Shahrukh Wani is Head of Data and AI Policy Partnerships at the International Growth Centre (IGC) at the LSE, where he leads the organisation’s work to strengthen how developing-country governments use data and AI in policymaking. He leads the strategy for IGC’s data and AI engagements, builds partnerships with governments and funders, and develops delivery models that translate technical capability and research insights into practical public-sector reform.
Working with IGC’s country teams, he partners with ministers, civil servants, and delivery teams across Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Pakistan, providing overall direction to government-embedded economics and data teams and to IGC’s central AI and engineering capability, helping governments generate, interpret, and act on data more effectively.
From 2021 to 2025, Shahrukh helped build and lead IGC’s office in Zambia, established at the request of President Hakainde Hichilema to support the country’s economic reform agenda. The team convened high-level economic dialogues, contributed to reforms in mining governance, agricultural subsidies and the governance of a £200m annual local government spending programme, and set up the Zambia Evidence Lab within the Ministry of Finance in Lusaka. He also helped develop IGC’s work on critical minerals. Before this, he worked across South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa as a policy economist at IGC’s Cities that Work team at the University of Oxford.
Shahrukh has spoken at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (2022, 2024) and at policy discussions hosted by the World Bank, Wilton Park, The King’s Foundation, and the UK Foreign Office. His analysis and commentary have been featured in the Financial Times, Al Jazeera, The Africa Report, Dawn, The Guardian, and the BBC. He studied at the LSE and lives in London
