About Yasmine Sherif
Global Speaker | Author | Human Rights Lawyer | Co-Founder of The Humanity Brand
Yasmine Sherif is a global speaker, author, human rights lawyer, and co-founder of The Humanity Brand. Her life and work have unfolded at the intersection of international law, humanitarian leadership, and the deeper human questions of ethics and action, courage and results, dignity and transformation.
For more than three decades, she worked across the United Nations system and in some of the world’s most complex crisis settings — across Africa, Asia, the Balkans, Latin America, and the Middle East — while also helping shape global agendas from New York and Geneva. Her work moved between frontline humanitarian response and high-level global decision-making, always grounded in one core conviction: humanity is not weakness, but power.
Leadership at Global Scale
Yasmine Sherif spent more than 30 years helping lead responses to war, displacement, institutional breakdown, and human suffering. Her experience spans humanitarian action, human rights, education in emergencies, rule of law, protection, women’s rights, and long-term recovery.
Most recently, she led Education Cannot Wait for more than eight years as Executive Director, helping build the global fund for education in emergencies, hosted by UNICEF, into a major international platform and mobilizing $1.6 billion to support 14 million crisis-affected children.
Over the course of her U.N. leadership, Yasmine Sherif and her teams mobilized more than $3 billion for humanitarian efforts, including $1.6 billion for Education Cannot Wait.
Earlier in her career, she held leadership roles across the United Nations system, including work connected to UNHCR, UNDP, UNICEF, OCHA, and U.N. Peacekeeping, working alongside governments, civil society, and frontline partners where the stakes were human and the choices were rarely simple.
Over the course of her U.N. leadership, Yasmine Sherif and her teams mobilized more than $3 billion for humanitarian efforts, including $1.6 billion for Education Cannot Wait.
She invested in 14 million children’s education affected by wars and refuge.
She built and led the largest global rule of law programme at the UN, mobilizing over $500 million.
She initiated the first repatriation of refugees in post-war Balkans.
She led investigation and liberation of political prisoners.
She turns chaos and challenges into growth, results, and success in all areas of life.
The Work Today
Today, Yasmine brings those decades of global leadership into speaking, writing, advocacy, and creative work that help others lead with greater courage, clarity, and humanity.
She is the Co-Founder of The Humanity Brand. Her passionate work bridges lived experience with philosophy, psychology, science, and spirituality — inviting leaders and audiences alike to rethink what strength, authenticity, and transformation truly mean.
Whether on a global stage, in a leadership forum, through media, or in conversation, Yasmine speaks to a defining challenge of our time: how to remain deeply human in systems shaped by fear, pressure, and fragmentation. Be the Change-Maker!
A Life Shaped by Humanity
Throughout her life, Yasmine Sherif has returned to one essential question: what does it mean to live — and lead — with humanity? We can all turn into alchemists, turning the ugly into beauty, and the pressure into authentic power.
Her answer has never been abstract. It has been forged through real-world experience: in conflict zones, in negotiations, in institutions, in moments of loss, and in moments of awakening. That journey has shaped a voice that is both globally informed and deeply personal.
Her message is not about idealism detached from reality. It is about courage under pressure, empathy as strength, authenticity as leadership, and the possibility of turning adversity into meaning and action. Alchemy is the answer. Recognize challenges as opportunities. Use pressure as fuel. Make it happen!
Books and Recognition
Yasmine is the author of The Case for Humanity and the forthcoming Unleash Your Humanity: Where Personal Awakening Becomes Collective Change, co-authored with Scott Tavis.
Her work has received international recognition, including the Mother Teresa Social Justice Prize, Women Leaders to Follow in 2026, Sweden’s U.N. Friend of the Year Award, the My Hero Global Educator Award, and recognition in Who’s Who in America 2024. She has also appeared on major global platforms and in international media as a speaker, expert commentator, and advocate.