During her nearly three-decade career in investment and development banking, Sinha has worked with a fervor to build bridges between nations. “I don’t really believe much in borders,” says Sinha, who has lived in Kenya, Tunisia, and Switzerland.

Her most recent move across the globe was from Geneva to New York City. In February she took over as executive secretary of the UN Capital Development Fund, a division that oversees hundreds of millions of dollars in funding each year to the world’s 46 least-developed countries. “The fact that we’re all human means that we should all try somehow to enable basic standards of living,” Sinha says. 

Originally from Meerut, India, the former economics and computer science major fell in love with economics when she took an introductory course at Dartmouth. Later she interned at J.P. Morgan and the World Bank. As leader of the capital fund, Sinha supervises 300 people scattered across the globe. Many work at the local level to invest in underserved communities, particularly in women-run businesses and youth programs. Looking ahead to a post-pandemic world, Sinha says her primary task is to address Covid-19’s impacts on the economies of least-developed countries. Her team has a slew of new initiatives in the works, including a $44-million renewable energy project in Malawi and an effort to revamp the Solomon Islands’ economic infrastructure.