Interviewee: Noorain Khan (Michigan & St Antony's 2006) [hereafter ‘RES’]
Moderator: Jamie Byron Geller [hereafter ‘INT’]
Date of interview: 12 February 2025
INT: This is Jamie Byron Geller on behalf of the Rhodes Trust and I am here on Zoom with Noorain Khan, Michigan and St Antony’s, 2006 to record Noorain’s oral history interview. This will help us to launch the first ever comprehensive Rhodes Scholar oral history project and we are so grateful for your participation. Today’s date is February 12th, 2025. And before we begin would you mind please saying your full name for the recording?
RES: Sure. My name is Noorain Fatima Khan.
INT: Thank you. And do I have your permission to record audio and video of this interview?
INT: Okay, thank you. So we’re having this conversation on Zoom Noorain but where are you joining from?
RES: I’m joining from Manhattan. I actually live in Brooklyn, New York but I work in New York City.
INT: Great. And so I’d love as we move through the conversation to learn more about your work and your journey in New York but first to go all the way back to the beginning, where and when were you born?
RES: I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1984.
INT: Great. And did you spend your childhood in Grand Rapids?
RES: Yeah, I was born and raised in Grand Rapids. My dad had probably lived there for a decade prior to my being born. And it’s definitely where I call home. And I left after high school. So born and raised.
INT: And what, do you have siblings Noorain?
RES: I do, I’m the oldest of four from both my parents and then I have two older half-brothers who I am also very close to.
INT: And what were your, if you were to reflect back on you know maybe your earliest educational memories what were those like? What were the earliest years of your schooling like?
RES: I always remember being really excited about school. I actually remember my first day of pre-school. My mum says I was two and a half, so I actually remember her dropping me off and my thinking that she wasn’t going to pick me up. That was my big fear. But I was always really excited to learn and my mum saw that at an early age and she just started offering me lots of opportunities outside of the classroom as well. So I remember she really, she bought me a bunch of workbooks, I was doing those outside of school. I found it so energising and I just loved, I both loved learning and obviously like I loved the affirmation that I got when I was working hard and felt like I was accomplishing things or learning things. And that really carried all the way throughout, I’ve always been- I mean I guess I’d call myself a lifelong learner but someone who just nerds out.
INT: Wonderful. And were there, you know, as you moved through elementary school and into high school, were there particular subjects that you gravitated towards?
RES: I loved everything. I don’t think I was one of those people that said I don’t like math, certainly as a, you know, a young woman I think people have ideas about what kind of person pursues what kind of career. And I was just a generalist. I loved science, I loved math, I loved, I probably loved math a little less than science. I really, really was drawn to science and English. And I did the Science Olympiad outside of school. At high school I did speech and debate. And those things were really important to me, as were like sports. I loved playing tennis. I tried every kind of sport. My mum, both my parents were just very encouraging of not being narrow but thinking of myself as a whole person. And I also just appreciated that they encouraged me to try new things even things that they weren’t familiar with. Both my parents were immigrants from Pakistan and like I remember my mum signed me up for pool and bowling. And she was like, “Yeah, like I feel like people really connect, people in the United States really connect over pool. Like you should learn what that’s about.” And what, like what a funky thing, now that I look back I just, I feel like she was ahead of her time and just so thoughtful about the kinds of experiences that would prepare me for the world. And that was especially- I mean like I grew up in a Muslim household. I’m a Muslim American. And I always now looking back appreciate that they were not, my parents didn’t offer up limits to what was possible for me based on their conceptions of gender. So that was really amazing. And you know for faith and cultural reasons, like we didn’t really do sleep away camp for example, or really spend time like away from family without some kind of family nearby. And I now think about it and I got onto this like AP Class for US history at Northwestern and I remember beginning as a sophomore in high school. And I know some of the other parents would have been like, “I’m sorry you can’t do that, find a class at the local community college, you can live at home.” I understand there’s financial resources associated with what I’m about to tell you. But my parents just said, “Like actually yes, you can’t live in the dorm, we’ll actually all pack up. Your dad has to stay home but like you’ll spend the summer in Chicago and get to do this thing.” So they made things work for me and they never said no to literally any opportunity or something I was interested in, they figured out a way to make it work that aligned with our family’s values.
INT: Mmm, it’s really beautiful.
RES: It was awesome. Again these are the things that you don’t really, you don’t have- When you grow up, I mean I lived very much in a bubble. Like I didn’t know how unusual some of their thinking was. And my dad is from a really conservative part of Pakistan. He is from the <Place 00:06:18> areas which are really, really very gender segregated. And so for him to just say, yeah of course and not have a deep, a rejection of our faith of community but find alignment, I think that’s so powerful and it’s something that I think about to this day.
INT: Mmm. And I would love you know as we move through our conversation to talk a little bit more about the role that the Girl Scouts plays in your life as an adult. But would love to know about the role that the Girl Scouts played in your childhood.
RES: Yeah, and it’s very hard for me to talk about it without crying. [laughs] Jamie, I feel so moved and passionate about every Girl Scout era I’ve had. I joined Girl Scouting in second grade. And I actually did like a year with a troop in one elementary school when I got [unclear 00:07:08] and moved to a different elementary school. And I stayed actually with my original Girl Scout troop all the way through high school. And it was mindblowing for me in so many different ways. I got to know really different people. We got to fun activities together. Some of my favourite field trips and opportunities arose out of that. I sold cookies and learned how to talk to strangers, make this sale. And then really be in a group and make decisions together about what we did with our cookie proceeds. Like those were some of the early memories I had. And as I got older it got way deeper. And I got involved in our local council. So my own troop came from like one particular school and, you know, I went to school with many of the girls. And then the council covered a bunch of counties around my area. And that’s really getting involved in that way as I got through middle school and high school, just absolutely blew my world open. One of my favourite things about girl scouting is it’s really a sisterhood and you kind of have a code of conduct in our promise and law that’s really important in how you interact with people. In fact interact with people who are different than you. And so I met all these people from rural communities who went to religious high schools, who, you know, we so different than me, and in my own high school and actually throughout all my own schooling, like I lived in a very white area. I was a religious minority. I was a, you know, an ethnic minority. I just, I felt different. And then when I started interacting with people who were so different than me, I was like it felt different. And girl scouts took that so seriously, a lot of the programmes I got involved with were very intentional about early DEI training, thinking about equity, thinking about inclusion and access. So like really when I say like it blew my mind open, like it opened up my world in really profound ways.
INT: Mmm, lovely. And you described yourself as an academic generalist. And I’m curious if as you continue through high school, if you had a sense of the direction that you hoped or expected that your career might one day take.
RES: I think we sometimes get in a trap when we’re in high school if you’re good at something that’s the thing you ought to do, especially if the thing you’re good at is something not everyone seems to be good at. And I probably fell into that a little bit because first of all my dad was a physician and I spent a lot of time with him, you know, just generally including professionally. And so I thought, oh like I love people, I can imagine myself being a physician and I’m good at science. And so I, you know, I think I had that mindset but I, again, why was I doing speech and debate, and why was I doing the one on the UN and stuff that involved the world? It was because I, you know there were deeper things about me that I didn’t exactly know how they could show up professionally.
Look I [audio distorted 00:10:10] think one of my friends’ parents was a lawyer, I didn’t know a lot of lawyers. I didn’t know anyone that worked at the UN. I didn’t know anyone that did a lot of things I was excited about professionally. So I think my mindset, all the way through high school was, oh I’ll be a physician who is interested in the world. Or think about global public health. You know you kind of sit in your circle and you figure out what, you know, what exists kind of in adjacent worlds. And then by the time I got to my senior year of high school, and won these like two different scholarships and in a very insane and wild way, they both involved winning a week in D.C. as the prize. And very conveniently they both took place in March of what like 2002, and they were consecutive weeks. So I spent two weeks in D.C. One was the United States Youth Scholarship programme. And like I just met all these people in Government. And I think that first week I was like, oh my gosh this is incredible. I thought it was so formative and then I was like, oh I’m definitely not going to be a doctor. [laughs] And the second week I won, I was one of the top 10 gold award Girl Scout projects. So gold award is the highest award a Girl Scout can get. It’s, you know, our equivalent of an Eagle Scout, it’s actually harder to get. And I was picked as one of the top 10 projects, so I got another week in D.C. but that was less rigid and Government focused and more focused on the world and social change. So I truly, like that really, really impacted me in a really deep way. And then looking back it was always obvious that I was going to do something different because my gold award project for Girl Scouts was organising in my mosque, I like did a bunch of community organising, I started a youth group. We organised with leadership in our city and in our communities. Like we were doing all this like really, really cool stuff. So I guess it was always, it was always, I was always on the path but it took those two weeks in D.C. for me to say, actually I’m going to switch, like I’m not going to do a science major, I’m going to think about something else.
INT: Mmm. And so did you, I know you went to Rice University. Did you go right out of high school?
RES: I did, yeah. Like there was, I mean people, people take gap years now, that was almost not a thing at all now more than 20 years ago. But I went right after. I had an aunt that lived in Houston and I think again when I said, moving far away I think my parents would have, you know, figured it and said, “So live wherever you get into, whatever college you get into that you want to go to you can go.” But I think it was very helpful that we my aunt lived in Houston. And Rice was really, really small. I got a merit scholarship. And I am so glad I went to Rice. I think, I think it was the perfect fit for me in so many ways. Huge city, really diverse city, so different than Michigan. So many different cultures and ethnicities. But a really intimate campus and I think one of the things I appreciated the most was, it was so small you couldn’t come in as an expert. So like if I had gone to a big state school and I was interested in journalism, I bet you it would be really, really to write for the local, you know, like write for the school paper. But at Rice they needed writers. I got a column my freshman year, like an op-ed column. That’s wild. So I just kept having opportunities like that that were really, really available to me I feel because I went to such a small school.
INT: And what did you major in? Did you major in journalism?
RES: No I didn’t, I did women’s studies, political science and religious studies. And I wrote my thesis in women’s studies and I was probably very, very active in religious studies too.
INT: And what, so it sounds like the experience in D.C. right after high school was really formative in terms of thinking about potential career. I’m curious how that continued to morph as you went through college, thinking about where you [overtalking 00:14:28]
RES: Well it was so, yeah, yeah it was so, it was so easy at Rice. We had a public policy institute. There was a ton of students organising within the public policies school with a lot of researchers. So basically I ended up Chairing the student group, the student public policy group. I thought that was really, really great because the focus was on policy and not necessarily politics. It was, you know, slightly rightly named, which I think was just like really good for me. It was really, really- It actually remains good for me today just to have interaction with so many people who are so different than maybe even what I think now. But they also had, they had like a really robust programme for political science academic research. And like facilitating internships, paid internships in D.C. So I just kept going back to D.C. My first two summers I worked at my senator’s office. I worked at Amnesty International as a, you know, with student activists. The following summer I worked at the Middle East Institute. And also, oh my goodness it’s escaping me. I remember I- Oh the D.C. Mayor’s office where I actually worked on grant making. They had a big fund where they seized property and items in probate after people had passed and there was like no one that claimed it, they sold that off. And then they made grants to D.C. based community organisations with that money. And so that was kind of like the, for me like, I think about where did my interest in philanthropy come from, that was one of the places. Like I had a summer job when I was like giving away money to D.C. based non-profits. So and then the last summer I actually spent in Pakistan which was like an awesome and amazing experience but I was a Mellon Mays undergraduate fellow at that time. I felt like I had so many resources at Rice to support all of these academic explorations and travel opportunities. I also studied abroad. I studied abroad in Egypt my junior year which was amazing.
INT: Oh wonderful. I’m curious at what point during your journey at Rice did you start thinking about the Rhodes Scholarship as a potential next step?
RES: I think I’d always known about the Rhodes Scholarship, probably, I mean like maybe because of Bill Clinton. I’m not really sure, but I have a list of like from my freshman year, like big dreams post-graduation. And I have Rhodes Scholarship on that list among a bunch of other things. I remember because I spelled Rhodes, like [unclear 00:17:16] So it was kind of always on my radar. Rice had not had a ton of Rhodes Scholars and really didn’t have a robust support system to support me through an application process. But it was always on my radar. You know obviously I read folks’ biographies and then maybe my junior year there were two things that were important to me. One was my, one of Rice’s recent Rhodes Scholars, like maybe nine years before me was a woman named Maryana Iskander. And she came back to Rice when we got a new President my junior year to advise him. So I met her and I just said, “Look I’m so interested in this.” And she was really warm and supportive. She remains one of my dearest friends to this day. She is an incredible force in my life. And so she was one of the people that helped me realise like there was a person behind the bio, right. Like that that can be quite intimidating. And I just met her and she was wise and cool and interesting and really passionate. And then the second thing is, you know, in the lead up to my applying my senior year, I had had a number of professors at Rice who were amazing to me. And one of them was Elora Shehabuddin who actually taught at the nexus of South Asian studies, religious studies and political science. And she said to me, “Someone wins. Like it’s not like no one wins.” And hearing that, I think about that to this day because like it’s, some of these things that feel so impossible are not impossible actually because they happen, so why, you know, why not me? And I think it’s really important. Again I carry all of these lessons that I’m reflecting on today are things I think about today, which is like you’re never entitled to anything, but you know maybe it’ll be you, if it’s not you who cares, it’s cool, keep going. And if it is you, like lead with humility and appreciation for the fact that this is such a chance thing and use your privileges. So I just like you know those two things and, you know, I really, really prepared and I’d applied for the Truman my junior year and we’d had such a sparse scholarship advising system that at the end of the Truman application it says like, “Is there anything else you want to add?” That is the essay prompt. Like that’s what you are supposed to, like, that- Everyone knows that that’s where you write your essay. I was like, “Oh there isn’t anything I want to add.” I wrote no essay, like that’s crazy. Like I had no one to tell me, I had no one to lead me through the process and later on when I went to law school, like yeah well and they had a very robust scholarships office, I would often prepare Yale undergrads for their mock interviews and things like that.
And can you imagine like I had no one to tell me that my application was incomplete. And so many other schools have this like very robust system. So, you know, neither here nor there but I, the way it happened for me was the right way for me. But it does make you think about all the different ways people think this is an opportunity for them.
INT: Yeah. And did, and it sounds like, you know, that that was a little bit of a, in some ways the application process itself, probably a little bit of a solo journey for the Rhodes Scholarship as well.
RES: Absolutely. Totally solo yeah. Like I didn’t- [unclear 00:20:45] self-organised some [unclear 00:20:47] interviews for myself once I got an interview. And there were really nice professors who helped along the way as I asked them. Getting eight letters of recommendation was so, it was actually a really amazing experience to go back to some people in my life from, you know, even before college, including people from the Girl Scouts world. Like that was so cool. So it was solo but I have no resentment about that. I believe that, again, for so many things in life, I believe it happened in the way it needed to happen too for me.
INT: And do you, do you recall the moment of learning that you had been selected for the scholarship?
RES: Totally. Like it’s going to make me cry. Like I still think about it. It was life changing for me. Like I remember standing there and they had us all lined up and Jamie like I was thinking to myself, this is so cool, but I don’t know [unclear 00:21:45-47] Rhodes Scholars. Like I literally thought to myself this is, I felt like it was such a privilege to be there. I found the interview to be so enriching. I find the process of preparation to be- To prompt so much invaluable introspection for me as I was on the precipice of a big life change, like leaving college. It never like, I did not think it was going to be me. And in fact in my interview, we had callbacks and I wasn’t called back. So it just didn’t, like I kind of thought, if they do callbacks it’ll be two of the people and the three people that were called back, but instead like I now understood that to be they were picking the second person among the people that were called back and that they had already settled on me. That’s like a wild thought actually. So yeah like it’s crazy. And I remember telling my dad and my dad did not understand what a big deal it was. And he started you know like, my parents are still immigrant people really focused on professional things. And my dad said to me, he was like, “That’s just so wonderful and you’re just going to have to respectfully decline after you find out where you get in to law school.” [laughs] Like it’s just like a scale thing, like I think he didn’t fully get it. Like he would never say that now. He probably even three days later after it was like in my home town paper and I was like on the cover. I think he [unclear 00:23:12] But like that’s what he thought. That’s just so funny to me. [laughs]
INT: And had you- You mentioned some travel throughout college outside of the US. Had you spent time in the UK before?
RES: I did yeah. I mean it’s one of the privileges- I mean everything I tell you, like it’s not lost on me that so much of childhood, so many of the wonderful things I experienced are predicated on my parents’ financial success and resources that they afforded me. So I had a lot of travel. Pakistan, and then a lot of places where I had relatives. The UK, the Gulf, you know, I had family everywhere and my parents loved to vacation and they were very cosmopolitan. And so I had a lot of great travel opportunities. I had actually visited Oxford but I don’t think I had, you know, like I probably was a kid when I last visited Oxford. So one of the cool things was I had a cousin, I had a cousin actually was in his first year of university when I went to Oxford. And that was just a fun experience I think.
INT: Also was he at Oxford as well?
RES: Yeah he went to Oxford. So like we had our first- I mean he was, he was a first year. But it was just fun to go to college, like to- I mean I treated Oxford like college which we can talk about. But it was fun to have that experience with my cousin.
INT: Great. And what was that experience of- Did you live at St Antony’s both years?
RES: Yeah I did. My first year I lived in St Antony’s and then my second year I moved in with two roommates, two Rhodes classmates <Name 00:24:52> and <Name 00:24:52> And <Name> was in the military so we had, you know, a very nice housing set up. But it was, it was incredible. It was amazing. Obviously it was at the beginning very intimidating to be around people that were so talented, whose bios you’d read, who even at the beginning when you first meet people, they’re probably postering in a particular way. But I lived at St Antony’s, I loved St Antony’s. It was, you know, I was, I had, I was doing migration studies. And I was really passionate about anthropology and the social sciences. And so just being around graduate students and then you know there is a real connection, this is like you know I’m a post 9/11 young Muslim kid, like I was in my senior year of high school when 9/11 happened as a Muslim American. And I should say I wore a hijab for a long time until like about halfway through college. So it was really cool to be at St Antony’s with a lot of people who were interested in the Middle East. And you know just interested in the broader world. So it aligned with my personal identity and actually a lot of my academic interests.
INT: Beautiful. And you, you shared that you treated Oxford like college. Would you mind expanding on that?
RES: Yes. Like other people would do college. I definitely stepped off the treadmill. So like I really, I did not focus deeply on my academics. I fulfilled my requirements and I did what I needed to do and I got actually a lot out of the classes I went, I did get a lot out of. But just overall, like I felt no pressure to excel. I, you know, I knew I wanted to go to law school after Oxford and that would probably, eventually I figured out it would be law school. And so I just didn’t pressure myself to spend all my time locked up, which meant I had so much fun. I spent a lot of time with friends, especially my Rhodes classmates, especially people at St Antony’s. I travelled a lot. I was very involved with the student radio. I had a show on Oxide Student Radio and I was a very early podcaster. So my law school, not my law school, actually he was my law school classmate, but my Oxford Rhodes classmate Adam Chandler and I had a celebrity gossip radio show and then podcast that was on iTunes between 2006 and 2011. So like very early podcasting. And one of my favourite things, I mean this is when we all had like [unclear 00:27:34] and no iPhones, but I Googled, I don’t know how I came across her name, but I came across the name of a Rhodes Scholar named [s/l Big Sally 00:27:45] who had a show that was podcast, like it was like a podcast too, it was on PRI. And so I wrote to her and like we became friends with her. I actually was like a baby RA to her as she was working a show with Bravo like later. So I was, you know, I am still very passionate and interested in [unclear 00:28:04] culture. And later on Adam and I went to law school together, I interviewed probably half a dozen or more real housewives. So that came later. But that started in Oxford and it was so joyful. And we were reading the news at like, I remember I was reading the news at Oxide Radio at like, like 1.00 to 2.00 am on Sundays. It was wild. [laughs] We got the worst assignments. But it was so, when I tell you like, I became more joyful after that. I became more open. I explored things that were just nascent interests of mine. I took myself less seriously which then allowed myself to take the right things more seriously. So I will say like at the beginning it was very lonely. You know it felt like, I think I probably experienced some kind of seasonal depression. Like I was just, I felt behind, I felt like I was getting behind or something in life. I don’t know how to explain that. So it wasn’t all- You know this is all joy that came with time and introspection. And my second year when we moved into the house, so I moved into the house with <Name 00:29:18> and <Name>. My sister actually also came to Oxford, my sister who is one of my very best friends in the world, my best friend. And so there were a number of things that made all of that get better and better with time.
INT: That’s really lovely. And we would, I’d love as we move a little further along to play, to talk about the role that you have played in really, you know, re-imagining what the Rhodes community could be. But curious about when you were in Oxford, what role if any Rhodes House played in that.
RES: Not a huge role but the Rhodes community and the Rhodes email list was a really big deal because we didn’t have WhatsApp or group texting in the same way.
So I’ll say this, our warden was so, like was perfectly nice and probably really good. I loved [s/l Larry Eaton 00:30:16], I loved so many folks that are, you know, still there, or have just recently retired. But the space wasn’t open to us and so even I remember my second year I organised Rhodes fight club where everyone kind of did like an academic presentation on, it wouldn’t have to be their academic subject but something that they cared about. And we couldn’t use the Rhodes space, like they wouldn’t let us use it. So we had to organise in people’s home in the evenings. So the community was important but we didn’t have the space. And I know obviously that changed with time. And the Rhodes list I was, you know, very sadly it does not exist today in the way it did before because like toxic people whatever, I’ll say in my experience it was a very vibrant place for interesting dialogue and connection and community connection. So I think in that era between 2006 and 2008 it was just, it was a really wonderful resource for connection. Yeah but I was very, very, very good friends with a number of people from my Rhodes class and the class above and below me. And then in the most beautiful turn of events, I have become even better friends with people in those other, you know, in adjacent years and my years too who I wasn’t even close with at Oxford. Maria <Name 00:31:48> is one of my dearest friends in the world. And we were friendly in Oxford but you know not the way we are friends today. And even my husband <Name 00:31:56> he was in the class a year ahead of me and we were friends towards the time, his time in Oxford, end of his time at Oxford. But you know we, obviously, I didn’t think I was going to get married to him, that’s totally crazy. We started dating like five years later.
INT: And at what point, you mentioned that the idea of going to Oxford kind of came- I mean the idea of going to law school came to you in Oxford. So I’m curious when you started thinking about that.
RES: Yeah like I was into parts of my anthropology programme which was called migration studies. And I had done volunteer work in detention centres outside of Oxford, in migration detention centres. And I remember teaching a creative writing class and I remember also that my students were like, “Okay but do you actually know a lawyer?” Like they were in the class but they had other questions for me. And I think that affirmed for me that I would, that some skills felt more urgent with the populations and communities I was working with. And so I think that’s really where it felt like, it became more solid.
INT: And so did you, was your journey from Oxford right to Yale? Or was there time in between?
RES: Yeah. Yeah. And a number of people from my Rhodes class were in my class at Yale Law School, which I think was amazing for me. I think that’s kind of why I’m now looking back because we were a significant proportion of my class. Like there’s only 180 students per class at Yale Law School and there were probably maybe six of us, maybe even more. So yeah it’s just an interesting continued journey with a number of my very, very good friends.
INT: Yeah. I would love to know what, you know, what you found exciting about your studies at Yale, if there’s particular things you were drawn to that influenced the path that you took, and then also about those earliest years of year career in law.
RES: Yeah. Let’s see, so I mean the most formative experience I had in law school was I took, I was involved with what was called 9/11 Clinic. It was a civil liberties clinic and focused on people who were detained or prosecuted under terrorism laws. And at Yale you can do clinics your second semester. And so it felt like I went from being like knowing very few lawyers or knowing anything about the profession to acting as a lawyer. That was really, really- It was like serious. And I would say like I got right back on the treadmill in law school. And that was great because I’d had what I felt like was a break for exploration at Oxford, but I took law school very seriously and enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. I think if you would have asked me at the beginning I’d want to be an immigration lawyer or someone who worked in human rights, and I think pretty quickly I started to think about the non-profit space generally. And as I was talking to people, many said, you know, you should learn, you should be very open to thinking about corporate law or another kind of law practice, to learn about money, to learn about, you know, non-profit law is actually based on corporate law. Like, you know, think about your exposure. And I did. I ended up at a firm called <Name 00:35:47> My 2L year I was at DOJ, and my 1L year, it was just like great and enriching. And like I said, I didn’t know anything about most of what I was doing. I did, when I say I took my law school seriously, I did but I still had my radio show and then I started working at a blog owned by Gawker Media and called Jezebel, which was really popular at the time for my, for most of my law school time actually. So I worked at Jezebel too and that was really enriching. So it’s not like I, you know, I still had some fun parts of things I did. But it, you know, I just learned a lot.
INT: And what were, so it sounds like right after law school you, as you were considering different options, you mentioned doing an internship at the DOJ and with a firm. And then you, did you join that firm right after?
RES: I went to the firm. I joined the firm right after. Yeah. It’s kind of like a machine, like it’s very common to do that. I’d say a significant proportion of my class did that. And I’ve had, I worked at my firm for two and a half years. But I think the [audio distorted 00:36:51] I just, I love it. Now, it was a very tough two and a half years. I pushed myself so much, it was exhausting and it was like, you know, probably if you asked me in the moment I wasn’t the happiest being in the world. And now that I think about it I’m so grateful I did that and I learned a lot. And I have incredible friends from that time. I feel very close to the firm and so much of its leadership now, which is just wild. I just had lunch yesterday with a partner at the firm. I was their women’s history month speaker last year at the firm. Like I, you know, it was a really great place to start my career because I learned a lot and because I, it was, it’s a very unforgiving environment in terms of excellence. There’s no room for mistakes and you really, really have to focus. And to begin your career with that work ethic, it never, like you never lose that. So it was a real privilege. I’m so glad I did it and I’m also so glad I didn’t stay. It wasn’t for me. And I’d say towards the end of my second year I started just meeting people in the non-profit space. By the time I got, my entire time at the firm I used almost all my vacation time on a Girl Scout project. I ultimately became a Girl Scout adult volunteer, which is now called a National Volunteer Partner. I was working with some high school girls in Chicago, you know, on the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouting and how we commemorate it. It was this like very powerful project but I was like flying to Chicago all the time to do it. And I think by the end of the second year I was like, I think this should be my job, not the job I do in 15 years after I, you know, try to make partner and become a general counsel. Like I needed to put that on the, you know, I needed to expedite that. So I just started Googling Chief of Staff, New York, non-profit. I ended up at Teach For All, a job which I had for exactly a year. And then I, you know, that was not a great fit for a lot of different reasons. And that itself was kind of like personally disappointing for me because it was a very dramatic pay cut. It was a 70% pay cut. And you know I’d had all these lofty ideas about, about my transition from something that was for the private sector and I thought that something for the public good, I had a lot of expectations about what something for the public good would look like and how I would feel. And that was pretty disappointing. But about seven or eight months into that job I met this head hunter who was looking to fill the role of Chief of Staff for Darren Walker, the newly appointed president of the Ford Foundation. And I participated in that process. I was the finalist which meant I interviewed with the whole leadership team and met with Darren. And they did my background check, and in the end I didn’t get the job but Darren called me and said, “I’m actually going to find something else for you.”
And then on that premise I quit my job at Teach For All and I waited. I waited two months, I was in talks with people at Ford about different roles and ultimately Darren hired his own programme officer and I am certain if he had done an open search for that job, I would never be, I would never be considered. It was such a desirable, incredible opportunity of a lifetime. And I knew, I felt something- I felt like there was something so special about him. And so I wanted to like, you know, raise my hand and applied for that job, but I think that the only way I could have gotten that job is the way I got it, which was, you know, applying for something else and really getting to know Darren in that other context. So I started that job in September of 2015 and I was at the Ford Foundation for over nine years.
INT: Wow. That is incredible.
RES: It was amazing. And then I get teary about it, Jamie, it was so- It was the professional experience of a lifetime. I sometimes wish it was my last job before I retired because [unclear 00:41:09] I’m loving what I’m doing now, so maybe I don’t need to say this anymore. But I was very worried that that was as good as it was going to get for me.
INT: So before we talk about your specific role at the Ford Foundation and the work that you impacted, what drew you to the- It sounded like, it sounds like you know working for a leader, with a leader like Darren Walker was really fundamental. What attracted you to the Ford Foundation in general, the work they were doing?
RES: Well being a generalist, caring about the world and social justice. And thinking about, you know, they had started their pivot to inequality around that time. And I was never a one issue silver bullet person. I never thought that if you solve education you’ll solve everything. I knew that the underlying systems at play were where the real battle is. And so you know Darren appealed to me, the history of the Foundation appealed to me, the issue areas that the Foundation addressed were all things that I had done little pockets of work in along the way. You know Darren himself had been an M&A lawyer, it was lawyer by training. So we had that in common. So it just felt like, I had never thought I wanted to work in philanthropy but then I think about it, I had in high school our local United Way and it kind of was adjacent to Girl Scouts, gave $10,000 a year to a group of local high school girls to give away in our community. And it was a way for us to get to know community organisations, do site visits, review applications. Now, like we thought that $10,000 a year was like the most you could- I mean I was just like, that was so much money to me. I mean I now laugh because during my tenure at Ford I gave away, personally gave away half a billion dollars. So the scale changed but when I looked back, I had done so much kind of philanthropy or philanthropy adjacent work over the years that it kind of, all the roads actually led to this, led to this role in a way that now feels obvious, you know.
INT: Mmm, wow. And what, you know I would imagine that there is, you know, you’re in a role where you’re doing so much good in the world at the Ford Foundation, I’m curious if you, when you reflect on that, that chapter in your career, what experiences stand out as most meaningful? And what stands out as perhaps also most challenging during that time?
RES: Oh my gosh, I mean I’ll start with the challenging things. So I think, you think that your job is giving away money, but your job is mostly saying no to people. I’d say no to people for whom this could be the difference between shuttering and keeping your doors open or really levelling up. So that was very difficult. And just making very difficult choices, that was really hard. Also a job where there, I was one of the very few generalist programme officers at the Foundation ever. And so we’d know reason to say no to people other than whatever [unclear 00:44:24] there would be. So I couldn’t say this is actually not our strategy or we’re not actually doing that because we made exceptions for things all the time. And I was the programme officer giving away money for the place where we do make exceptions. That was really challenging. The incoming, just managing how much was coming in to me. And then, you know, I lived a lot of, I lived my entire thirties at the Ford Foundation. And I actually through my, you know, I guess I’m going to turn 41 this year, but you know I think that, like I was living a lot of, like I had two kids while I was there, I did a secondment to the White House. And so I think it wouldn’t be fair not to acknowledge that, you know, that was also just like a period of time for me personally where I was balancing a lot, [audio distorted 00:45:12] Now the most moving things, I mean, I don’t know, I believe that I’m going to hope I continue to have [audio distorted 00:45:25] I think the things that inspired me the most and are most meaningful and I believe changed the world in some ways were, I founded and seeded disability rights, not just at the Ford Foundation but in institutional philanthropy around the country. I seeded two organisations, one philanthropy serving organisation and another organisation, another organisation that was a collaborative fund for disabled people where I designed the governance structure so that funders and disabled leaders would make funding decisions together side by side. Within two years of my initiating that work we became the largest private funder of disability in the world. I’m so proud of that, you know. I think the next part of my legacy and I’m also a non-disabled person doing that which has its own complexity, and I worked with incredible partners. So that I helped Darren with all his priorities during his tenure at the Foundation. Everything from renovating our building to making $500 million in grants across the world in completely disparate subject areas. A lot of work in the arts. A lot of work with the American Muslim community. So those were all meaningful. My colleagues were incredible. I just, I loved having ideas and just like running with them. It was really, really a special time, time and place.
INT: Mmm, wonderful. And you, you have, you know, recently entered a really new exciting chapter in your career. And I was wondering if you would mind sharing a little bit about that.
RES: Yeah sure. So I left Ford at the end of December and I am now wearing three different hats. I am President of Girl Scouts of the USA. After nine years on the board I was elected President which means I Chair the board and I also am the chief volunteer of our movement of almost 1.8 million, which I’m more than happy to talk to, that’s incredibly rewarding and nearly full time. And then I now advise family offices and high net worth individuals on their philanthropy. Everything from how to set up a foundation structurally to grant making areas and ways folks can make an impact with their dollars or their platform or their influence or other things. So I find that really rewarding. I’m also an adviser at an investment firm called XN. And I do some philanthropy adjacent work and then other work at the firm as well. So I think it’s the perfect portfolio life that I need in this moment. I find it really rewarding. It speaks to feeling like the full multi-faceted person that I am. And I have a three year old and a five year old, so it complements my life in a way that really works for me. So it’s really, it is actually really exciting. It’s exciting to build something and it’s exciting to take everything I learned in one institution and apply it with different people, personalities and different places, which I just love.
INT: And you, throughout your career Noorain have really led and contributed to incredibly meaningful causes outside your profession. And you really expertly summed up your work with the Girl Scouts in two sentence but it is, it is a huge role. I was wondering if you would mind, you know, expanding on your work with the Girl Scouts [overtalking 00:49:12] as well as any other volunteer service opportunities that are important to you?
RES: Sure, sure. And you know I’ll dive into the Girl Scout piece first. So I’m really, I’m just so excited, I’m about 18 months into a three year term. And we’re a really complex organisation, we’re in every single residential zip code, and at army bases and you know places where the US has a presence all over the world. We are also part of a global sisterhood of 10 million. And so it’s a very complex role. And it’s also just energising and exciting. And I helped, I love the effort to amend the Girl Scout constitution to say we’re an anti-racist organisation in 2023.
I’m incredibly proud of that because our future depends on being an organisation that is accessible and open to all. And us confronting any parts of who we are that aren’t in alignment with being fully inclusive was really, really important. So that I would say up until 2023 when I was elected was the thing I was most proud of. I remain very committed to that work. But you know we’ve in this first 18 months have had, you know, record revenue, philanthropic and otherwise. We have historic trust with our members, we’re actually a membership organisation and federated. That’s been really powerful. We have everything from like settling all outstanding litigation to a new global and domestic strategy that’s really, really, really relevant. It’s, you know, it’s about leadership but it’s actually about giving young people the life skills to thrive. And it really hits home for me personally because I’m also a first year troop leader this year. My daughter is a [s/l Daisy 00:51:11] girl scout, I’m her troop leader and I now have the kind of like, I now see the organisation at all the levels. You know, I’ve been, I’ve experienced a lot of activism about issues with our technology and different policy issues. And now I am living it in this very deep way. But also it’s my why. So like I led my Daisy troop through the earning of a petal called Honest and Fair. And then the world in which we live, like you know, the world is on fire but I feel like my Girl Scouts, like they are getting it right and they are being supported to do so. So like one of the activities was to do musical chairs. And of course whenever kids play musical chairs, they all jump on the same seat, right, as there are fewer and fewer seats. And those kids in the process of earning that patch sat down and immediately did rock, paper, scissors and accepted the result and then the person that lost went to go help with the play list. Like it’s about teaching people that you don’t win all the time, that there is dignity in disagreement, that there is love and compassion and respect even with those who are different than you. And like I’m seeing it in my own troop. And now I get to scale national policies and develop strategies that enable that. That’s life giving, Jamie. Like I, I feel so, I feel so incredibly grateful for that opportunity. But zooming out in terms of volunteer and board service, I’ll say this, I don’t really see a difference between what I do professionally, what I do in my volunteer life and my family life. I mean it may ebb and flow. There may be times when, you know, they’re not fully in alignment. But I am very clear on my values and they show up in each of these facets in different ways. And so I really proudly serve and Chair the finance committee of a Muslim intermediary philanthropy called The Pillars Fund. We focus on culture change and narrative change with, you know, the Muslim American community. That’s really powerful and energising. I funded that work when I was at Ford and I now have a role in the organisation post-Ford. So that remains. I had many- I served on many boards for many years until the Girl Scout role when I really had to, you know, focus. But that’s always going to be a really important part of my life. And I think the Rhodes story has a lot to do with it because I believe I have been given so much privilege and that I must focus on that in whatever way I can. So I see these roles as all kind of being aligned with hopefully the reasons why the folks on that committee in Fall of 2001 or 6, no Fall of 2005 picked me. So it’s all kind of in the same world. I think the last thing I’ll say about Girl Scouts and just generally is that we don’t care who your parents voted for. We don’t care, we don’t, you know, we are for like for young people. And I think there is a lot, I think we have a lot more work to do in this world. Like I think we can be a force in this world for community and connection and service and civics and values. And I think we’re really, really desperately needed. So I feel really privileged to lead the organisation in a time where the world needs us as much as girls need an organisation that champions them.
INT: Beautiful. So one of the organisations that you have been such a tremendous friend is the Rhodes Scholarships. And you’ve been really instrumental in envisioning and launching Welcome Home Weekend and have been wonderful to stay in touch with the scholarships and the trusts since going down. And was wondering if you mind sharing a little bit about what inspired you to stay involved in that way.
RES: Well I think it was, it felt very natural to me. The Rhodes Scholarship and specifically the community had given, has given me so much community, connection, thinking, ideas. And so it’s really a pay it forward situation. And I think I served on the board of the AARS, the Association of American Rhodes Scholars for eight years. And then found a lot of opportunities for collaboration with the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes House. I just was so impressed as, as the, as Rhodes House evolved after my time there. There was such an interest and appetite for partnership, I almost felt like it was easier to partner sometimes with the Trust than it was with other groups. And something that I felt very strongly was the AARS ran what was called Bon Voyage Weekend. And it was, you know, at some point it was like almost a week of activities in D.C. before you went to Oxford. Now that was before there was any onboarding and orientation at Rhodes House. So I felt very strongly that as Rhodes Trust set that up, we needed to probably slim down Bon Voyage Weekend. And then all those people that you were networking with and meeting and who were giving you their business cards and you were just- I mean you’re about to like head on a plane and like have this huge life change as a real adult for the first time, and not just going to college. And I felt it was very jarring actually to come back and then be like, there are all those cards, like all those people said they would help me, like what’s happening? And <Names 00:56:46> felt the same way and together we organised the first, first and second Welcome Home Weekend. And I’m so inspired to see that the idea resonated and that it’s scaling and that it continues to be relevant. But it just seemed so obvious to me, you come back and it’s a little bit like you are being thrown out alone and especially for those young people that are not immediately going to another academic institution. Like you have to be a grown up now. And you’ve kind of lived in this like highly facilitated, very, like you’ve lived in a bubble for a little while. So it’s a really great opportunity for community and connection and purpose. And about, to me it’s an opportunity to figure out how you live the values and use the privilege that you had at Oxford in real life. So yeah it, I mean it felt so natural to get involved in the ways that we did. I enjoyed the collaboration too, it was actually really fun to work on.
INT: Well thank you so much for your advocacy and partnership and continued friendship. It is really meaningful.
RES: The pleasure is mine. [laughs] And I think there is more, right, like I don’t think, I think we have different eras of life too, like I used to talk to any scholar that called me up and I just don’t have the same bandwidth that I did, but I suspect I will again one time, you know, some time soon. And so I think we all pinch hit in different eras of our life that afford that.
INT: In this era of your life and in this, you know, this time in your life and career, what would you say motivates and inspires you?
RES: Like humans, people, compassion. I think that’s a value that’s really important to me. Let’s see, what- I mean like interacting with Girl Scouts across the country, I find that very inspiring. I love going to their events. I love seeing them in action. And then you know any time I see an adult, like they were once a kid and we have real opportunities to help young people live out their potential and see the world differently. And to act in a way that thinks about our kind of collective. So like young people inspire me. And that’s what motivates me.
INT: Great. And you shared a little bit about meeting <Name 00:59:23> in Oxford and [unclear 00:59:24] children. I was wondering if there is anything else you would like to share about your family.
RES: Oh my gosh, well I just, I mean like I’m quite enjoying being a parent to like a three and five year old. I think they are like just so much more interesting. I’m learning a lot about just being a working parent. So I mean it’s a great joy, I can’t wait to bring them to Oxford. <Name 00:59:47> and I actually have never been to Oxford together even since we left. So we have work ahead of us, hopefully a visit ahead of us before too long too. But no I’m, this is like a very, very, very busy era of life. [laughs] But it’s awesome and I love it.
INT: So as we approach the end of our conversation I would love to ask you a few questions specifically related to the Scholarship. So the first being what impact would you say that the Rhodes Scholarship had on your life?
RES: Life changing, life defining impact in terms of the opportunities it afforded me, shaping who I am in the world, really deep relationships that have changed even my values and how I see the world. I’m so, I’m so very grateful for the opportunity. Just as much for what came after Oxford as what happened in Oxford actually.
INT: That’s great. And you know we are at a very exciting time in the life of the Scholarships as we, you know, look ahead to the 125th anniversary coming up in just a few years. So it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the history of the scholarships which is, you know, part of our hope for the oral history project but also to really look ahead to the next chapter of the Rhodes Scholarships. And so I would love to ask what your hopes for the future of the Rhodes Scholarship would be.
RES: I would love to see the Scholarship continue to grow and expand, to continue to be an equitable scholarship that’s more relevant than ever, with more scholars, that, you know, is probably even more thoughtful about how it reconciles its history and the life of our founder. I’d love to see all of that for the next, you know, for the next few years and beyond. But why not more I think is my overall response.
INT: Great. And do you have any advice or words of wisdom that you would offer to today’s Rhodes Scholars?
RES: Yeah, like use your privilege. It’s such a privilege, you should use it. I think we’re all told to do that and we need to do that in this moment.
INT: Well Noorain it has been such a joy talking with you and I’m so grateful.
RES: The pleasure is mine.
INT: I would love to ask if there is anything else that you’d like to share before we close?
RES: I don’t think so. Just, it’s such a pleasure to speak with you. I’m so excited by the effort, I feel, yeah, I know, I know I would not have the chance to do what I do and have the impact I have [audio distorted 01:02:53] but for the Scholarship actually in so many ways. The doors are opened, the people I met. So I just, I guess I’d love to close on a message of gratitude.
INT: Well thank you so much. And I would love to close with a message of gratitude as well. It’s been really a pleasure. So I will stop our recording there.
