Dr. Betty N. Carew is the founder and CEO of the Betty Carew Foundation. She is a seasoned professional with business and marketing leadership experience. She worked for 3M Corporation for over 28 year and held roles of increasing responsibilities in several functions such as Marketing, Sales, Business Development, and Lean Six Sigma Continuous Improvement Operations (she is Master Black Belt certified). Betty is known for her visionary leadership, maximizing strategic & operational excellence, and inspiring teams to deliver customer value. Betty holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a Finance concentration from Minnesota State University. She also graduated with a Master of Business Administration degree, specializing in marketing, from the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota.
In addition, Betty has a doctorate in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Betty is currently Vice President of marketing programs at the American Marketing Association Professional Organization (Indiana chapter).
Her humble beginnings inspired Betty’s motivation to develop the Betty Carew Foundation. She was living amid poverty in Kissy, Sierra Leone, West Africa, and seeing first-hand the victims of poverty in any developing country (women and children). Betty was born into a philanthropic family; it started with her grandfather, a bishop in the United Methodist Church, who dedicated his life to ensuring he raised as many people as possible out of poverty in Kissy, Sierra Leone. Betty’s grandmother was also very active in the United Methodist Church. She devoted her life to empowering women and providing vocational training skills so that women could care for themselves and their families. She died on active duty, returning from a women’s development conference. The Betty Carew United Women’s Training Center was created by the United Methodist Church in 1971 in her memory.
The training center has existed for over 50 years, elevating marginalized women through educational development. The center was originally established in Yonibana, Sierra Leone. However, during the Sierra Leone civil war in 1991, thousands left their homes to flee for safety in Freetown (a city in Sierra Leone). Among the most vulnerable were women and children who were raped, with hands and arms amputated by the war rebels. Young women & mothers ended up in the streets of Freetown without any education or skill, leaving them with no way to provide sustainable care for their children. Today, we can see the devastating impact of the civil war on the lives of these young girls, their families, and the community. The Betty Carew Women’s Training Center now exists in Freetown to address the overwhelming need for training and development programs that empower these young women within their communities.