When you first meet Carol, she welcomes you with a big smile and enthusiastic questions to learn about you. You immediately sense her intelligence and diligence, yet, if you ask what she does, she would simply say, she is a lawyer.
What makes Carol special isn’t that she went to Harvard Law School or is a partner at one of the world most elite law firms but her characters…
Growing up, whenever I met Carol (she is my cousin), she always complimented others, nice cloth, delicious food, or whatever accomplishments. She never talked about herself who went to two Ivy League schools with scholarship. Carol shared her room when I visited her, eagerly showed me around the town or school, and insisted to treat me something as a host. When I was looking for job, she offered to review my resume.
Carol cares about international development, equality, and public affairs. She held off Harvard for a year to go to Afghanistan and assisted its US ambassador in building global alliance and re-building the country after the war. She co-founded Rumi Spice, a B Corp that ethnically sourced spices from Afghanistan in supporting farmers and rural economic development.
2021 New Year holiday, she invited me to join her birthday Zoom yoga, what a creative celebration and healthy start of the year! At the end of the practice, she asked everybody to text her what we are creating, building this year that she could support… It’s very Carol!
Carol shared her focuses:
- Debt: As a tax lawyer, she wants to look into the tax effects of cancellation of debt as it’s a big driver in the economic cycle. I am not a lawyer yet I like her view that “people with any amount of money to save and invest should be able to understand how, not only those people that can afford to pay personal financial advisors.”
- Afghanistan: She wants to better understand US customers and the health benefits of Afghan spices…She wrote, “How do we bring more Afghan producers to access the international markets, so that they can enjoy higher prices, profits, and grow the country’s economy inclusively (i.e. employ women) and create a more stable region and peaceful world?”
It’s Carol – continuing to break barriers and build forward!