Zabeen Hirji

Strategic Advisor Private & Public Sector, Corporate Director, and Not-for-Profit Board Chair, Former Chief Human Resources Officer, Royal Bank of Canada

Zabeen Hirji is a Strategic Advisor to the private, public and academic sectors, and a director on corporate and not-for-profit boards. Prior to this, she had a distinguished career at RBC, spanning senior executive roles in Human Resources and Business leadership, including Chief Human Resources Officer from 2007-2017. 

As Executive Advisor Future of Work at Deloitte, she advises the firm and its clients on issues key to the transformation agendas of business and government. This includes leadership, talent, workforce and culture transformation, lifelong learning and reskilling, diversity and inclusion and purpose driven organizations. She is a frequent speaker, writer and media commentator. 

As a proponent of inclusive growth and prosperity through investment in people, she advises senior levels of government and academia on diversity and inclusion, talent, culture and future of work. She is Advisor to the Clerk of the Privy Council for the Government of Canada on Diversity and Inclusion, a member of the External Advisory Board for the Canadian Foreign Service Institute, and a member of the External Advisory Board for diversity and inclusion for the U.K. Research and Innovation Council. She sits on Governing Council for the University of Toronto and is a visiting Professor at King’s College Policy Institute in London, U.K. 

She Chairs the Board of Civic Action, that brings together leaders and emerging leaders from all sectors to develop solutions for pressing issues in the GTA region.