Roya Azadi

Roya is equal parts process-driven and holistic thinker, creative and analytical, mediator and agitator, verbal and visual. A self-admitted short-term sceptic and long-term optimist, her approach to solving complex problems is grounded in and jostles for social change and innovation.

As our Strategy Director, Roya leads a team of highly experienced designers and strategists. She developed our participatory strategy approach which maps out how we plan for, document and enact our ambitions for equitable, democratic, and sustainable solutions in our work.

Roya has worked across the private, commercial, not-for-profit, philanthropic and government sectors. She has particular experience in the justice and social impact sectors. She has delivered a user experience strategy to improve access to justice for the Supreme Court of Victoria, co-designed a prison system intervention with the Burnet Institute, helped Southside Justice to formulate a theory of change, and worked with the City of Casey to create a customer experience strategy with the community they serve.

Roya has worked as a lawyer, researcher and delegate for the United Nations; as a design and strategy consultant and workshop developer and facilitator in Melbourne, London and New York. Her agency experience includes work with the Centre for Innovative Justice, Future Lab, Droga 5, and Mother London.

Roya has a Bachelor of Arts specialising in Sociology and Geopolitics, and a Bachelor of Law for which she was awarded the Raynes Dickson Memorial Fund prize for Humanitarian Law. She is a previous guest lecturer at the University of Melbourne and the author of ‘How to be a Creative Thinker’ (Hardie Grant, 2020).