Shella Marcos Al Douaihy (Independent)

I am a Lebanese social innovator and peacebuilding practitioner working at the intersection of conflict resolution, strategic communications, and youth development, especially on youth in conflict-affected settings. I co-founded Leadership Central, a practitioner-led platform designed to develop the next generation of leaders from underserved and conflict-affected communities. Leadership Central was built as a social enterprise in response to a structural gap: in Lebanon and across the region, the skills that make societies functional such as civic leadership, critical thinking, conflict resolution, strategic communication, remain inaccessible to most young people who do not have the privilege of geography, networks, or financial means. Our model embeds real internship pathways into training programs and deliberately reaches communities outside Beirut, addressing the geographic inequality that concentrates opportunity in capital cities while the periphery is left behind. I also founded Dissolve for Peace, a conflict transformation initiative that uses storytelling as a community-level peacebuilding tool. Our current flagship program is a high school peacebuilding storytelling competition launching in Lebanon that acts as a practical experiment in whether narrative can open space for dialogue across divided communities in conflict-affected settings. I currently proudly serve as the Curator of the WEF Global Shapers Beirut Hub for 2026/27, where I am building a civic innovation agenda around governance transparency, youth economic resilience, and cultural preservation. My mission is to build infrastructure for the next generation of practitioners who come from the same environments they are trying to fix. My vision is a regional ecosystem where young people in conflict-affected contexts have the tools, networks, and institutional support to lead the social and political transformation their communities need.