“How did I end up doing what I do?”
[Missing — the one personal section on the whole site, and it needs Rim's own words. Worth a short voice note or call: what pulled her from Kenya/Germany into this specific mix of finance and design? 3–4 sentences, first person, plain and honest rather than polished — that's the tone she pointed to in her references.]
Rim Melake is an international development and human-centered design expert
She works with the World Bank on digital inclusion and gender equality within the Digital Transformation team, and also leads and facilitates design thinking, innovation and strategic foresight workshops as an independent consultant.
She has worked with organizations including IDEO.org, GIZ, the European Commission, UNWFP and Haské Ventures, gaining experience across Benin, Kenya, Senegal, Ethiopia, Europe and the United States.
She holds a double Master's in International Development (Sciences Po Paris) and in Economics and Management of Governments and International Organizations (Bocconi University), as well as a Bachelor's in Political Science and Sociology (Goethe University). S
he is also a certified Design Thinker from the Hasso Plattner Institute, certified with Stanford's d.school.In 2025, Rim was named one of SPIEGEL's 100 Hoffnungsträger — one hundred people shaping Germany's future — and profiled in Aufruhr Magazin as a “Sozialunternehmerin und Innovationsexpertin.”
She's also been featured on Zeit Online, Deutschlandfunk's „Die Schlauen“ and the ArbeiterKind.de podcast, and hosts the Spotify Original podcast Para für alle, where money — and who gets left out of conversations about it — finally gets talked about plainly.