Vaishali Kushan is Acting Director for Urban Economy Forum – USA leading UEF-USA program focuses on US Cities.

As a core member of the Executive team, she helps to guide the overall strategy of the UEF-USA chapter. Vaishali staring her career in the banking sector, career now engaged in development finance by leading multidisciplinary urban projects and integrated cross-cutting themes. Vaishali has led diverse teams working at the intersection of affordable housing, infrastructure, water sanitation, energy, disaster response and social space with emphasis on creating equitable, healthy, and sustainable communities. She has established and implemented development projects in Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and Africa, working in 32 countries globally. 

Vaishali has more than 17 years of professional leadership and technical experience in the field of urban development and management as well as managing non-governmental programs. Prior to joining UEF, she served as an intern with the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) and successfully worked on Global Slum Upgrading Fund. In addition- She also worked with UN-Habitat as a consultant on the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme Fund. She advised on public private partnership, community development, and housing, municipal, and innovative finance. In recent years, she has been working to empower micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) embedded within cities or at the outskirts of the cities in investing in clean technologies that are environmentally friendly and energy-efficient. She facilitates a low carbon housing industry to evolve and to protect the environment, through advocacy work for the building and construction industry to adopt Environmental, Social and Governance principles in a transparent manner.

In addition to her managerial and technical roles, Vaishali is a researcher on thematic areas such as urbanization, climate change, circular economy and alternative energy sources, diverse and innovative financing mechanisms for projects on urban climate change adaptation and mitigation.

With a Bachelors in International Studies - Political, Economy & Business from the Henry Jackson School of the University of Washington and Master in Public Administration from Cornell University, Ms. Kushan thrives in contributing to empowering society as a whole.