Jinali Mody is a Master of Environmental Management candidate at Yale School of the Environment. Her work focuses on mitigating climate change through entrepreneurship with a focus on material innovation. During her time at Yale, she founded her start-up that makes Banofi Leather, a leather alternative made from banana crop waste. This material is vegan, cruelty-free, sustainable, upcycles crop waste and uses 90% less water and has 95% lower carbon emissions than animal leather. Overall, the start-up is focused on upcycling crop waste, replacing a toxic material, providing farmers with additional income, and protecting our planet.

Prior to attending Yale, Jinali worked at McKinsey & Co. for the last 3 years across the London and India offices and was the Chief Strategy Officer of a start-up working on plastic recycling in India. Jinali holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Chemistry. In her free time, she enjoys scuba diving and playing with her dog, Leo.