2022 Award Recipient: Dhia Fani, Class of 2017
Position: Senior Project Lead at McKinsey.org
Location: Bali, Indonesia
Dhia’s commitment to making an impact is evident through her work in transforming public service in Indonesia as well as her ability to touch hearts through her arts. She has built a legacy in the sustainability and social impact sectors. She is currently a Senior Project Lead at Delterra.org (a non-profit incubated by McKinsey & company) that aims to improve circular economy in Indonesia. Prior to that, she worked alongside the Indonesian government on a human trafficking prevention program implemented across the country. Beyond her social impact career, Dhia is an accomplished artist working with hundreds of musicians and artists. She directed musicals attended by the President of Indonesia. She is also a self produced singer-songwriter with her recently released songs, “The Clouds Will Embrace You” and “Permata.”
Dhia graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi in 2017. Faithful to her belief to nurture multiple pursuits in her life, she majored in Political Science, and gained a minor in Business and a concentration in Music. Dhia's commitment to making an impact was evident early in her Capstone process as far back as 2016. She went out of her way, often at great personal risk, to collect sensitive data on population, labor, and human trafficking statistics in the summer of her Junior year. This was an intentional research project focused on how young Indonesian individuals’ perception of migration, particularly those from the vulnerable area, are affected by information intervention on the issues of human trafficking and safe migration. Her Capstone became the catalyst that opened the door for collaboration in establishing Desmigratif with the government. This program implemented across the country provided information on safe migration to people prone to human trafficking and built a digital system to monitor human trafficking prevention and empowerment activities across Indonesia. Dhia and her team’s contribution led to more than 250+ staff trained, ~500k individuals informed and 6,000+ human trafficking cases tracked.
Wanting to extend her impact, Dhia saw an opportunity to utilize her knowledge in the public sector to address climate change issues, which she previously cultivated at NYU Abu Dhabi as a core member of Ecoherence (student group). She worked as a part of the frontier team establishing McKinsey.org (now Delterra.org) in Indonesia. She is part of the organization’s regional leadership and with her team, she has launched a Rethinking Recycling Academy, an initiative that works with the local community and partners, to establish and scale integrated waste and recycling systems across Indonesia. This includes building capabilities within communities, educating households on the importance of waste management, and helping improve traceability and transparency across a complex value chain.
The program in Indonesia is on track to provide waste management for 80,000 people by the end of the year, and has plans to expand across other regions in the global South.
Dhia believes that powerful and systemic impact could be achieved through multidisciplinary approach as well as multi-sector collaboration. In the next few years she intends to continue driving impact through improving public service at a systemic scale. Artistically she’s excited to continue creating and sharing her heart through different mediums of arts.