CARE's Envoy to the Powerful and the Poor

Physician Helene Gayle may have been born with a gift for empathy.

She is a child of the civil rights movement whose father ran a barber and beauty supply business for African Americans in the heart of Buffalo's black community. On Sundays, Jacob Gayle Sr., now deceased, would drag his five children to visit the elderly and the infirm, she recalled.

"The idea of doing something bigger than yourself is something you grew up with in my family in those times," said Gayle.

Her ability to connect with presidents and prostitutes and her focus on social inequities will serve her well as the new president and chief executive of CARE USA, the international humanitarian organization that fights poverty in 70 countries.

Gayle said she can't imagine doing anything else: "This is too gratifying a cause. When you talk to people working on the front lines of survival, I feel there is nothing better I can do with my life than enable them to do what they do. This is what I thrive on."

[Excerpt of an article by Nora Boustany, The Washington Post]