Meet our Leaders…Nirri Shah

Meet our leaders….Nirri Shah

Good Return’s Program Development and Financial Capability Manager

BIO

Nirri (R) pictured here with Janine Aringa-Garap, PNG Country Program Co-ordinator

Nirri is a dynamic leader with over a decade of experience across management consulting and the international development sector. As the Program Development and Financial Capability Manager at Good Return, she leads international partnership growth as well as the strategy, design, implementation, and scale of financial capability initiatives across nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Prior to joining Good Return, Nirri worked at leading global consulting firms, including Deloitte and Accenture, advising organisations on large-scale transformations, strategic initiatives, and social impact challenges. She is a strong advocate for gender equality and community-led initiatives, and previously served as Convener of the Gender Equality Committee and a member of the Executive Board at the United Nations Association of Australia (WA Division).

Nirri's academic background is in International Economics, Commerce and Psychology. With a passion for inclusion and social impact, she enjoys developing creative, practical solutions to complex challenges that support sustainable economic empowerment.

Q&A

We sat down with Nirri to talk about her career journey to date. 

Tell us about a career highlight or a proud moment from your career

For more than 10 years, I’ve worked across both international development and the private sector, including with some of the world’s largest consulting firms such as Accenture and Deloitte. When I decided to relocate to Cambodia and shift into international development, I knew I wanted my work to be more directly connected to purpose and impact.

A management consulting background taught me to be comfortable with ambiguity, stepping into unfamiliar high-stakes challenges, cutting through complexity, listening for what truly matters beneath the surface, and working across diverse stakeholders to deliver practical, human-centred solutions. Along the way, I’ve worked with exceptional people and mentors who continue to shape how I lead and grow.

It’s hard to point to a single highlight, but I’m proud of how intentionally I’ve shaped a career aligned with purpose. For the past three years, I’ve led Financial Capability Programs, expanding to nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region. I lead a passionate cross-cultural team, and together we’ve launched into new markets including Fiji, Indonesia, and Thailand, grown in reach and impact, and strengthened partnerships with grassroots organisations, governments, the private sector, and multilaterals. We’re constantly asking ourselves how we can do this better, especially how we can innovate to reach more underserved communities and support inclusion. Most recently, this has included launching chatbot-based education alongside face-to-face programs, which will reach millions of women, including those in some of the most remote communities across the region.

In my consulting career, I worked across high-risk organisational engagements. One defining experience was leading an organisational restructure and capability uplift program following the destruction of one of Australia’s oldest Indigenous heritage sites at Juukan Gorge. The work centred on rebuilding trust with the Traditional Owners and strengthening accountability to ensure the cultural heritage of exceptional significance is never compromised again.

All these experiences continue to shape how I think about leadership, the choices I make every day, and how I continue to bridge the inclusion gap.

Do you have a person who has inspired you in your career?

I was born in a small town in Kenya, attending a tiny school, where I saw financial exclusion firsthand. When I moved to Australia at the age of 14, I also experienced the opposite. While challenges still exist for underserved communities, the systems here are built in a way that significantly reduces inequality. I saw how accessible, high-quality education was available to everyone, and the difference that made in creating opportunity and inclusion. I also noticed how much more voice and choice women had.

Coming from a background in Economics and Psychology, what inspires me isn’t one particular person, but seeing how countries evolve over time, how policies, systems, and investment shape opportunity, and then grounding that big-picture thinking in the lived realities of communities on the ground. 

I’m equally inspired by the women and communities I work alongside, the conversations in markets, villages, and communities that remind me why the work matters and how program design needs to genuinely fit the lived realities.

Can you share a humourous moment from your career to date?

One of my most memorable moments happened during a field visit to the Solomon Islands, where I was gifted a pig that had been specially fed for months by the Gumu tribe as a thank-you for building the resilience of their community through education. 

Getting to the Gumu tribe involved a three-hour boat ride from the capital, travelling through open ocean, freshwater mangroves, and crocodile territory, followed by a hike through dense vegetation to reach the community. In the village, there was only one spot where you had to climb a hill for nearly an hour just to get a phone signal.

Okay, back to the pig.

Picture this…..a small dinghy with five people onboard, including myself, three team members, and the head of the Financial Inclusion Unit at the Central Bank, plus one very large pig tied up with a rope. At that point, we all quietly wondered how we were going to get this pig back.

Halfway through the journey, a storm rolled in. Rain was pouring, waves were rising, and the boat captain shouted instructions as we physically shifted the pig from left to right to keep the boat balanced and avoid capsizing.

So there we were, completely soaked, moving a pig back and forth in the middle of a storm. But we did make it back safely, and so did the pig!