Ilaha Eli Omar

At 40 days old, against the backdrop of the Soviet invasion, Eli & her family fled Kabul towards an unknown future. Today, as an experienced Afghan-American female entrepreneur and founder of a successful technical staffing company, Eli champions women's rights and supports various women's causes with specific focus on creating sustainable solutions. Eli obtained her Global MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management where she continues to mentor Afghan women (via Project Artemis) to help them build, manage and expand their businesses in Afghanistan.

Eli has a passion for helping those in need on a global scale. She spearheaded five successful missions to Haiti including running hygiene programs for women and girls in post-earthquake shelters, collaborating with Children of War Foundation’s medical missions for operating on children with life-threatening deformities, and escorting and hosting Afghan children amputees during their prosthesis treatments in the US. In Kenya Eli launched a sustainable social enterprise project where she trained local women in entrepreneurship. She also helped fund and led a successful sewage drainage project in Nairobi’s harshest slum, effecting 6,000 lives.

Currently Eli is focused on helping NGO’s transition from donor-based dependency to self-sustainable organizations and guides philanthropists on how to create a strong legacy of social good by addressing current and pressing global humanitarian needs. In addition, she is serving on the board of Mahtabe, an NGO working on identifying root causes of poverty and presenting sustainable solutions to enable inclusion and education for the most underserved people in Kenya and is an advisory council member of Enabled Children Initiative, a NGO which supports orphaned and abandoned special needs children. Besides advocating for disability rights, Eli is currently spearheading Afghanistan’s first self-sustaining community and residential center serving special needs orphans and abandoned children, and adults living with disabilities. Eli is a member of the US-Afghan Women’s Council and resides in San Francisco, CA.