Critiques

Written By Niama S. Sandy for Sleek Magazine

Although she is a petite and stately-looking woman, Nancy P. Kamel fills the room with her passion and presence. While she has made waves in the art world with her painting and has offered up her services to many governments and the leading institutions in the world, that atmosphere-changing passion that Nancy has is couched in her deep-seated sense of responsibility as a global citizen, as she describes herself as a “serial humanitarian.”  

Nancy is a fine artist, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. Over the last three decades, she has worked with some of the leading global organizations including the woman-centric Vital Voices Global Partnership, the children-focused the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Human Rights Watch, the United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO), International Rescue Fund, and more. In addition to her humanitarian experience she is a pioneering and successful business executive who has managed investment banking services and a multitude of other discrete projects for ultra-high net worth networks both private clients and governments.

Nancy P. Kamel has seen the world as an artist, a businesswoman and a humanitarian – sometimes simultaneously. She will tell you herself that her life’s trajectory wasn’t necessarily the most straight-forward, but every step of her path has seemed to be underpinned by a divine intervention. “It always seems that I’m always in some plaice that there is no possible reason that I should be there. It’s funny because then you step back and you can see a thread,“ she explained.

Those threads of Nancy’s life have woven together into a rich and synergistic tapestry; and in many ways, Nancy herself is the thread that brings together others to make the world a better place.

Nancy’s humanitarian work began on the board of the United Nations in the early 1980’s. Shortly after she began her advocacy she saw that “the interest or the need was mostly financial” and rather than being just another talking head she began to raise funds and make connections to support the causes.  In her work with the boards she partnered with a friend to help make connections for individuals based on their network – eventually corporations came knocking needing the same help. Through that venture she went on to manage the Financial Services arm of the first woman-owned brokerage firm on Wall Street.

Even as she moved on from the brokerage firm and on to the C-level at the largest Chinese corporation in United States, Nancy continued her work for humanitarian causes at this point chiefly as the Vice Chair of the United States Board of Directors of UNICEF. At the same time she was also involved with Human Rights Watch and the International Refugee Committee. Her passion stems from her love for children.

“…My interest at the time…was in trying to aide with and end the practice of child soldiers. I’ve always been actively involved in trying to raise my voice or lend my voice where I thought I could be helpful or make a difference,” Mrs. Kamel expounded.

While she is an exceedingly proud American, Nancy has never felt fettered by national boundaries – her passion for the essence of humanity trumps any border natural or political.

That passion led to her involvement with the Washington, D.C. - based Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international non-governmental organization that is focused on providing entrepreneurial and leadership training and other humanitarian services to women in 144 countries globally.  Nancy has been involved with the organization since its inception in 1998 both on its Board of Directors as well as serving as the organization’s U.N. Representative, and also uses her role as a U.S. National Commissioner with UNESCO as a boon to the organization’s ends. She uses her position and connections to ensure that Vital Voices’ mandates and initiatives receive the maximal level of exposure across the multitude of UN agencies. Additionally, Mrs. Kamel works to give the organization and the many voiceless victims and survivors of unspeakable crimes around that the world a say as decisions are made and global protocols are created.

In its 15 years of operation, the organization has directly trained 15,000 women and those women have in turn reached an additional 500,000 women around the world – effecting change in innumerable children, families and communities as women are often the most integral member of communities around the world. Among the chief issues Vital Voices is tackling at the moment is the scourge of human trafficking.

As hideous as it may be, Mrs. Kamel explained the reality and rationale of the situation with extreme aplomb and clarity: “You use a bullet once. You use drugs once; but can you use a child again and again.” This mindset is what has made human trafficking not just a regional issue germane to certain parts of the world but a worldwide problem that is currently “the second most profitable source of organized crime in the world.” Globally, prosecution of criminals involved in human trafficking is lagging and in some cases not even happening – Kamel explains plainly that globally we have “failed abysmally.”

Vital Voices’ Vice President for Human Right, Cindy Dyer has been working to develop legal protocols for human trafficking. Recently, Nancy addressed a delegation of African and Caribbean heads of state to discuss the process of building and rolling out culturally-sensitive legal protocols needed to prosecute perpetrators of trafficking around the globe and has engaged countries like Cameroon and Nigeria. She hopes that the protocols will take shape and successfully work to change the lives of countless the world over despite very real challenges.

During her tenure at Vital Voices, Nancy co-founded Strategic Expansions Solutions with business partner Jean Luc Meier. S.E.S. performs corporate diplomacy projects around the world. Recently, the business began a strategic partnership with Geo-Political Information Services, a business affiliated with Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, which specializes in information derived from world leaders and global experts in a number of fields. The partnership is especially synergistic because S.E.S.’s projects are often predicated on access to highly specialized information.  

While Nancy concedes that she may not necessarily have all of the specialized skills to do every detail of the very important work she is engaged in, she recognizes that he role “is bringing the right persons together.”  Being the thread that ties and binds worlds together isn’t the worst job a person could have.