Neda Salmanpour
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Gateway To Peace
Neda Salmanpour is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Global Peace and Prosperity Forum, a non-profit organisation committed to creating a better world. Global Peace and Prosperity Forum’s mission is to share insights on major challenges facing the world today, inspire collective action, empower individuals, support communities and develop pioneering and fresh approaches to alleviate suffering, reduce poverty, achieve equality, protect the planet from degradation and promote peace and security in an ever-changing world.
Neda is a UK qualified barrister. Neda was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1992. Neda has more than 20 years of corporate transaction experience in the energy and infrastructure sector, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, finance, joint ventures and investment funds. Neda has held various senior management positions in both public and private multinational corporations. She is member of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple and member of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales.
In 1995, Neda attended the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, following which Neda began to draw on her experience as an international lawyer to support the rights of women and girls. She became involved in the non-profit world and sought to apply her corporate expertise and experience by supporting projects that promoted gender equality, economic empowerment and justice.
Neda has joined several NGOs and served for a period as Vice Chair and Trustee of the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations, an umbrella organization of over 50 women NGOs in UK that seeks to ensure women’s rights are mainstreamed in policy and implementation.
Neda is member of the UK Civil Society Women’s Alliance that interfaces with the UK Government to ensure implementation of international legal instruments for women and girls and attends UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women conference in New York. Neda also served for a period as Co-Chair and member of the Advisory Board of Women’s Interfaith Network (WIN), a non-profit organization that is focused on promoting mutual respect and tolerance of women from different ethnic, religious and non-religious backgrounds.