NEW YORK, NY, March 13, 2026 — The HOW Institute for Society today announced that Zia Khan will serve as a HOW Fellow. Khan, a recognized leader in institutional innovation and strategic leadership, joins the Institute in a voluntary capacity to advance the practical application of moral leadership in solving the world’s most pressing challenges.
Khan’s appointment brings a unique synthesis of private-sector rigor and social-sector impact to the Institute. He began his career in management consulting, where he specialized in the “informal organization”—demonstrating how values, culture, and human networks serve as the primary drivers of strategy, execution, and overall business performance. As the co-author of Leading Outside the Lines, Khan has long championed the idea that formal authority alone is insufficient for navigating change; instead, it is the mobilization of people through purpose and values that creates enduring competitive advantage and results.
“Zia has spent his career decoding the links between the ‘how’ of human collaboration, organizational performance, and systems change,” said Dov Seidman, Founder and Chairman of The HOW Institute for Society. “From his early work on organizational culture to his leadership on the global stage, Zia understands that a leader’s moral authority is a necessary lever for performance in today’s fast-changing, interdependent world. We are thrilled to have him bring this deep expertise to our community of Fellows.”
Khan joins the Institute following a 16-year tenure at The Rockefeller Foundation, where he provided executive leadership for the Foundation’s programs, strategy, and innovation. Throughout his time at Rockefeller, he shaped and led dozens of major initiatives addressing diverse global issues. Having a front-row seat navigating complex, large-scale systems change, Khan identified moral leadership as an overlooked “X-factor” for success—a realization that led him to architect the Rockefeller Foundation-HOW Institute Partnership for Moral Leadership in the Social Sector.
As a HOW Fellow, Khan will contribute his time and expertise on a pro bono basis to accelerate and scale the adoption of practical moral leadership practices to improve how alliances drive impact at scale. His work will apply the HOW philosophy to a broad range of urgent issues where moral leadership is the critical differentiator, including healthier food systems, inclusive economies, and a pro-human AI transition.
Khan will also help launch an inaugural HOW Council—an action-oriented group of leaders convened to translate the principles of moral leadership into practical collaboration and real-world implementation in the social impact arena.
The Council will serve as a prototype for a broader HOW Institute model to scale moral leadership through focused, entrepreneurial collaborations designed to move beyond dialogue and catalyze measurable progress.
“In my time at The Rockefeller Foundation and working with hundreds of impact-oriented organizations, I saw that even the most ambitious initiatives require a foundation of trust and moral clarity to achieve meaningful scale,” said Zia Khan. “My fellowship focuses on making the ‘how’ a practical tool for a wide number of leaders. I want to help alliances move faster and more effectively by embedding moral leadership into the very way they collaborate to solve the defining challenges of our time.”
Khan is currently an independent advisor to leaders and institutions tackling ambitious global challenges. He serves on the boards of AtlasAI, data.org, the International Federation on Ageing, and the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, as well as several advisory boards, including the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and Stanford Social Innovation Review Books. He holds degrees from Cornell and Stanford Universities.
About The HOW Institute for Society
The HOW Institute for Society seeks to build and nurture a culture of moral leadership, principled decision-making and values-based behavior that enables individuals and institutions to meet the profound social, economic, and technological changes of the 21st Century. Leading the strategy for The HOW Institute is Founder Dov Seidman, a successful entrepreneur and CEO, best-selling author, and a teacher, who has devoted his life and professional career to making philosophy and philosophical frameworks practical in the business arena and across all sectors of society. For more information, sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn @TheHOWInstituteforSociety. The 2026 fall cohort of fellows for the NXT-GEN Fellowship for Moral Leadership begins in September. Learn more at thehowinstitute.org.
