Cristina Umani

Cristina Umani is passionate about innovating and unleashing the highest potential of people and organizations towards impact. She is a highly purpose and value driven person with over a decade of global leadership experience in both the for profit (e.g. BMW Group) as well as the not-for-profit sector (e.g. European Venture Philanthropy Association). She has a vast experience managing stakeholders through everything from mergers to multi-stakeholder partnerships to collaborative leadership networks.

As Director of Strategy and Operations, Cristina oversaw and led the process of re-defining and implementing the mission, strategy and operations of the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt. She also developed various collaborative leadership formats – for example as Founding Director of the BMW Foundation’s spin-off, dawn.

After taking a sabbatical to re-evaluate her priorities and intentions – professionally as well as personally – Cristina started to serve several organizations as strategic advisor (e.g. Climate Ventures in Brazil and Beyond in Berlin).

Cristina loves to nourish her creative side with art, literature, music (including singing), design and has a deep passion for topics around leadership development, collective action and intersectional feminism.