Michelle Nunn

Organization: CARE USA
Title: President & Chief Executive Officer
Industry: Non-profit
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Notable in 2023: Reached market of 167 million people in need in more than 100 countries.

From Ukraine to Gaza and the Democratic Republic of Congo, nonprofit CARE's global team has been working with local partners on the front lines of refugee crises and the fight against global poverty and hunger.

CARE initiated its operations in Ukraine in March 2022 and over the past two years, its programs providing essential supplies have reached over 1.2 million individuals. Its team in Gaza and partners have distributed drinking water, hygiene kits, and shelter items to nearly 100,000 people.

In 2023, CARE and its partners worked in 109 countries across 1,600 projects, reaching a total population of 167 million people.

At the head of one of the world's largest humanitarian organizations, founded in 1945 amid the ruins of World War II, is Michelle Nunn, daughter of a U.S. senator who once ran for that office herself before making the role of growing CARE her professional mission. For its most recent fiscal year for which full financial data is available (2022), CARE revenue reached nearly $900 million.

Nunn, who began her nonprofit career in 1989 with a local volunteer effort in Georgia, Hands On Atlanta, has spearheaded fundraising for CARE and taken it to record levels that allowed the organization to respond to multiple crises in recent years, including Covid and climate change. That included a $250 million global emergency fund in 2022.

In 2023, initiatives included the addition of nearly 500,000 micro-savings groups positioning women to be their own bankers; new digital tools to combat mistreatment among domestic workers in Latin America; the Zambian school system's adoption of CARE's early childhood literacy program; and the selection of CARE to co-manage the Women in the Digital Economy Fund, a global pooled partnership aimed at closing the gender digital divide. Nunn also led the launch of a CARE Climate Solutions Incubator to scale up resilient responses to climate change, particularly for women and girls.

The organization's goal, according to its most recent annual report, is to "meaningfully impact 200 million people as we seek to bring about a more just and equitable world, where poverty is shrinking, and gender equality is a growing reality."

"I have been proud to lead CARE to increasingly greater impact combating poverty and advancing social justice around the world," Nunn told CNBC.