Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Carolyn Woo. Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo is President & CEO of Catholic Relief Services, the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. She came to CRS in January 2012 after a distinguished academic career. Before coming to CRS, Dr. Woo served from 1997 to 2011 as dean of the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.… See full bio.

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Story: With 60 years experience delivering humanitarian assistance throughout the world, CRS has a strong background in emergency preparedness and response. CRS adheres to international standards to the greatest extent possible in all of its emergency work to ensure that disaster-affected populations are at least able to meet their basic right to live a life with dignity. CRS works directly with affected communities and local partners to help restore and strengthen their pre-disaster capacities. CRS responds to both natural disasters and, complex emergencies, a term coined in the post-Cold War era that describes today's violent conflicts often involving intra-state conflicts with regional implications. Complex emergencies result in massive numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, gross violations of human rights and large-scale disruption of people's livelihoods. Complex emergencies are often exacerbated by natural disasters. Today, there are around 34 million displaced people in the world. Of these, 20.3 million are internally displaced within their countries and 13.7 million are refugees who have fled to other countries. The number of displaced people around the world doubles every seven to eight years.

Evidence of Impact Summary:

Catholic Relief Services have carried out large complex food aid programs and other kinds of emergency response around the world for over 65 years. Multiple experts agreed that CRS is an established professional in the field of emergency resposne, with a long-standing presence and an accomplished core team in its target countries.
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Organization Strengths Summary:

Experts agreed that Catholic Relief Services works admirably on location. Their strengths lie in excellent leadership and a committed staff, strong logistical systems, their surge capacity, and the ability to network with local organizations.
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Areas for Improvement Summary:

Although Catholic Relief Services does solid work on the local level, experts believe they could strengthen their work by deepening their awareness of how they are perceived by other nationalities. They can further improve by collaborating more with peers in the Caritas Internationalis confederation of Catholic relief organizations.
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Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo is President & CEO of Catholic Relief Services, the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. She came to CRS in January 2012 after a distinguished academic career. Before coming to CRS, Dr. Woo served from 1997 to 2011 as dean of the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. During Dr. Woo's tenure, the Mendoza College was frequently recognized as the nation’s leading business school in ethics education and research, and received top ranking in 2010 and 2011 for its undergraduate business program from Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. Prior to the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Woo served as Associate Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Purdue University. Dr. Woo was born and raised in Hong Kong, and immigrated to the United States to attend Purdue University, where she received her B.S., M.S.I.A. and Ph.D. degrees, and became a member of its faculty. Her teaching, research and administrative leadership have been recognized through Best Paper Awards by the Academy of Management, selection as one of Forty Young Leaders of American Academe by Change Magazine (the journal of the American Association for Higher Education), distinguished alumna and honorary alumna by Purdue University and University of Notre Dame, as well as by the conferral of honorary doctorates from Providence College, University of St. Francis and Lewis University. She was the first female dean to chair the accreditation body for business schools (AACSB: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) and directed its initiative for Peace through Commerce. From 2004 to 2010, Dr. Woo served on the Board of Directors of Catholic Relief Services. She is currently serves on the Board of Directors for the AON Corporation; NiSource (former NIPSCO); Catholic Charities USA; Aileron Foundation; the Board of Regents, University of Portland; the Board of Governors, University of Notre Dame Australia; and the Archdiocese of Baltimore Independent Child Abuse Review Board. She also serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Advisory Board, Fuel Up to Play 60 (sponsored by National Football League and the National Dairy Council); the Blue Ribbon Committee on accreditation AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) International; the Diversity Advisory Committee of KPMG; Executive Council on Development of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Migration & Refugee Services, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; and the International Policy Committee, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Dr. Woo is married to Dr. David E. Bartkus and they have two sons, Ryan and Justin.

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