Ismail is part of a technical team that coordinates, mainstreams and reports on Green Economy with a focus on research and reporting on green economy activities most material to the Western Cape. Ismail received tertiary education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology completing a National Diploma and B-Tech degree in Nature Conservation. He is currently registered at UNISA completing a BSc: Hons degree in Environmental Management. Ismails early career was spent working as a conservation official in the Central Karoo and in the Cederberg region. After seven years in the wilderness, Ismail returned to Cape Town and worked for NCC, a private nature conservation services company based in Westlake where he responsible for coordinating Green Jobs projects in various locations across Cape Town, he was later moved to Glenconnor in the Eastern Cape for a brief period as Operations Manager for a landscape scale carbon financed restoration project.