The semi-hydrogenation of alkynes to selectively form alkenes is an important transformation in the synthesis of vitamins and other natural products, as well as being industrially relevant in fields such as polymerization catalysis. The current industrial standard with regard to this process is the palladium based heterogeneous Lindlar catalyst, however, in recent years many homogeneous transition metal systems have also been developed. Due to the current imperative to replace expensive and toxic transition metal catalyst systems, such as those based on palladium, rhodium, ruthenium or iridium, we were interested in the application of non-transition metal elements to this reaction. To date, the only homogeneous non-transition metal catalysts to successfully achieve selective semi-hydrogenation of internal alkynes are Frustrated Lewis Pair (FLP) systems, featuring boranes in combination with a Lewis basic moiety. Herein we report the activation of H2 by the 1,2-addition across a Zn-N bond of a novel zinc anilide complex. Further, we show that this key step can be exploited in a highly chemo-and stereoselective semi-hydrogenation of alkynes to form Z-alkenes. The approach is inspired by pioneering studies that showed copper hydride reagents can be generated by the 1,2-addition of H2 across a Cu-O bond.