Her latest initiative in Africa — a continent where Amy Towers and her Nduna Foundation have done so much good work during the past two decades — is in Zimbabwe.
It connects her biggest passions: Helping animals, helping the environment, helping people — and helping during a crisis.
“It’s a huge plot of land that has a wildlife conservancy next to communal lands,” she begins. “There’s a lot of opportunity to improve the area for the community. They’re in a drought right now. They’re in a food insecure area. They don’t have access to health care.
“This is all about community development.”
Her mind begins to rattle off the most basic of needs.
“We would suggest agriculture education — figure out which products can grow there, and build irrigation systems to allow them to grow,” she said. “We would also suggest a community center that can be used for education and providing health care — and to work with the government to figure out how we can get health care providers there on a regular basis.
“We would need to figure out how to serve the entire area,” Towers said.
“This land is at the intersection of where people live and where animals want to be,” she said. “We need to figure out how to create a wildlife corridor that’s safe for people to live in, one that creates enough food sustainability so that there’s no need for poaching.”
The Nduna Foundation has been doing this type of work for nearly two decades. It has had success in Somalia, Ethiopia, Niger and elsewhere. Places where smaller NGOs have had to pull out because it was too dangerous and too unstable and global organizations such as the United Nations and UNICEF are often the only ones to stay.
Because her foundation is built on private money, Towers said it has had the ability to not only succeed in such places — but build a framework for success so that other organizations can follow.
“My foundation will never be the biggest, will never have the largest dollar amount attached to it, but — because I don’t rely on public donations — it can be the first one in a crisis zone,” she said. “In a crisis, in a conflict, in an emergency, early money matters. Being on the ground matters. Private money can go where public money struggles to go.
“If you’re a big public foundation, you have a lot of other people’s money that you have to answer to. I have the ability to go into difficult places, complicated places, places that have no plan, because I can assess the risk and take greater risks.
“I never have taken $1 of anyone else’s money. So, I have the opportunity — and I have the responsibility — to go where no one else will go, figure it out and prove the concept.”
Her philanthropic efforts are just one part of Amy Towers’ incredibly impressive resume that few people seem to know about. Certainly not when she joined the Rutgers Foundation or its Board of Governors — and certainly not when she was elected as chair of the Board of Governors in June.
Few know that she was a founding member of The Elders, a global board that included Nelson Mandela and Richard Branson. Or domestic boards, such as the CDC Foundation and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The decades she spent in finance are just as hidden for many, too. The fact that she rose through the ranks in the banking world in the 1990s — or during a time when few women were in those spots — isn’t well known. Nor is her time as the chief operating officer of a hedge fund, which helped her make her money.
Towers, thanks to a divorce that was spilled across the pages of the tabloids for months, has shunned media opportunities ever since.
“I had to pay people to keep my life out of the press,” she laments.
Towers, understanding that she needs to have a more public persona now that she’s in a very public role, did agree to sit down with ROI-NJ for what became a 90-minute discussion.
Part of the conversation — on the school needing to hire four key people – was released in early December. Here’s more of the conversation, edited for space and clarity.
ROI-NJ: Let’s start with the Nduna Foundation. What is the origin; what is the mission?
Amy Towers: We created the foundation in 2007 with a focus on human rights, nutrition and community development in conflict zones. The name Nduna means, ‘Coming together.’ In traditional villages in southern Africa, before you go to a chief, you create an Nduna. One guy or one gal doesn’t just go to the chief asking for something. You create an Nduna — you talk, debate, make a plan, and then you go to the chief.
So, because of my attachment to that part of the world, when I was naming the foundation, I thought, ‘I want this to be a coming together. I want this to be about creating solutions. I want this to be community based and collaborative.’
ROI: The tagline is: ‘Make it matter.’ Talk a bit about that.
AT: It doesn’t matter whether you give one dollar or a million dollars or a billion dollars — or whether you do it in your backyard or across the globe — just make it matter. You only have so many minutes in a day. You have so many days in your life. Be intentional, be thoughtful — and make it matter.
ROI: Your foundation work shows how you’ve moved around the world. Many may be more curious about how you got to New Jersey and Rutgers, having been born and raised in Wisconsin, where you went to college. Detail that journey.
AT: I was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Wisconsin, before my dad got transferred to Northern Illinois. I went to high school there before going to the University of Wisconsin.
ROI: So, you’re a Midwesterner through and through.
AT: Absolutely. I love brats and cheese curds — and I’m very good at making cheese curds. And I grew up golfing and hunting and doing all of that other Midwestern stuff. I love to golf. And I love sports.
ROI: We know your dad was instrumental in your career path. Tell that story.
AT: I was a French major, and my dad said to me, ‘French majors don’t get jobs — get in the business school.’ So, I did. I got a degree in French and finance and figured I’d become an international banker.
ROI: How did that work out?
AT: It didn’t. When I came out of college in 1991, the economy was awful — there were no jobs in international banking for me. I ended up taking a job at American National Bank in Chicago, which I loved because I has to learn so much so fast and they banked all of the preeminent business and people in Chicago. But it was a challenge.
ROI: How so?
AT: Women weren’t in banking then. I may have been the only woman in that analyst class, but I worked super hard, and I got in a great group. American National was bought by First Chicago. I kept working hard and moved up and learned a lot.
It’s a tough career, but it was great. I fought hard to advance. Because you have to be in Asia to move up, I worked hard to get a post there and did in Hong Kong, when we bought NBD Bank. I went there to merge credit portfolio.
ROI: You eventually moved to New York City and co-founded a very successful hedge fund where you were the COO. We’re just not sure how you got to New Jersey. Pick it up from there?
AT: My four sons played for the New Jersey Avalanche youth hockey program in Hackensack almost since they could each walk. Their dad stayed in Alpine, and I wanted to be close.
Around that time, Rutgers joined the Big Ten.
ROI: How did that change things?
AT: I’ll admit, I didn’t know a whole lot about Rutgers. But I knew a lot about the Big Ten. I went to Wisconsin. One of my sisters went to Michigan, another went to Iowa. One cousin went to Purdue. Another went to Michigan State. And I love sports. I figured this would be a chance to see Big Ten football. So, we called a number at Rutgers sports and asked to be put on the waiting list for football tickets.
ROI: We’ll give long-time supporters of Rutgers football a chance to chuckle here.
AT: They said, ‘There is no waiting list. You can buy them now.’ I said, ‘What about the best seats?’ They said: ‘How many do you need?’ So, I bought four and offered to make a donation, because that’s what you do in Wisconsin. It was really just to ensure that I could see sports, but it propelled me into becoming a major donor.
ROI: Let’s delve into this part a little more. There is a belief, by some, that you used your money (your husband’s money, many erroneously thought) to buy influence — that this was your plan. It led to more ugly press. Thoughts on that?
AT: My interest in Rutgers really just started because I like sports. I got involved with the athletics program just to be supportive and helpful. Then, the situation blew up with the football coaches (Kyle Flood and then Chris Ash) and I said, ‘How can I be helpful?’
Giving a little bit of money — which I never announced publicly — made me very popular and propelled things. I began doing more outside of the athletic department.
They looked at my background and my human rights work and my work supporting women in politics and said, ‘You have to learn about Eagleton. You have to tour Bloustein. You have to meet the business school dean and others.’ I did all of that and I loved it. I found out about all the incredible things that Rutgers has.
ROI: And when Rutgers officials found out about all of your leadership and board work, they asked for you to get more involved there, yes?
AT: They said, ‘You should come on the board of the foundation.’ Did that. Then they said, ‘You should chair the development committee.’ Did that. Then it became, ‘You should chair the foundation.’
I did it all because this is what I love to do. I do organizational consulting, revamping budgets and strengthening boards. I love problem solving.
ROI: And you seemingly love joining new teams when solving them. That brings up one last ask: Some have questioned your Jersey credential, so to speak. What would say to folks that say someone who isn’t an alum, who isn’t even originally from New Jersey — shouldn’t be the person overseeing all of this?
AT: I get it. I was a donor; I was not an alum. But sometimes it takes an outsider to tell your story better than you do. It takes an outsider to say, stop whining, stop complaining. You guys are awesome. There is so much good here, so much opportunity and potential, so many good people doing good things.
Nothing is perfect. Wisconsin is not perfect either — but we don’t tell people. We band together. Anywhere you go in that state, they’re proud to be a Badger — whether they went to Eau Claire, Green Bay, Whitewater or Madison. I want the people of New Jersey to feel that way. They should feel that Rutgers is so great at so many things. I want to help tell that story.
