Role: Asyia is the Global Education Policy Lead at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with a focus on effective instructional practices, education advocacy and edtech.

Nearly half of Asyia’s 30-year career in education was spent as a mathematics teacher and teacher coach. Before joining the foundation, Asyia was a management consultant in PwC leading the Girls’ Education Challenge, a $1bn fund set up by the UK to support the education of 1.5 million girls in 17 countries.

Asyia has worked in three UK Government departments: as a senior education adviser in DFID, a project director in the UK’s Department for Education, and a Senior Her Majesty’s Inspector in Ofsted, where she inspected schools, local authorities, initial teacher education and trained headteachers and inspectors.

Her areas of expertise include teaching, learning and formative assessment; school improvement; and large-scale programme management.

Asyia has a Masters in Applied Mathematics from Imperial College London and a Doctorate in Education on teaching and learning mathematics from Institute of Education, University College London. She also has a PGCE in Leadership development and educational consulting, and a PGCE in mathematics teaching.
Asyia was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s 2022 New Year’s Honours list for services to education, particularly girls’ education.