Dr. Azza Karam
Dr. Azza Karam serves as the Founding President and CEO of Lead-Integrity - a global consultancy firm dedicated to serving the common good, through the leadership, competence and integrity, of women professionals, inspired by their faiths. She serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of International Alert, the Temple of Understanding, and the Parliament of World Religions, as well as the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies in Amman, Jordan. She is a member of the United Nations’ Secretary General High Level Advisory Board on Multilateralism
Azza served as President and CEO of the Women’s Learning Partnership, Secretary General of the World Conference of Religions for Peace from 2019-2023 (and Director of it’s Women’s Programmes and Middle East Advisor, from 2000-2004). She worked at the United Nations for two decades, where she Coordinated the Arab Human Development Reports, co-founded and Chaired the United Nations Interagency Task Force on Religion and Development, with over 20 UN System bodies - and founded and convened its Multi Faith Advisory Council, as part of the 500+ global NGO database she compiled and coordinated. During her tenure at the United Nations, Azza was a Lead Facilitator for UN system-wide peer to peer “Strategic Learning Exchanges” on 'Religion, Development and Diplomacy'.
She has worked with several intergovernmental and international organisations (the OSCE, the EU, and International IDEA) in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and East and Central Asia, where she created and managed global programmes on Women and Politics, as Democratisation, Education, Human Rights and Peacebuilding.
She has taught in various universities - including West Point Military Academy - and is widely published, and translated, into several languages. She has received multiple awards, including for her work on/in the United Nations, as well as in/on Interfaith work and Culture. In 2022, she was awarded a Doctorate in Humane Letters honoris causa, by John Cabot University, in Rome, Italy.
Born in Egypt, Azza is also a citizen of the Netherlands, and resides in New York.