By Richard Stengel, Co-Chair of CARE Board of Directors
Dear Friends,
Being the leader of a large humanitarian organization requires the same skills as the head of any big company—strategic clarity, talent management, communications ability—but it also requires something rarer: practical empathy.
Confronted with terrible suffering and tragedies, you can and should be moved by what you see, but you cannot be overwhelmed by it.
I’ve seen Michelle challenged by innumerable crises—Gaza, Afghanistan, Sudan, COVID, and now the dismantling of USAID—and I have seen how moved and sometimes disturbed she is, but I have always seen something else: a quiet determination to come up with the most effective response to the crisis.
That’s the special skill a leader of a humanitarian organization needs. And Michelle has it in abundance.
I first met Michelle when I was editor of TIME in the 2000s and we both worked together in the national service movement. Later, when I left the State Department in 2016, and was looking for something meaningful to do, Michelle talked to me about coming on to the board of CARE. My response was, “You had me at hello.”
I’ve now seen Michelle in a myriad of situations. She has a trait that the great Nelson Mandela, whom I worked with on Long Walk to Freedom, said was a hallmark of traditional African leaders: the ability to listen to multiple points of view, summarize them fairly, and work to find a consensus.
I have traveled with her to Ghana and to Poland and to Washington and while I haven’t seen all her orange scarves, I’ve seen quite a few. In the field, she has enormous respect for those who work for CARE and for the people CARE works with. Wherever she is, she’s the last to leave at night and the first one down in the morning.
As we face a future that is very different from the past, in a climate where government support for our efforts will be radically different, I’ve seen Michelle do what she always does: react calmly and analytically and then resolve to figure out a new path based on CARE’s enduring values and mission.
That’s what real leaders do. Yes, CARE is always there. And so is Michelle.