Jewelle Bickford:Women Helping Women

by Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Jewelle Bickford has an unusual resume for an investment banker. After marrying and having children in her twenties, she was a self-proclaimed housewife doing lots of volunteering. Eventually she went to work for then mayor of New York, Ed Koch. She thrived in her position and eventually transitioned to the private sector taking a position with Citibank. It was at Citibank that she got involved in the investment banking world, something she was well-suited to do. Eventually, she started her own company and sold it to the Rothschild Family. Today Bickford is one of the 21 worldwide Rothschild Group investment banking Senior Advisors. But not for long. As of April 1, she is retiring from investment banking to work with a family office business advising clients on investing. And from this brief overview, you can learn two important things about Bickford: One: she doesn’t sit still. Two: she knows how to weave her personal and business interests together.

Bickford is busy and she is committed. In addition to her demanding career, she serves on the Board of Directors of the SEC-registered Torrey Funds and the Board of Women for Women International. She is President of the Trisha Brown Dance Company and is a Trustee of Randolph Macon Women’s College and serves on the Business Committee of the Metropolitan Museum. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Founder of the Task Force on the Council’s initiative on the role of women in economic and political development in the Middle East and South East Asia. She is also a member The Committee of 200, Women’s Forum and the Advisory Council of Afghan Women Leaders CONNECT, a Special Program of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

To sustain her schedule, Bickford works out with a personal trainer three times a week and jogs every day except Sunday. “It’s very important to find balance,” she says. Bickford has found her balance by adjusting the level of her participation in her pet organizations over the years. The not-for-profit world frequently refers to volunteers as doers, donors and door openers. “I’ve been all three,” she says. “Sometimes more and sometimes less.”

When it comes to her work with Women for Women International, Bickford gives more. She met Zainab Salbi, founder and CEO, of Women for Women International, during an event for the Council on Foreign Relations. Women for Women International provides tools and resources to women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts in countries including Iran, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Nigeria and Sudan.

The organization has helped more than 153,000 women survivors of war through direct aid, civil rights education, job skills training, and small business development. Women for Women has distributed $42 million in direct aid, microcredit loans, and other program services “Zainab invited me to lunch,” says Bickford. “I thought she was going to ask me to donate but she asked me to join her board.” The board meeting was scheduled immediately following their initial meeting. However, it was going to take place in Rwanda and Bickford couldn’t commit.

Eventually she did join the board and traveled with the organization to Rwanda in 2007.

“It was the most wonderful trip I have ever made,” she says. “It was a pleasure to meet women who survived genocide and were adopting orphans. It was beyond my wildest dreams.” Bickford, says what she has learned from working with these women is that the human spirit is indomitable. “Perhaps you have to tap into it and nurture it,” she says.” But it’s got to be in our DNA.”

Bickford is hopeful about the immediate future. “This is the beginning of a global movement where women in the developed world will adopt and help women in the developing world move ahead.”