Kabir focuses on deepening Growald Climate Fund’s organizational development services to portfolio organizations and strengthening organizational development practices among our broader network.

Prior to GCF, Kabir led the Christensen Fund, a Bay Area-based foundation backing the rights of Indigenous peoples globally. Before that, he was an international environmental lawyer for nearly two decades. He co-founded and led Natural Justice, a firm of environmental lawyers advancing community land rights and biocultural protocols to challenge resource extraction in Africa and Asia. He served as legal counsel to the African Group of Countries for intergovernmental negotiations under the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity. He has advised the governments of South Africa, Namibia, Ethiopia, India, Bhutan, Micronesia, and Palau on environmental law and policy with a focus on Indigenous peoples’ rights and environmental justice. In addition to peer-reviewed articles on biodiversity and Indigenous peoples’ rights, he authored the book Stewarding the Earth: Rethinking Property and the Emergence of Biocultural Rights (Oxford University Press), a seminal text on community rights. Kabir is also a trained coach with extensive experience coaching organizations and leaders around values alignment and strategic impact. 

Kabir earned a bachelor’s in law from the National Law School of India, a master’s in law as a UK Chevening scholar at the University of Warwick, and a doctorate in public law from the University of Cape Town. He was also a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral fellow at the United Nations University. He lives in Oakland, CA, where he volunteers at the local animal shelter. In his spare time, he alternates between sitting absolutely still and running in the East Bay hills with canine companions.