Alnoor Ebrahim is a Professor of Management, with joint appointments at The Fletcher School and the Tisch College of Civic Life, at Tufts University. His research addresses several core dilemmas of social change facing businesses, nonprofit organizations, and public agencies: How should they measure and improve their impacts on society? How should they handle competing demands for accountability from diverse stakeholders? How can they influence “system” problems such as global poverty that require collective action?

Many of these questions are addressed in Professor Ebrahim’s new award-winning book, Measuring Social Change: Performance and Accountability in a Complex World (Stanford University Press). He is also author of NGOs and Organizational Change: Discourse, Reporting, and Learning and is co-editor of Global Accountabilities: Participation, Pluralism, and Public Ethics (both with Cambridge University Press). 

Alnoor serves on advisory boards to IRIS+ at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), and Imago Global Grassroots. He previously served on a working group established by the G7 to create global guidelines on social impact measurement, and on Acumen’s Lean Data advisory council. He has also worked with the NGO Leaders Forum, an annual gathering of CEOs of large humanitarian development organizations. His previous research on accountability mechanisms within the World Bank led to a Congressional Testimony on improving the Bank’s information disclosure policy.

Professor Ebrahim teaches courses on leadership and strategy, and also co-chairs an executive education program at the Harvard Kennedy School for the Schwab Foundation’s social entrepreneurs. Prior to joining the Fletcher faculty, he taught at Harvard Business School, where he chaired two executive programs for social sector leaders, and also at Virginia Tech. Professor Ebrahim received his doctorate and master’s degrees from Stanford University, and his bachelor of science from M.I.T.