Hi, I’m Zainab!
I am the director of engagement and audience at THE CITY.
I am also writing a novel. It’s an intergenerational story of migration, and how we inherit the blueprints of our survival from our maternal ancestors. I am a regular contributor at NYT Food (print & digital) & NYT Cooking. I’ve also written for Bon Appétit, Saveur Magazine (print & digital), and BuzzFeed. My piece about my mother's nihari was anthologized in Best Food Writing 2015.
In my previous 9 to 5, I was partnerships manager at Glitch — where I helped launch and build an audience for Glimmer, and partnered with folks at ProPublica, Data for Progress, Grant for the Web, Mozilla, Mapbox, Twitter, and others. More on that here.
Before Glitch I managed a $2.5M crowdfunding campaign for a news startup called The Correspondent. I was also the Global Strategy & Operations Lead for BuzzFeed, where I ran the day-to-day operations of BuzzFeed's sprawling international presence and expansion for four years.
Prior to BuzzFeed, I was at O/R Books working on book launches for Yoko Ono and Masha Gessen amongst others. When I lived in Lahore I was a radio jockey at CityFM89 — Pakistan’s premier radio channel.
In 2015 I launched the Unpublished Reading Series, a space for writers who are underrepresented in the media.
I’m obsessed with making the internet a better place for everyone. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about food, and the words and images we use to tell our stories. I like solving problems, making things work better, and helping people.
I was born in Seoul, lived in Nairobi, Hong Kong, London, Lahore, Toronto, and am now in Brooklyn.