Leadership And The Power Of Purpose

Ashley Hufft has always been driven by a sense of purpose, which has led her to become CEO of Unbound, an international nonprofit based in Kansas City, Kansas dedicated to eradicating poverty. Hufft shares her journey and how Unbound is meeting its mission.

What led you to your career path?

The path wasn’t straight, but it was always purposeful.

From an early age, my parents instilled in me two guiding values: a deep commitment to service and a curiosity about the world. They loved to travel, and they raised me to appreciate different cultures, religions and histories. That spirit led me to study anthropology and archaeology in college, dreaming of a career in international work. At one point, I even aspired to be an ambassador.

But life took a detour. I went to law school, joined a major law firm and eventually made partner. While I valued the challenge and sophistication of the work, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t where I was meant to be.

So, I flew to Atlanta to meet with the firm’s managing partner. I thanked him for his mentorship and told him I was resigning to follow a long-held dream: to live and work in Africa. Instead of trying to dissuade me, he offered a sabbatical, encouraging me to pursue my dream while assuring me that my position at the firm would be waiting for me when I returned.

During that sabbatical I spent a year and a half in Kenya working on a foreign investment project with Columbia University, United Nations Development Program and the government of Kenya, and it changed everything. Though I briefly returned to the firm, my time in Africa ignited a calling I couldn’t ignore.

Today, I have the privilege of leading Unbound, an international nonprofit committed to eliminating poverty around the world. It’s a role that brings together everything I’ve always cared about: service, global engagement and meaningful impact.

What led you to Unbound and your current role as CEO?

Reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs lit a fire in me. It awakened a long-held sense that I was meant to do something more purposeful. I reached out to Sachs through mutual friends, and that conversation set my career on a new course—one focused on global development and meaningful impact.

While based in New York City, I began working with Millennium Promise, the operational arm of the Millennium Villages Project, supporting efforts to end extreme poverty across sub-Saharan Africa in the sectors of agriculture, education, health, infrastructure and gender equity. During that time, I adopted my son, Maxwell, from Ethiopia.

Following that, I served as general counsel and senior strategic adviser at the SDG Center for Africa in Kigali, Rwanda, advancing the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals through policy and resource mobilization. When the pandemic hit, we chose to leave Africa and move to Kansas City to be near family, so Max could grow up surrounded by loved ones.

In May 2022, I joined Unbound as chief strategy officer and general counsel, drawn to its mission and its deep respect for the dignity and agency of the families it serves. Just over a year later, I was asked to step in as interim president and CEO following the retirement of Scott Wasserman, who had dedicated 25 years to the organization in leadership roles.

In February 2024, I was honored to become Unbound’s president and CEO—the first woman to hold the role in the organization’s 40-plus-year history. While I have not been at Unbound very long, my connection to the mission runs deep. What continues to move me is how authentically this organization lives its values.

Across our Kansas City headquarters and in program offices throughout 16 countries, I see the same commitment: to listen to families, to trust them and to empower them to lead. And my Unbound travels led me to a deep appreciation and understanding of the value of mothers as leaders in their families, in their communities and in our organization.

What other women leaders inspire you and why?

Some of the most profound lessons I’ve learned about leadership and vulnerability have come from the women in the Unbound community. These are mothers who carry immense responsibility yet still find the strength to lift others as they rise.

In India, I met a group of women who started a sewing cooperative and secured a contract to produce reusable grocery bags. Instead of keeping the work for themselves, they trained other groups and shared the opportunity. I’ve seen women in Guatemala adapt to market trends with creativity, and women in Uganda build agricultural cooperatives that reach global markets.

In Nairobi, mothers came together to form a microlending cooperative that now holds over $3 million—an extraordinary achievement for women who, in many cases, had never before accessed credit. They lead with trust, with vision and with the belief that progress is something to be shared. Their stories stay with me, reminding me that real leadership is rooted in community, courage and care.

In February, while visiting our Telangana program around the city of Hyderabad, India, I met Lavanya, a mother of teenage sons, one a sponsored youth and his older brother, an Unbound scholarship student. Lavanya is a leader among the Unbound mothers. Leading her mothers’ group—a group of approximately 30 Unbound mothers who meet regularly to support each other as they work toward achieving their families’ goals—the group had applied for and then implemented one of Unbound’s Agents of Change community development projects.

In this case, the group improved a local public park. After showing me the park, Lavanya welcomed me into her home to meet her sons; her husband had passed away a few years prior. Although she had a small business making saris, the direct cash from Unbound sponsorship and the scholarship funding allowed helped her to send her sons to school—the younger son wanted to be a police officer and the older, the scholarship student, was studying civil engineering.

Life had its challenges for Lavanya, but she approached it all with such joy and hope for the future, and a huge warm smile on her face. Sitting with her and her sons in their small one-room home, you could sense it—the hope brought about by opportunity — the feeling that generational change was happening. That is what Unbound provides and why meeting leaders such as Lavanya motivates me in this work every day.

What distinct qualities do women leaders bring that contribute to building and sustaining successful organizations?

People want to follow leaders and be in business with those that inspire us and articulate beliefs that we hold as well. Women bring a powerful sense of purpose to leadership—a “why” that inspires others to believe and follow. At Unbound, I see this every day in my colleagues and in the mothers groups we support. These women, often living in extreme poverty, come together to lend support, start businesses and find their voices. Their drive isn’t about profit or ego but about creating better lives for their families and communities.

What strikes me most is their courage. They break into male-dominated markets, balance family and work, and face setbacks with resilience and grace. Each woman I meet grows not just as a business leader, but as a community builder—lifting others as she rises.

My first trip with Unbound was to El Salvador. There I visited with a group of Unbound mothers who had formed and legally registered a cooperative 10 years prior for the purpose of conducting savings and loan activities. The women ran the cooperative serving as officers, committee and board members.

Saving just a few dollars every month from the direct cash benefits they receive through Unbound, these women had grown the capital in the cooperative from about $800 to almost $125,000 in nine years’ time. They were using that money to loan to each other in order to improve small businesses, pay for home improvements and cover emergencies.

One by one, the various officers of the cooperative stood before our group—a bunch of foreigners from the United States—and described the capital, the profits, the expense ratios, the lending terms, the successes and challenges of the cooperative. I could have been meeting with any group of experienced businesspeople. These were women who had lived most of their life in poverty in El Salvador. They were strong, confident, smart, entrepreneurial and determined. It showed me the potential that lives in all of us, given the opportunity.

What advice do you have for women leaders to best use their position and influence for the greater good?

Leaders, like everyone, can get caught up in the grind, and it’s easy to lose sight of the millions still struggling worldwide. In 2024, the World Bank reported over 700 million people living in extreme poverty, and 3.5 billion facing some form of poverty. I invite everyone to join Unbound on our journey walking alongside those experiencing poverty and empowering them to plan and follow their distinct paths out of poverty.

There are so many ways to make the world better. I would encourage all leaders to find causes you identify with and feel passionate about and try to find a way to weave those causes into the fabric of your life. Set up a lunch-and-learn event to share your cause of choice with your colleagues. If time is available, volunteer and invite friends, family, neighbors and coworkers along. Read and listen to diverse sources and opinions to really understand issues and thoughts on solutions.

If it is easier to contribute financially, find ways to encourage people in your circles to do the same. I think perhaps Mother Teresa said it best: “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” The more influence we have, the larger the stone we throw, and the greater and more numerous the ripples.