December 4, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
New job: Suzanne Nossel, 42, will take over in January as executive director of Amnesty International USA, in New York.
Why she wanted the job: Amnesty’s global reputation as one of the foremost defenders of human rights. Ms. Nossel says this is a particularly exciting moment to join the group: The Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and other events of the past year have “really opened up a sense of possibility about what can be achieved through mass human-rights movements.”
Biggest challenges: Helping ordinary people recognize that they can influence far-flung human-rights issues, and finding creative ways to attract would-be donors. Ms. Nossel says Amnesty will try to reach people who have lost touch with the group since participating in its letter-writing campaigns in high school or college.
Why she was hired: Ms. Nossel’s experience as both a human-rights “theoretician and an activist,” as well as her management skills and ability to lead and inspire, says Carole Nagengast, board chair. Ms. Nossel, she says, “has a spark that would motivate you to work for Amnesty’s goals, to give your time and energy, to care about the work we do, to give more.”
Career path: Ms. Nossel served most recently as a deputy assistant secretary of state, where she was a liaison between the U.S. government and the U.N. Human Rights Council. Other past jobs include serving as chief operating officer of Human Rights Watch, deputy to the ambassador for U.N. management and reform at the U.S. mission of the United Nations, and a vice president at Bertelsmann Media Worldwide and The Wall Street Journal.
Education: She graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
First taste of human-rights activism: Marching on the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza as an elementary-school student, to call for greater religious freedom for Jews in the former Soviet Union.
