as Ambassador, leading on whole of society mobilisation since its inception in 2019. A vision and a model for city-based climate action that is spreading around the world.

Malini has led the parliamentary organisation, GLOBE Legislators since November 2014 as chief executive of the international secretariat. At GLOBE she has developed new initiatives, including treaty coherence & convergence; legislative-judiciary dialogues on climate change; democracy & governance; gender equality; citizenship education and youth engagement, including the Student-MP Climate Surgeries. Under her leadership, GLOBE has become the Focal Point for the Parliamentary Group at the UN Convention on Climate Change, and a key partner for the other Rio Conventions on biodiversity, desertification and the UN’s Sendai Framework on disaster risk reduction.

At present, Malini chairs the Institute of European Environmental Policy UK, rebuilding the organisation and its mission post-Brexit, and also serves on the European board of IEEP.

She is a Commissioner to the Mayor of London on sustainable development, a role she has held since 2017, and chairs the LSDC’s work on Just Transition for London.

Malini is also the founder of the global Teach A Girl to Swim campaign, swimming 500+ km across the world to raise awareness of the hidden global epidemic of drowning.

INTERNATIONAL CAREER

Over a distinguished international career, Malini has founded an award-winning Indian NGO, Centre for Social Markets (CSM), working on corporate responsibility and climate change; led international campaigns for Oxfam and Friends of the Earth International, including at the UN Beijing Women’s Conference (1995), UNFCCC Kyoto Climate Conference (1997) and OECD Multilateral Agreement on Investment. As Director of the People’s Decade for Human Rights Education she led work on the World Trade Organisation and at the infamous ‘Battle of Seattle‘ (1999).

In the mid-2000s, Malini served in the UK government, where she led on international sustainable development and established pioneering inter-governmental partnerships with China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. She has worked with the United Nations system for 25+ years, including serving as adviser to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on UN-civil society reform; campaigning at the Commission on Sustainable Development; co-authoring the UN’s influential Human Development Reports; and advising bodies including UNICEF and UNCTAD. Presently she serves as an adviser to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), and lectures at the UN’s Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development.

Malini has served on numerous international nonprofit boards, including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Rugmark International; as well as on the advisory boards of the world’s leading companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Kimberly-Clark, Tetra Pak, BHP Billiton and 10 years on Unilever’s top sustainability body. She has served as Ambassador for Sweden’s Global Challenges Foundation and is an Ambassador for the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Foundation UK. She is the Chair of the Institute for European Environmental Policy UK, advises EcoPeace MiddleEast, and has served on numerous non-profit boards including China Dialogue, India Climate Dialogue, Global Reporting Initiative, Sir Heinz Koeppler Trust and others.

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

A political scientist and gender specialist by training, Malini has a BA degree in women’s studies and government from Smith College (USA), an MA in Gender & Development from the Institute for Development Studies (Univ of Sussex), and has conducted post-graduate work in India on population policy and politics. She has published on subjects ranging from women’s reproductive rights, climate change, trade and human rights, and sustainable development for local authorities. Her influential 2007 pamphlet, Climate Change: Why India needs to take leadership, was the first to argue a pro-active leadership agenda for the country, and her film In Good Company (2009), launched at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, was the first to highlight the contribution of Indian companies and entrepreneurs to climate action.

HONOURS

Malini’s honours include Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, Asian Woman of the Year, Asia 21 Young Leader of the Asia Society, and CNN / TIME magazine Principal Voice. 

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Born and raised in India, with a bi-cultural childhood switching between India and the UK, she is privileged to have lived and worked across the world and speaks six languages.  An Indian citizen for more than five decades, Malini is now a naturalised British citizen. She is based in her adopted home of London with her husband and three children.

FAMILY HISTORY

Malini comes from the state of Punjab in India and grew up across northern and eastern India. Her family roots are in the cities of Lahore, Amritsar, Delhi and Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and the Himalayan region of Himachal Pradesh. Coming from a family whose roots lay in two ethnic regions that were divided along religious lines, Punjab and Bengal, she has a lifelong commitment to inter-religious communal harmony and peace-building and works to promote these issues in India, Pakistan and the Middle East. Her mother’s family was active in India’s independence struggle and her great uncle, Pyarelal Nayyar, was personal secretary to and biographer of Mahatma Gandhi. Her aunt, Pushpa Anand, the Reverend Ma, was a personal role model who founded an ecumenical religious institution, the Arpana Trust, which runs some of northern India’s largest social welfare programmes. Malini is a railway child who grew up on India’s great railways, where her father was an IAS officer and entrepreneur who went on to found and lead India’s Institute of Directors (IOD).

INTERESTS & OTHER PURSUITS

Other than work and family, Malini has many interests. She is a keen runner and swimmer and has completed several marathons, triathlons and 10k swims for charity. Her personal sporting ambition is to eventually complete a long-distance Ironman Triathlon (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride & a 26.2-mile run.) In the meantime, she is working on an all-female relay crossing of Lake Geneva (73km) in 2025-2026 raise funds for her Teach A Girl To Swim (TAGS) campaign.

She is passionate about education and history. In particular, the history of ideas, politics, and women’s history. She also enjoys gardening and spending time in the great outdoors.