Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg

For Black History Month 2024, we interviewed Black feminist leaders from the Diaspora whose expertise includes climate justice, art that centers land and relationship, collective memory, and executive leadership. Their work—and the solidarity they build—are helping shift the power within movements for gender and racial justice while redefining what success looks like. Explore the entire campaign, and join us in lifting up the leaders and organizations across the world who center Black freedom, Black joy, and Black dignity every day.

What is your name? What organizations or movements do you work with?

My name is Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg. I am the Founder and Executive Director of Black Women in Executive Leadership (B-WEL). Before starting B-WEL, I served as the inaugural Executive Director of Rise, a program for young leaders, at Schmidt Futures. Prior to that, I contributed to the mission of African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), which focuses on inclusive, agriculture-driven prosperity for the African continent by strengthening the production and dissemination of more gender-responsive agricultural research and innovation.

Before my involvement with AWARD, I founded and served as the Executive Director of Akili Dada, an award-winning leadership incubator investing in high-achieving young women from under-resourced families who are passionate about driving change in their communities.

What are some of the key goals of B-WEL's work?

We have three main priorities for B-WEL, and what we do is we center insights from Black women’s experiences to strengthen, diversify, and connect leaders and innovative solutions to solve the world’s most pressing challenges.

Central to our work are three main pillars. The first is creating a connected community of Black women executives from around the world, and fostering an environment of mutual support.

The question we're asking is this: do Black women from different parts of the world have a shared experience, especially when they reach positions of senior leadership? And what we found so far is really encouraging. They actually do!

So that's the first piece of work—building a community of Black women.

The second piece of it is collecting, collating, and curating Black women’s wisdom—those successful strategies, tools, and tactics that Black women have developed to navigate the intersection of patriarchy and anti-Black racism. We map out that wisdom and share with leaders of institutions who have an expressed commitment to building more equal, more diverse workplaces.

And then the third pillar of B-WEL’s work is catalyzing collaborations between individuals and institutions who want to make a change. We bring the lessons that we’ve learned and insights gathered from the experiences of Black women to allies committed to building an inclusive environment.

Philanthropy has historically overlooked and under-invested in Black feminism. Why is the connection between funding and shifting power needed to advance racial justice?

We are in a conundrum because we're trying to fix a leaking boat in the middle of an ocean.

We're trying to fix inequality in an ocean of inequality!

Philanthropy exists because there's an uneven, unequal distribution of wealth and resources. So philanthropists must work a hundred times harder to navigate and manage their own privilege so that they can address the system.

Being in philanthropy means you have a massive calling to always constantly explore your own privilege.