Omezzine Khélifa

Omezzine Khélifa is a French-Tunisian former politician and social entrepreneur. After being part of the Tunisian Revolution in 2011, she left a career in fintech in France to contribute to the democratic transition in Tunisia following the Arab Uprisings.
After running for Parliament twice, managing national political campaigns, and becoming an elected member of the political bureau of the social democratic party Ettakatol, she became a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Tourism and later Finance after her party won the country's first free and fair elections.

After being in charge of portfolios such as open governance, state budget, and tax system reforms at the national level, she created and has been running Mobdiun – Creative Youth, a social impact and peace organization that counters jihadist projects locally while advocating for women's & youth's rights and security.
 

She also served as Executive Director at the Apolitical Foundation. She led research in the field of democratic innovation and politics. Her efforts involved supporting courageous transformational leaders in their pursuit of public office.
 

Omezzine Khélifa has been honored with the Project on Middle East Democracy’s Leaders in Democracy Award, named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a New Voices Aspen Institute Fellow, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for the MENA region. In 2018, she was selected as one of the inaugural Obama Scholars at Columbia University in New York.