2013 Honoree

Alyse Nelson

President and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership

“Technology has fundamentally changed the way we interact. Influence is no longer wielded from just the corner office, it’s wired 3,000 miles away and being transmitted from a twitter account. Social media is a way to drive and engage in important global conversations. I have seen it give women an identity in places where they had none. It’s effective as long as the technology does not substitute but rather enhance action on the ground.”

What city best describes your personality?

Cape Town, South Africa. It’s at the edge of the earth where two oceans meet and anything is possible. It’s adventurous, yet elegant, and every time I travel there I feel like I’m home.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever ignored, and the worst advice you’ve ever taken?

The best advice I’ve ever gotten was initially hard to accept, but now I live by it: “Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s a stepping stone to it.”

What is your best read? What book would you want to be a character in?

When I read Amartya Sen’s Development Is Freedom, I was struck by how pioneering his perspective was. Sen won the Nobel Prize in Economics, and at the time he was among the first to bring the case for investing in women to the mainstream.

How do you define power? Do you enjoy it? How do you live with your success?

I have learned from so many women around the globe that the only meaningful measure of power is the extent of its positive impact. Power expands the moment it’s shared. Women have an innate ability and desire to share. That is why investing in women has a multiplier effect and it is truly one if the greatest ways to improve our world.

When do we stop asking questions about gender equality? When will it be Power People instead of Power Women? Is gender more important than politics?

The world has finally woken up to the reality that women are an economic force; no country can move forward if half their population, women and girls, are left behind, not educated, employed, or invested in. But, what I have seen over two decades working with thousands of women in every corner of the world is that women are also a global leadership force. Women are more collaborative, inclusive, and cause-driven in our approach to leading change. Women lead differently and that difference is precisely what our world needs today. If we truly want to meet the challenges of the 21st century women have to move from having presence in our society and economy to women holding power.

What do you think of social media?

Technology has fundamentally changed the way we interact. Influence is no longer wielded from just the corner office, it’s wired 3,000 miles away and being transmitted from a twitter account. Social media is a way to drive and engage in important global conversations. I have seen it give women an identity in places where they had none. It’s effective as long as the technology does not substitute, but rather enhance action on the ground.

What’s one place you’ve always wanted to visit on your travels?

I have not yet traveled to Somalia, but hope to one day make it there to see the camp that Dr. Hawa Abdi created to provide food, shelter, and education to 90,000 internally displaced people. She is a saint, and I am so proud that Vital Voices has been able to support her vision for change.

When sending a child out to see the world for the first time, where would you send them?

I would send a child to Kakenya Ntaiya’s girls school. In 2009, I traveled to Kenya for the groundbreaking. Kakenya was the first woman in her Maasai village of Enoosean to attend university. When I first met her, she was still studying and had a dream to build a school for girls. She was committed to creating opportunity and providing education to the rising generation. The school is living proof that anyone’s dream can come to life.