Sahed Abu Jwaied

Icons of Change International Awards 2026
International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development

Shahed Abu Jwaied
Strategic Planning and Operations Manager & Board Member
The Oval Office for Studies & Research (Amman – Sydney)
Lecturer, Al Hussein Technical University (HTU)
Communications & Talent Acquisition Consultant
New Zealand Women of Influence Awards – Global Category
Women Who Inspire Award – Health and Wellbeing (2017)

SDG Focus: Goal 5 – Gender Equality
Changemaker for Systemic Empowerment of Vulnerable Populations (Jordan)

Shahed Abu Jwaied is a high-impact strategic leader, policy advisor, and cross-sectoral capacity-building specialist whose career trajectory embodies multi-stakeholder orchestration across humanitarian, governmental, academic, and private-sector ecosystems. With over 12 years of progressive experience in strategy formulation, project management, talent acquisition, and advocacy, she has consistently delivered transformative interventions that advance gender-sensitive governance, social inclusion, and resilient community architectures.

Currently serving as Strategic Planning and Operations Manager and Board Member at The Oval Office for Studies & Research (Amman–Sydney), and as a part-time Lecturer at Al Hussein Technical University (HTU), Shahed designs and executes evidence-based frameworks for institutional strengthening, stakeholder alignment, and sustainable program delivery. Her freelance consultancy portfolio spans INGOs, NGOs, and private-sector entities, where she has developed capacity-building manuals, strategic communication toolkits, advocacy campaigns, and talent acquisition pipelines that enhance organizational effectiveness and human capital optimization.

Shahed’s leadership is grounded in frontline impact and policy influence. As Strategic Social and Economic Empowerment Program Lead at SCSEED (2022), she architected and operationalized empowerment ecosystems targeting elderly populations, persons with disabilities, orphans, and Majhuleen al-Nasab, focusing on economic self-sufficiency, social integration, and long-term sustainability. From 2019–2021, she served as Advisor to the New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch Mosques Terrorist Attack, providing critical inputs on accountability mechanisms, counterterrorism policy, hate speech legislation, mental health and trauma recovery systems, culturally responsive policing, anti-Islamophobia initiatives, and community resilience frameworks.

As former Managing Director of Integrate Women International (2017–2019), she led the end-to-end design, budgeting, implementation, and evaluation of community development and humanitarian programs with a sharp focus on women’s economic and social empowerment. Her earlier roles include Regional Representative for the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, Committee Facilitator for UN Youth NZ, and Board Member at Massey University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.