Dr. Anju Malhotra is Principal Adviser, Gender and Development at UNICEF, where she provides leadership on gender equality, including policy, programmes, and research, and serves as the organization’s most senior representative and spokesperson on gender issues. Dr. Malhotra has led the development of UNICEF’s Gender Action Plan 2014-2017 and is currently overseeing its implementation, focusing first and foremost on concrete results for women and girls.

Prior to joining UNICEF, Dr. Malhotra was Vice President Research, Innovation, and Impact at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).  During her 14- year tenure at ICRW, she advanced research, advocacy, and programming on adolescent girls, particularly around the issues of child marriage, girls’ education, sexual and reproductive health, and economic skills and opportunities.  She has also contributed significantly to the understanding of how to define and measure women’s economic empowerment and to quantify gender indicators. Also at ICRW, Dr. Malhotra developed and led a portfolio of partnerships with the corporate sector, including several Fortune 500 companies. She established the “Fertility and Empowerment” network with academic institutions, and advanced research on innovation for women’s empowerment through technology, economic resilience, and social norm change.

Previously, Dr. Malhotra was Assistant Professor at the Center on Population, Gender, and Social Inequality at the University of Maryland, and an NIH Post-doctoral fellow at the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina.   She holds a Ph.D. in Demography and Sociology from the University of Michigan, and a BA from Cornell University.