Corinne Gray

Biography

Corinne Gray is a Fulbright Scholar from Trinidad and Tobago who now works at the forefront of the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) innovation initiatives. As a core member of the Agency’s dynamic new Innovation Unit she leads efforts to engage staff and refugees in coming up with new ideas to address complex challenges faced by displaced people worldwide. Gray is based at UNHCR’s Headquarters in Geneva, but travels to the field regularly, connecting with UNHCR employees working on innovations, and documenting those innovations to foster agency-wide knowledge-sharing of innovation methodologies in action. She travels often to refugee communities where she trains refugee and host community members in principles of human-centered design as a means to foster ‘bottom-up’ innovation among displaced communities.

Gray first became passionate about the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers while working in Southern Africa, traveling around townships in Johannesburg and Cape Town, giving micro-entrepreneurial training and mentorship to asylum-seekers in South Africa and Zimbabwe. She brings a wealth of knowledge as a former marketing executive in the private sector where she worked closely with product innovation teams to help translate audience needs into dynamic user experiences.