Rebecca S. Miller

While on a flight from Atlanta to New York for a meeting, Rebecca was seated next to a humanitarian returning from Zagreb, Croatia.  After speaking powerfully about his experiences during the war, and his work in Eastern Europe, he asked her,  “So, what are you doing to make a difference in the world?” Six months later, she and her team from Macy’s hosted Princess Sofia of Romania for a weekend of fund raising, leading her to travel to Romania to see the situation first hand.  

 

What she witnessed, the tragic reality of hundreds of thousands of children suffering in devastating situations, changed the trajectory of her life path.  After 15 years as an executive in retail business systems, she joined the Board of CHILDREN OF THE WORLD (COTW), eventually being hired as their President and CEO. Rebecca used her skills of diplomacy, project management, strategic thinking, problem-solving and her results-orientation to triple the revenue of the organization and expand reach by 67%. Through her leadership, COTW initiated, directed and funded local programs in seven other countries including war devastated Bosnia and Serbia, the HIV pandemic in Kenya, conflicts in Israel and Palestine and extreme poverty in Mexico and parts of the US.  

 

Rebecca formed an international task force to find and replicate best practice models of care as alternatives to the harmful institutionalization of children. She sat on a US Senatorial task force on deinstitutionalizing the world’s children, and was awarded a fellowship to the Rockefeller Foundation’s Next Generation Leadership program in democracy and social justice.

 

Since leaving COTW to raise her own children, she formed Rebecca S. Miller Consulting to provide services to nonprofit and start-up organizations. As a chronic volunteer, Rebecca has served on numerous boards and advisory councils. Most recently, Rebecca was hired as the Head of Admissions, Branding and Communications for a start-up high school. She then joined Catholic Charities as Division Director of Development and Communications, leading her team through a strategic diversification of revenue streams and a rebranding of the agency. 

 

Rebecca’s eldest child is a graduate of Mills College with a BA in PEPL (Politics, Econ, Policy and Law), and her youngest is a Junior at Stanford University pursuing an MS degree in Electrical Engineering.  Residing in Healdsburg, California, she and her husband Joel, (ChateauHR, LLC), enjoy a farm to table lifestyle, enhanced by the local viticulture and her passion for the culinary arts.