Sonal Shah

Sonal Shah is the Executive Director of the Centre of Sustainable and Equitable Cities and the founder of The Urban Catalysts. Over the last 15 years, Sonal has worked across 10 states in India, South and Central Asia and Middle East. She has advised multiple stakeholders in developing pedestrian accessibility and multimodal integration plans, parking management, transit-oriented development and gender responsive public transport and spaces. Sonal was responsible for introducing India’s first gender sensitive urban planning guidelines and revising India’s national urban street design guidelines (IRC codes) to make them people-oriented. 

Sonal has led projects supported by the World Bank, AfD, UK Aid, ADB, IKI, Oak Foundation, Gates Foundation, GIZ and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She has taught at numerous institutions such as the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Anant National University, KRVIA, Academy of Architecture and the JJ School of Architecture. 

Sonal graduated from the MSc Urban Planning program from Columbia University. She was featured in the Alumni Spotlight in Fall 2013-14, as a  Remarkable Women in Transport 2020 and Remarkable Feminist Voice in Transport 2023 by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI), Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (Germany).