Washington: Indian-American philanthropist Sharmila Mona Sinha has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, the US' first non-profit organisation and museum dedicated to honouring American women's achievements.
Sinha, the CEO of Equality Now, is only the second woman of Indian origin after Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame at Seneca Falls, New York, considered the birthplace of the American Women's Rights Movement.
Kolkata-born Sinha was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame on September 24 and joins 300 women leaders, including Madeline Albright, Maya Angelou, Janet Yellen, Rosa Parks, and Michelle Obama.
Sinha's career spans Wall Street, corporate America, and global campaign for women's equality.
She left India at 18 to study at Smith College in Massachusetts, where she graduated with degrees in economics and art history, and earned an MBA from Columbia Business School.
Sinha began her professional career on Wall Street as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and later with companies such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Elizabeth Arden.
During her Hall of Fame induction, Sinha spoke about the values she inherited from her family. She recalled how her mother in Kolkata would set aside a fistful of rice every morning for someone who needed it.
Sinha said she viewed the honour not simply as a personal achievement but as a responsibility to pass forward what she had received.
"I have spent much of my life thinking about power. I've seen it on Wall Street, in business, in philanthropy, and in the fight for women's equality, where power ultimately comes down to who has a voice, who has a choice, and who gets to shape our lives," she said at the induction ceremony.
"We are taught that power is finite: that if I give you some of mine, I will have less. My life has taught me the opposite... At the core, power shared is power supercharged. I am standing here because so many people shared theirs with me," Sinha said.
After a stint in the corporate world, Sinha became a leader of Women Moving Millions, a network of women philanthropists whose members have committed around USD one billion to organisations supporting women and girls.
She also co-founded Raising Change, which works with social-impact organisations to strengthen their fundraising and organisational capacity
Sinha serves on several non-profit boards focusing on governance, strategy, and sustainability.
She is the Vice Chair of the Executive Council of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum, slated to be built on the Washington Mall within the decade.
Sinha is also an Advisory Board member of the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise at Columbia University and serves on the Tamer Venture Fund Board.
This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.
